Service, Variety and Speed are the three winning elements of the business strategy that has always characterized Ostermann, a company that offers the largest assortment of edgings in Europe.  Jana Krupp, Managing Director of Ostermann Switzerland, Italy and Austria, explains how to stay true to the company's guidelines and make the daily work of carpenter customers as easy as possible.

New opportunities can arise from a crisis situation. Will there be changes in your business reality and if so, which ones?

“As has been demonstrated in recent months, the coronavirus-induced crisis is not just a national challenge, but a global one for all of us - as citizens, as a company and as a company. We at Ostermann have tried to do our part to curb the further spread of COVID-19. Despite the lockdown, we have continued and still continue to deliver. From our warehouse in Peraga in Vigonza or from our central warehouse in Germany, we were and still are able to ship, as usual, the widest assortment of edgings in Europe, as well as our wide range of articles for the production of furniture, shop fittings and interiors. Thanks to our excellent technical equipment, we were able to offer our customers the best support, even working from home. A valuable help in this case was our convenient Online Shop. Thanks to the Ostermann Online Shop, you can order more than 20,000 joinery accessories 24/7. For our Italian customers, we have also introduced online configurators, where you can configure and order all our furniture doors and shutters yourself.

In this period the importance of the web has emerged with greater force. Are you thinking of using these means more even after the emergency?

“Certainly something has changed for us too with the crisis. For example, I assume that more and more of our customers will place their orders via our online shop in the future. I can also imagine that important meetings - for which I have travelled to Germany so far - will take place more and more frequently online in the future. Many of our customers have become accustomed to video chats during this period and have learned to appreciate this form of communication. That is why we now also offer video chat as an additional service for consulting our customers.

“In addition to product quality and technological innovation, what other elements do you plan to focus on to strengthen your image in domestic and foreign markets (quality of work, sustainability, environment, solidarity)“?

“We would like to be perceived by our customers in Italy and all over Europe above all as a reliable all-round partner. True to Ostermann's guideline “How we can make the daily work of our carpenter customers as easy as possible“, over the years we have expanded and adapted our product range to the needs of our customers.
If I had to describe Ostermann's strategy in just three words, then these would be Service, Variety and Speed. Service starts with availability: when you arrive in the morning at the carpentry shop, we are already available by telephone. Thanks to state-of-the-art communication technology, you will always have the right contact person on the phone, without waiting. If you have any technical questions, we will be at your side with the best trained staff.  Another central service is of course the sale of small quantities: it all started with the idea of selling the edgings from one metre in length to the craftsman. Today you can still receive all our articles in small quantities, starting from 1 piece: from furniture handles, lighting, technical profiles, furniture surfaces, to materials for carpentry needs, such as abrasives, adhesives or cleaning agents. In addition to the variety of products for joinery requirements, the range of products is also very important to us. Whether it is adhesives for special applications (e.g. with ship certification), technical profiles for particularly difficult applications, new surfaces or items from the range of handles, the joiner will always find the right solution here, even for special projects. For our core business - the edging - this means that we offer the right edging for the collections of more than 70 panel manufacturers, with a total of more than 150,000 matching items in different sizes and materials. But what would service and variety be without our well-known and reliable speed? All items in stock ordered by 4 p.m. are shipped the same day. It only takes about 10 minutes from receipt of an order to preparation of the goods for shipment. Thanks to our advanced logistics, we ship over 6,000 items per day.
Service, Variety and Speed: Ostermann supplies the carpenter quickly with an extensive range of products for furniture production from a single source and with reliable, professional support. So our customers not only save a lot of time, but also money, which is very important in these times. But back to your question ... In addition to service, variety and speed, other topics are becoming increasingly important to us. The topic of “sustainability“, for example, has recently become increasingly important to us as the Ostermann Group. Even before the coronavirus crisis, we started to prepare an international sustainability report. This can be viewed in the download area of our website and is continuously expanded and updated. Here you can read what we are already doing and what we intend to continue to do in the areas of “sustainability“, “quality of work“, “environment“ and “solidarity“.