Top suppliers at Rutronik Top 50 Supplier Conference

The Top 50 Supplier Conference took place on 27 October at the festival hall in Ispringen and was attended by 215 representatives of senior management from Rutronik’s most important suppliers. Rutronik presented itself as a successful company which has been growing for more than 35 years. In a total of 15 lectures, all the company divisions including Finance, Logistics and Warehouse, as well as the Rusol subsidiary presented their business development and strategy for the future. This is currently based on the expansion of the business area, both geographically and within new markets.



Global partner with focus on Asia

Of particular importance to the Rutronik partner companies was the presentation on global key account management. Ernst Gengenbach, Director Business Development & Customer Relations, explained the organisation, in which all customers with global operations are assigned a central contact person for their specific requirements. According to Gengenbach, these primarily include terms and conditions and pricing as well as delivery and purchasing conditions, quality standards and logistics solutions, on a global scale.



The presence of Rutronik in Asia was introduced by Lambert Hilkes, General Manager Rutronik Asia: Rutronik Electronics Asia HK Ltd. has subsidiaries in Hong Kong and Taipei, Taiwan. Rutronik Electronics Shenzen Ltd. has three subsidiaries in China – in Shenzen, Chengdu and Shanghai. The logistics centre is located in Hong Kong. All subsidiaries are seamlessly integrated into the existing Rutronik organisational and IT structure and they receive commercial and technical support from Rutronik’s headquarters in Ispringen. “We secure the transfer business and penetrate the strong Asian markets”, said Hilkes.



Supplier management and vertical markets

The global expansion with strong participation in the Asian market also plays a key role in the supplier management and strategy, backed up by comprehensive multi-market and multi-product oriented sales and complete support within the vertical market approach. That is why Rutronik has established vertical market teams for the Industrial, Automotive, Lighting, Renewable Energy, Medical and Home Appliance focus markets. “Here we combine short time-to-market with selected solutions from our partners for the most innovative and competitive devices”, explained Gerd Fischer, Marketing Director Vertical Markets.



Jochen Lutz, Director Warehouse, strongly emphasised the fact that Rutronik has the skills and experience to be flexible and meet the needs of its customers around the world efficiently. Rutronik is currently delivering around 50 billion components per year. And in order to continue guaranteeing cost-efficient and reliable processes in the event of future growth, the distributor is relying on ‘lean logistics’ and ‘value stream’, with a new warehouse management system, an expanded conveyor system and an enlarged warehouse.



“Our top 50 suppliers were key to our success and will continue to be so in the future. That is why it was very important to introduce them to our current positioning and our strategy for the future”, concluded Markus Krieg, Managing Director Marketing at Rutronik. “We recognise the requirements of our customers and are prepared to fulfil them – today or tomorrow, in Europe and around the world.“