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INSIDE The nail was born in romespace managemenTpraise from wolseleyDo iT yourself: a safe shorTcuT

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and my workplace

ISSUE 2 · WINTER 2007/08

12

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me and my workplace

hardTalk

The nail was born in rome

short news

Do it yourself: a safe shortcut

Tear down the “wailing wall”!

4

6

14

21

22

24

DT Group +45 39559700Wolseley +44 118 929 8700Starkkii +358 3850900Stark +45 89343434Beijer +46 752411000Neumann +47 55549900Silvan +45 87308730Cheapy +46 431443540DT Trade +45 39559700

useful numbers:

bezzerwizzzerWin a football trip to Barcelona!

16 spacemanagement

The screw-driver has

its own place

(and it is not

accidental)

You may not think about it every day, but you are ac-tually a member of a large family.

The seven divisions of DT Group are like siblings spread across four dif-ferent countries: Norway, Sweden, Finland and Den-mark. One of the goals of DT Magazine is to create links between our siblings in the Nordic countries. In order to give you an idea of some of the differences and similarities between them, we asked one em-ployee in each division ten questions.

After the re-launch of DT Magazine last summer, I asked readers what they thought about the first is-sue. Whilst most people liked the changes we imple-mented, there were also a few critical remarks.

An overwhelming number of people partici-pated in Bezzerwizzzer: 275 employees responded to our quiz. In this issue, we are offering two trips and two tickets to a football match. This time, you might be the one saying: “Wow, normally I never win any-thing!”

happy reading!Charlotte Gullach, [email protected]

Dear colleague

Magazine2

a more user-friendly intranet

A lot of effort has be-en put into the design, and this is what you

first will notice when you log on.All the divisions have wor-

ked hard to improve their infor-mation structure. As a user, you will have better access to what you need.

Moreover, the Intranet is now equipped with a new search function, just like the one you probably already know from Google.

Another major improvement is that information follows the user, and not the other way around. With your individual user profile, you can now subscribe to news and information you are interested in. So, when you log on to the Intranet, you’ll see the information that is relevant to you.

Your intranet got another nif-

ty feature: a comprehensive te-lephone directory where you can find any employee in your divi-sion and his/her direct number and e-mail address.

At the moment, you might find it difficult to find contact numbers for your colleagues in other divisions, but improve-ments are on the way. This is in line with the management’s de-sire to make employees across all divisions feel like close col-leagues.

“You could say that using the present Intranet is like driving a car that you cannot steer. In the future, information will be trans-ported by trains. We are all go-ing in the same direction, yet the carriages have different co-lours, sizes and layouts,” says Charlotte Gullach, the commu-nication consultant who heads the project.

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inTraneT

finnish starkki is not yet included in the new intranet because the company is not a member of our network yet. “it is regrettable that finland is not able to participate from the start. especially since they are very keen on participating. we are working on it,” promises charlotte gullach.

sTarkki noT yeT incluDeD

�Magazine

We have asked ten questions to an employee from each individual division included in DT Group. The answers proof that we’re in some aspects are very much the like and in others differ from each other. Where possible, we found a colleague from the divisions’ largest branch.

10 quesTions abouT your workplace

Meand my workplace

Århus Trælasthandel changes nam

e

to ‘Det Danske Trælastkom

pagni’

1918

Introduced to ‘Børsen’

(Stock exchange)

19��

Silvan established

in Denmark

1968

Sweden:

Acquisition Beijer

1989

International activates with

hardwood abandoned

199�

Det Danske Trælastkom

pagni

changes name to Dansk Træ

last

1996

Norway:

Acquisition Neumann

1997

milesTones DT GROUP:

Århus Trælasthandel estab-

lished in Århus, Denmark

1896

Magazine4

we arein a nutshell

The first Silvan branche opened its doors in Slagelse in 1968. To-day, we have a total of 2,500 em-ployees serving our customers in 51 shops across Denmark and the south of Sweden. Our main focus is the DIY market; when you take our product range in-to consideration, we have a lot of competitors. Within the DIY segment, we may be compared with XL-Byg with its 140 shops and 4,300 employees, and Bau-haus with its 12 Danish shops. Our CEO is Michael Christiansen

and our head office is in Århus in north-western Denmark. You can find us on the Internet at www.silvan.dk.

“I enjoy getting systems to work”, says shop assistant Helle Zeymer, Silvan Gladsaxe, close to Copenhagen,

Denmark.

