KAISER + KRAFT Europa

KAISER + KRAFT Europa comprises the three companies KAISER + KRAFT, Gaerner and Gerdmans

Stuttgart. The division of KAISER + KRAFT Europa actually comprises of three groups: KAISER + KRAFT, Gaerner and Gerdmans. With an overall total customer base of 800,000, KAISER + KRAFT Europa is the market leader in Europe.

By the end of the 1970s, KAISER + KRAFT had begun to expand into Germany's neighbouring countries. Today, the company has a major presence in the Benelux countries, France, Britain, Italy, Spain, Austria and Switzerland. Following the collapse of the communist states and the tide of change in Eastern Europe, KAISER + KRAFT opened branches in Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic. Also, on acquiring Gerdmans, on of the leading suppliers in Scandinavia, K + K has become active in Northern Europe. The same applies to Gaerner which has a presence in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the Netherlands. With these three groups alone, KAISER + KRAFT Europa will be able to rely on broad market coverage. Then of course there is K + K's unrivalled technical capability.

The Group's European Logistics Centre in Kamp-Lintfort is a state-of-the-art central warehouse which keeps thousands of products permanently in stock so that they can be dispatched to the customers on the same day of order (provided it comes in before 4.30 pm). These order processing procedures are almost completely paperless as well as being fully integrated into the central merchandise information system. As any one product is scanned for each phase, it can be allocated at any time to a given warehouse coordinate or to a customer's specific order, thus eliminating error at the point of order picking. The aim of this pervasive information technology (IT) is to literally deliver the goods to the customer as quickly and as smoothly as possible. That KAISER + KRAFT Europa is on line to achieve this aim in full is shown by the return statistics: less than one percent!

All in all the ideal set-up with which to face the challenges of the coming years and to consolidate our position as market leader. As service per se becomes the defining success factor in general, the structure of business-to-business mail order in particular will change from product oriented to service focused.

July 1, 1999