Where do you see potential for digital growth in Munich Strategy’s core industries?
Eric Klaassen: From our experience with companies in the food industry we have seen that digitization offers a wide range of opportunities, whether it is for retailers such as Picnic or food suppliers such as Friesland Campina. Driven by customer needs they are searching for ways to improve transparency throughout the value chain, and increase the sustainability of their products. The party who owns customer data has more power, this is now often the retailer. As producers and wholesalers do not have direct relationship with the end customer, they are reliant on the retailer for customer insights. For a competitive advantage, they need to increase knowledge of their end customer.
Traditional food retailers are faced with competition from new challengers, sometimes online-only players, that gain market share rapidly. Incumbents that successfully defend their position do so by improving their digital sales and marketing, increasing the knowledge of the online channel within the organization, and adopting knowledge of a data-driven way of working.
Sebastian Theopold: The construction industry and its suppliers will undergo a profound change in the coming years. We already actively support this change process for our clients today. We have, for example, developed a digital sales and procurement platform for a global manufacturer of roofing components. While its competitors are still selling through traditional retailers and DIY and complaining about price pressure and lack of customer contact, our client can already handle 40% of its sales directly and in real time. In another project we have established a very successful forecasting instrument for a producer of construction chemicals based on sales and weather data. The tool informs the company about the regional demand for its products. This information advantage enables dynamic pricing and the precise provision of quotations. In addition, sustainable effects in working capital were achieved.