1. I start by printing price cor-rections for the shelf fronts. I order goods for the whole store, correct any errors in

conTinueD on page 8

B2B LogIStIcS SHoP

Norway:

Acquisition Neumann

1997

Finland:

Acquisition Starkki

2000

Import & Distribution

closes

2002

Exit from Børsen

(Stock Exchange)

200�

Stark brands branches

under one name

2004

Name changes to

DT Group a/s

2006

DT Group is acquired

by Wolseley PLC

2006

1. How does a typical day look like?

2. What time do you meet up?

3. How do you get to your work?

4. What do you like best about your job?

5. What do you not appreciate about your job?

6. When do you take your first break?

7. How long have you been working in the current branch?

8. Do you eat lunch with your colleagues?

9. What do you prefer to eat for lunch?

10. What do you talk about with your colleagues?

questions about your workplace10

Silvan opens

in Sweden

1997

�Magazine

has there, at any point in time, been consideration given to bringing all the shop unit divisions that the DT group owns together under one common name?

When we have different names such as Stark, Starkki, Beijer and Neumann, it is because we want to emphasise to our cus-tomers that we operate a local shop. I do not believe there are any large advantages in having the same name in Luleå in Swe-den as in Brande in Denmark. The customers are too different for that. We have Cheapy, Silvan and Beijer in Sweden and Silvan and Stark in Denmark because we want to separate the shops. A professional craftsman who shops in Silvan will not expect the same service he would have had if he had gone to Stark. And the opposite goes for a private customer. which jobs have you held previously?

I have been the CEO in four en-terprises. I came to the DT Group in 1999 from a position as group managing director in Danis-co, where I was responsible for food ingredients and distilleries. I came to Danisco in 1994 from

the position of CEO at Junck-ers, an important manufacturer of wooden flooring and, at that time, paper pulp as well. I had been working there since 1982. Before that, I worked for 8 years in the grocery retail trade in the company that is currently known as Coop, where I started as a planning assistant and ended up as CEO for the bread factories. I have a cand. merc. diploma. I originally come from Denmark’s second biggest city, Århus.

you have had success and cashed in 240 million Dkk on shares through the sales to wolseley. That is what was written in the papers, at least. i wonder whether you are considering another job?

No. It is incredibly inspiring to head the strongest team in the business. In my time, we have doubled the turnover, which has now exceeded 22 billion DKK. We have grown from 4,700 to 9,489 employees, and I am sure that we will continue to grow and develop. There are a lot of ideas, thoughts and opportuni-ties for us to take advantage of.

would you consider work-ing for greater cooperation across divisions so it that it

Hardtalkwith Steen Weirsøe

harDTalk

Magazine6

might become more natural to trade internally with some of the other divisions. some-times it might be difficult

It is sad if we do not regard the employees in the various divi-sions as colleagues. But I be-lieve this problem is steadily de-creasing.I visited the northernmost Silvan shop, in Sundsvall, where they were out of furring strips and could not immediately get any from the local supplier. I asked the shop manager why on earth he did not call Beijer and ask for help. This is an attitude that is very important to spread. We help each other instead of com-peting against each other. Ba-sically, it’s not very impor-tant which one of us makes the mon-ey. The important thing is that we make money – and it may be you who needs help next time.

in an enterprise with more than 9,000 employees, the distance to the top management may seem long. with hardTalk, it becomes shorter, because here we put you in contact with DT group’s most senior manager. steen weirsøe answers your and your col-leagues’ questions, however searching they are.

what would you like to ask steen? send your question to [email protected] Don’t mince your words as you may remain totally anonymous.

7Magazine

the registries and print out forms. I also do a lot of other office work.

2. I work from 6:30 a.m. until 2.30 p.m., Monday to Friday. These are good working hours be-cause there are no queues.

3. I drive 45 kilometres by car every day to get to work.

4. I enjoy getting systems to work, solving problems and making sure that new goods are included in the system. I also enjoy the contact with the sales reps.

5. I am rather new in this job and I find it exciting, but if there is one thing I would point out, it would be that it is difficult to get up so early in the morning. On the other hand, this is something I have chosen myself.

6. I decide when I want to take a break, but I would like them to be more often. I have my lunch break at around noon.

7. I started in this job 6 weeks ago, but I have worked in Sil-van since 1990. I was away for a period when I had ba-bies, but now I am back full time and I find Silvan to be a very flexible place to work.

8. Yes, but not with anyone regular, but there is always someone in the lunch room you can talk to.

9. Pasta salad. I always bring my own lunch. We have no can-teen. Sometimes I just have some fruit and carrots.

10. I talk to my colleagues about both private and job-related matters, and I get very close with them. There is a free room here in the office where

it’s easier to talk than down-stairs in the shop. The calm it provides also means that it is possible to have a good dis-cussion about what is going on in the shop.

