Andreas Oemkes: “Many specialist retailers have actively contacted us. Our strong position in the market, intense public relations work as well as the consistent focus on sustainability have paid off.”
Tool manufacturer Exact aims to benefit from international expansion in 2025. Managing Director Andreas Oemkes discusses the strategic orientation towards European distributors and the focus on environmental protection and sustainability in this interview.
EZ: Mr Oemkes, what business goals is Exact pursuing in 2025?
Andreas Oemkes: We are once again striving for stable growth this year. We intend to achieve this through partnerships with specialist retail partners, individual sales and marketing concepts, a user-oriented core range as well as new features and product innovations. In addition, we are continuing to optimise the availability of all goods and services from our company. What do you expect in specific terms for 2025? Forecasts are difficult to make based on current market conditions, but these shouldn’t be seen as fundamentally negative. I think if a company has the right product portfolio, demonstrates quality and innovation, and constantly develops its internal processes, it should be able to effectively deal with economic challenges.
What about your international activity?
We established partnerships with renowned European distributors across the continent last year This enabled us to step up our sales activities in the respective countries and tap into new markets for Exact While 2024 was characterised by the organisational and logistical development of these partnerships, our focus in 2025 is on sales activities in the respective countries.
What did you have to do to get the distributors on board?
It’s a process that takes a lot of time. It begins with market analyses and contacting potential specialist retail partners, as well as developing and presenting suitable sales strategies. The groundwork we prepared in past years is bearing fruit here, allowing us to look to the future with optimism. Pleasingly, specialist retailers have actively contacted us. . Our strong position in the market, our intense public relations work as well as the consistent focus on sustainability have paid off. Our sustainability approach is also playing a key role.
Could you talk more about that?
In other European countries, sustainability and environmental protection are a much higher priority in some cases than in Germany. Besides product quality and reliable supply capability, issues such as avoiding packaging waste and the general ecological orientation of a company are important here. We are benefiting from the fact that we have concentrated on these issues in recent years, for example with the plastic-free Natureline packaging. We are still practically the only tool manufacturer that can offer its customers innovative and completely recyclable product packaging.
What do you believe makes for a good partnership with distributors?
Close cooperation with our customers based on trust is key. A distributor is a partner that has their eyes on the market day in, day out, and they understand what the market needs. Our task is to use this experience and respond with suitable, potentially newly developed products. One of the success factors of Exact is undoubtedly our capacity to respond flexibly to changing market requirements as well as our ability to set trends with our high degree of innovation.
Mr Oemkes, thank you for the interview.
( EZ 2/2025 )