The hidden champions have extremely close relationships with their customers, due to the complexity of the products and services they offer. Three quarters of the companies practice direct sales. Five times as many employees in hidden champion companies have regular contact with customers than in large corporations, leading to the pronounced closeness.
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- 1.
There are cases, like the big champion Würth, where more than half of all employees work in the field. Würth’s competitor Berner even has 4,200 of a total of 6,500 employees in the sales force. The same applies to direct sales companies like Bofrost. Service-intensive companies also have a high proportion of employees with direct customer contact. The service division of Demag Cranes has 1,612 employees, 28.4% of the entire workforce of Demag Cranes. Services contribute 18.4% of Demag Cranes’ revenues and this percentage is to be increased in the future.
- 2.
Flabeg is an abbreviation for the German word “Flachglasbearbeitungsgesellschaft,” meaning flat glass processing company. The company produces automobile mirrors in Germany, Brazil, UK, US, and China. Flabeg also has a leading market position in solar mirrors. The company is the only supplier of curved solar mirrors worldwide.
- 3.
See Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, February 10, 2007, p. 16
- 4.
Thomas J. Peters and Robert H. Waterman, In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America’s Best-Run Companies, New York: Harper & Row 1982.
- 5.
Edward F. McQuarrie, The Customer Visit: A Tool to Build Customer Focus, San Francisco: Sage Publications 1993.
- 6.
See Hakan Hakansson and Jan Johanson (eds.), Business Network Learning, Kildington, UK: Elsevier 2001; Mats Forsgren and Jan Johanson (eds.), Managing Networks in International Business, Langhorne, PA: Gordon & Breach 1994.
- 7.
See Fortune, April 2, 2007, p. 19.
- 8.
See Neue Zürcher Zeitung, February 5, 2007, p. 7.
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© 2009 Hermann Simon
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Simon, H. (2009). Customers, Products, Services. In: Hidden Champions of the Twenty-First Century. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-98147-5_5
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