Focus on customer requirements

Mr. Bühler, you have been CEO of Conrad Electronic since 2021 and have played a key role in shaping the transformation from a technology retailer to a sourcing platform for technical requirements. Where do you currently see the biggest challenge for your customers when it comes to indirect procurement?

As in many other areas, the procurement of C-parts for technical requirements is also about making processes more efficient and future-proof. At Conrad, we see ourselves as a solution provider and therefore want to support our customers with a holistic approach. In concrete terms, this means that we not only offer 10 million product offers on our platform, but also seek direct contact with purchasing managers in order to identify individual solutions.

What contribution does Conrad make to support its customers in these areas?

The aim of our ProcurePlus initiative is to reduce indirect procurement costs by up to 30%. Customized e-procurement connections are an important step in this direction in order to automate and streamline purchasing processes and prevent so-called maverick buying, i.e. procurement bypassing the purchasing department. Of course, this also includes digital order and invoice management. And also the ability to cover technical requirements as smoothly as possible from a single source. This is why we are also working with customers to consolidate suppliers and examine the extent to which we can expand our supplier and marketplace portfolio.

What about the acceptance of e-procurement solutions? Are you meeting with an open ear from companies or is it more a case of doing some persuading?

It is crucial that the processes on the customer side are as easy to implement as possible. As a high service distributor, we meet this requirement by offering tailor-made solutions. Smaller companies can digitize the procurement of their technical requirements with our browser-based e-procurement tool Conrad Smart Procure, which can be used free of charge. For larger companies and corporations, we offer various electronic interfaces to implement our product range into their systems and ensure a smooth connection to the Conrad Sourcing Platform.

Securing supply chains is becoming increasingly important for companies. As CEO of Conrad, how do you view this relevant topic?

Our aim must be to make products available quickly. However, the challenge here is often not that there are not enough goods on the market. Rather, we must succeed in making them available in the right place at the right time. This is a task that can only succeed if internationalization and cross-border commerce also become the focus of B2B procurement. Internationalization is therefore currently at the top of our agenda. In addition to Germany, we already operate a Conrad Marketplace in Austria, France, Italy and the Netherlands to enable procurement across national borders and thus also make a contribution towards sustainability. But this is just the beginning. The overarching question is: how can we implement cross-border e-commerce - also in terms of the sustainable use of resources - so that we can sell anywhere in Europe to anywhere in Europe?

With the takeover of Electronic Direct, the special procurement of electronic components has become even more important at Conrad. How do you assess the development after a good year?

In the area of electronic components, our customers currently have less of a shortage to contend with. On the contrary, stocks are more than sufficiently full. With Electronic Direct, we have a team of experts in our ranks that supports the marketing of excess stock in order to actively counteract the high level of capital tied up in surplus stock.

You have formulated the demands for a conscious use of resources. What other measures is Conrad taking in terms of sustainability?

As a family business, Conrad Electronic has stood for responsibility for over 100 years. We rely on long-term partnerships with our suppliers, to whom both our Code of Conduct and Conrad's environmental policy apply. After all, sustainable business is only possible if we work together to reduce our consumption of resources. And we are leading the way with our own initiatives and projects. For products with our own brand sovereignty, we largely dispense with plastic packaging, to name just one of many examples.

Finally, another trending topic: what role do you think the use of artificial intelligence plays in modern procurement?

There is no way around the topic of AI. At Conrad, for example, we use and develop AI models to better categorize the huge amount of product data on our platform and make it optimally available to our customers. However, any use of AI is always preceded by the question of whether we are actually improving our service through its use. Do our business customers use a chatbot option or is it more about easier access to optimized self-service options in the B2B sector? We therefore focus on the requirements of our customers and develop our platform accordingly.