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Grundig Plans to be Among the Top Brands in Europe (25/9/2006)

Hans-Peter Haase Outlines Goals, Plans and Measures to Be Taken

"Our goal is to once again establish Grundig's place in the market as the preeminent European brand for consumer electronics", said Hans-Peter Haase at the Grundig press conference which kicked off the IFA. The new CEO, who has been in office since August 4, provided an overview of his goals, plans and methods, conceding that the current financial year had been unsatisfactory thus far.

Hans-Peter Haase, who took over the reins of Grundig at the beginning of August, replacing Hubert Roth, was until recently a member of the executive board at Bosch Siemens Appliances GmbH. The experiences he has collected within the framework of this joint venture since 1967 now stand to benefit Grundig. According to Haase, "All participants - Alba in Great Britain, Beko in Turkey and Grundig in Nuremberg - first had to learn to work together efficiently in this kind of constellation." Haase says his job is to support the people at Grundig, Alba and Beko, so that they can convert the brand's potential into success. In the process, one must not underestimate the human factor, since "people create markets and people create brands".

Process optimisation with "Grundig Plus"

For this purpose Grundig has created the program "Grundig Plus". Various work groups analyze processes in order to discover all the ways in which they can be optimized. And since Grundig still handles all the processes itself, from development to customer service, delegating responsibility to contractors only for production, "one must constantly keep track of external as well as internal processes and put them to the test over and over again," according to Haase.

Grundig production in a "factory within the factory"

Special emphasis is placed on total quality management. Thus, a multi-level checking system was instituted, which is put into effect during production. "We have installed our own quality control team in our `factory in the factory', which was set up for us at Beko, whose members report directly as Grundig employees to the directors of our quality assurance department", explains Haase. At the same time, it has been ensured that the strict quality control criteria introduced in this way are upheld for the supplier factories. This guarantees that the production of the high-end devices developed in Nuremberg always meet the highest standards.

Cutting edge technology and top quality

Above all, Haase stresses the know-how of the development team, which is still at the forefront of television technology. He referred to the innovative developments which have come from Grundig in the past and underlined the fact that "a large part of this development team, and thus the entire know-how relating to television development, is still working for Grundig in Nuremberg." In this way Grundig is able to present new high-end devices at the IFA "which bring us to the top again in terms of quality and innovative technology."

And that is precisely the goal formulated by Haase: "Grundig should be among the top name brands for consumer electronics in Europe and should establish a lasting place in the mid- to higher price range."

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