Snapshot by service manager Sara Lynge Nielsen. She has been in Silvan since 2004.

we arein a nutshell

Stark has 83 shops, and our cus-tomers include contractors, pro-fessional craftsmen and DIY people. Until October 2004, our company name was ‘DDT Detail’ and our shops had their own local names. As part of a big branding project in October 2004, the divi-sion introduced nationwide coop-eration and a common identity for all the shops under the new name Stark. Our headquarters are lo-cated in Århus, and our CEO is Lars Hansen. You can find us on the Internet at www.stark.dk.

“It is frustrating that there is a 43 week delivery time on some supplies,” says sales consultant Christian

Johnsen, internal sales, Kalk & Mørtel, Stark Denmark.

1. I’m busy pretty much from the moment I turn on the computer. Most of my day is spent receiving and process-ing orders.

2. My work day starts at 8 a.m.

3. To get to work, I drive 20 kil-ometres by car. On a good day, it takes me about half an hour.


conTinueD from page �

Magazine8

4. The best thing is that you don’t know what the day has in store for you, and that we have many exciting projects that we deliver to. Sometimes I go out to construction sites. The other day I went to Nimb, a restaurant in Tivoli that is being rebuilt as penthouse apartments. I talk to a lot of people during the course of a day and may have up to 30-35 orders on a busy day.

5. The worst situation was about a year ago when we had a delivery problem. It is rather frustrating when you are not able to procure build-ing material and you have to say to a customer that there is a 43-week delivery time for a few building stones. That is not funny at all.

6. At noon, I have the only offi-cial break of the day.

7. Almost six years in Kalk og Mørtel, twelve years in all in Stark.

8. We are six in our team, and we have lunch in pairs.

9. I enjoy the hot meals in the canteen. We have an excel-lent canteen. Today, they served beef casserole.

10. We talk about football and what we have been up to at the weekend. We might talk about the Champions League football and about the rivalry between FCK and Brøndby.

Snapshot taken by IT super user Bente Nøbølle, who has worked in Kalk & Mørtel since 1976.

we arein a nutshell

The division’s history starts all the way back in 1896 with the es-tablishment of Århus Trælasthan-del A/S which, for a couple of dec-ades, ran a mixed wholesale and retail enterprise. In 2000, the DT Group decided to bring togeth-er all its wholesale activities un-der common management in the Engros division. At the beginning of 2006, the division changed its name to DT Trade. DT Trade comprises 8 wholesale enter-prises. Each of these enterpris-es specialises in a certain niche within the field of building materi-als. The division’s customers are divided into three main groups: distributor customers, industri-al customers and professionals; this last group includes contrac-tors, design engineers, architects, craftsmen and other profession-al groups within the building and construction trade. The division has about 350 employees and an annual turnover of more than 1 billion DKK. Our CEO is Jørgen Wenshøj. You can find us on the Internet at www.dttrade.dk.

“No day resem-bles the previ-ous,” says Ketil Lindskjold, ware-house assistant, CC Vejle (part of DT Trade). Ketil is

responsible for the reception of goods, ceramic tiles, wooden flooring, and roofing tiles.

1. My job involves ordering sup-plies, checking the goods both inside and outside,

B2B LogIStIcS SHoP

1 How does a typical day look like? 2 What time do you meet up? 3 How do you get to your work? 4 What do you like best about your job? 5 What do you not appreciate about your job? 6 When do you take your first break? 7 How long have you been working in the current branch? 8 Do you eat lunch with your colleagues? 9 What do you prefer to eat for lunch? 10 What do you talk about with your colleagues?

9Magazine

and dealing with any miscella-neous problems that need to be solved.

2. My workday begins at 7 a.m. and finishes at 3:45 p.m. (ex-cept on Fridays).

3. I drive 73 kilometres to and from work. I live in Århus, so it takes about 45 minutes.

4. There is something new hap-pening every day; I talk to an incredible number of people. There are always new prod-ucts and the challenge is to get them all in the right places and make the best use of the warehouse space.

5. When a container arrives where the pallets have fall-en over, there is nothing else to do but to collect them by hand. Having 10 containers full of new goods and no room in the shop is also pretty chal-lenging!

6. I have a coffee break at 8:30 a.m. and lunch at 12 noon.

7. Ketil has been employed since 1988, when the company was called ENC natursten in Århus. It was later acquired by the DT Group.

8. I have lunch with my col-leagues in two teams. There are 10-12 people in each team.

9. The food is supplied by an ex-ternal company. Sometimes we have barbecue spits with rice, and there is always some salad. We all enjoy it. It con-tributes to the well-being of the staff. We are also offered fruit twice a week.

