03.04.2008

Dnv-Online.de, 3.04.2008

37th Timmendorf-Conference from DPV Worldwide: Good customer contacts are indispensable.

According to tradition, General Manager Reinhard Feder invited more than 300 national and international distribution partners again to Timmendorfer Strand on the Baltic Sea for the 37th DPV Worldwide Conference. This meeting of the industry is one of the most important events in the international distribution trade revealing the latest trends beyond the German border. In his welcoming speech Feder made clear that also the international press distribution faces comprehensive challenges in view of generally declining sales figures and increasingly fragmented markets. The point would be to "sweep out the niches in the markets intensively and effectively" which would however require quicker and more detailed information as well as a closer cooperation with the local importer and retail trade for press. New ideas, such as a consistent acquisition of holiday resorts for the distribution of press, would be urgently needed.

Feder explained that the traditional European and North American press markets would all follow the same trend: "The classical mass-circulation titles are losing, new low-priced titles and more and more specialist magazines are pushing their way into the markets." In view of this development, a greater transparency of the markets is of high importance for DPV Worldwide.

In this connection Feder offered a suitable keynote address. Under the motto "Relationships are only to the disadvantage of those who do not have any", Jörg Jelden, Senior Consultant of the trend office Hamburg, explained why the relationship to the customer is becoming more important than the product itself.

Jelden predicted that the significance of customer relationship management in companies would increase dramatically until 2015. Currently it would be rather poorly developed in the media trade with 15 per cent compared to the car industry for example with 67 per cent. The challenge for the international press distribution would be to collect even more sophisticated knowledge about the customers' behaviour with an intensification of the dialogue with the customer. A resulting cross- und upselling would open up new sales potentials.

Based on his explanation of new trends in an individualized society, the search of customers for more acceptance, an increasingly differentiating economy and an increasing importance of customer relationships, Jelden came to a very precise conclusion: "The point is to earn money and not to sell products."