10. We talk about everything that happens during the day and what happened the previous day, about TV, and, of course, about football. For me that

means AGF, from Århus. And we try to guess the result every time there is an interna-tional football match.

we arein a nutshell

Neumann Bygg has its head-quarters in Bergen, Norway. The chain’s biggest shop, which em-ploys 66 people, is also locat-ed there. Neumann was estab-lished in 1859 and currently has 12 branches. In 2006, we made a profit of more than 1 billion NOK. Our most prominent customer segment is local craftsmen, who count for more than half of our turnover. Our most important competitors are Mestersalg (75 shops, turnover 1.5 billion NOK) and Byggmakker (120 shops, turnover 7 billion NOK). We have been a part of the DT Group since 1997. Our CEO, Per-Erik Pedersen, has been in charge since 1997. Neumann has 238 employees. You can find us on the Internet at www.neumannbygg.no.

“Brann is close to winning the Norwegian foot-ball champion-ship for the first time since 1963,” says customer

consultant Irene Eikevåg, Neu-man Bygg, Sandviken, Bergen, Norway.

1. I sit at the counter in the shop where both private and pro-fessional customers come in with orders. Some also call in their orders. I check the re-ceived goods and put them on the shelves.

2. My work hours are 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday to Friday.

3. I drive 35 kilometres by car to work.


Magazine10

4. Customer service is the best. You build up a good rela-tionship with the customers, some of whom come in regu-larly. We also talk about other things. Just now, there is a lot of talk about the local football club, Brann.

5. It is hard to say that I don’t care, but unloading goods is sometimes demanding be-cause there is not enough time or space, and you also have to run around looking af-ter all the customers.

6. I have my first break at around 10 a.m. and I have my lunch at 12 noon. We have an excellent canteen.

7. I have been employed for four and a half years.

8. I eat together with my col-leagues.

9. We get home-made pizza eve-ry Friday, which I enjoy a lot. I buy a sandwich every day.

10. We talk about everything that we do in our free time. We have an agreement that no-one will talk shop during the lunch break, and we are a very good team. Just now the most important topic is that Brann is really close to winning the Norwegian football cham-pionship for the first time since 1963. There will be a big screen in the city centre and a big party. Everybody talks about it. (Brann did win the championship after all!)

we arein a nutshell

Cheapy, established in 2002, is a relatively new chain. But do not

underestimate us: Currently, we have 22 shops, 151 employees, and we focus primarily on the DIY market. Our concept is to beat our competitors on price. In fact, we offer a simple price guaran-tee to our customers: we are the cheapest. We like to make sure that our customers get the best value for their money. Karsten Kehler has been our chain man-ager. Our headquarters are in Skåne, in the south of Sweden, where Cheapy operates. Our big-gest competitors are Jem & Fix and ByggMax. You can find us on the Internet at www.cheapy.se.

“I don’t enjoy changing the whole shop de-sign too much,” says shop assist-ant Josefin Malm-er, Cheapy Halm-

stad, Sweden.

1. On a typical day, I receive goods in the morning, and afterwards I am at the cash desk. Otherwise, I tend to the customers, stock the shelves, carry out some computer work, and make any neces-sary price changes.

2. Typically I start work at 9 a.m., but it may just as well be 8 a.m. or 12 noon. It varies.

3. I cycle to work, and it takes me about 15 minutes.

4. I enjoy receiving all kinds of goods, helping customers and working at the computer.

5. I don’t really enjoy putting goods on the shelves, and I don’t like changing the

B2B LogIStIcS SHoP


conTinueD on page 18

11Magazine

Test your DT group knowledge and win a football trip to barcelona. we have made it easy for you – you will find the answers in

this edition of DT magazine.

good luck!

quiZ

when was neumann bygg established?

A 1859B 1895C 1988

how many employ-ees are there in beijer?

A 350B 1500C 4100

when was the mass production of nails begun?

A 18th centuryB 19th centuryC 20th century

what is space management?

A Ikea’s new con-cept for families living in cities

1

2

3

B NASA’s strategy for colonisation of inner space

C Planning where the various goods in a shop are placed in relation to each other

where is silvan’s warehouse situ-ated?

A Uti (Latvia)B Århus (Denmark)C Malmö (Sweden)

how many nails do we sell in total in the DT group?

A 569 tonsB 1380 tons C 1669 tons

5

what was steen weirsøe’s position before he became the managing Direc-tor of the DT group?

A Group Manag-ing Director in Danisco

B Coach of Vejle Boldklub

C Vice President of Marketing in Nestlé

where is starkki’s head office situ-ated?

A LahtiB HelsingforsC Helsinki

7

8

3

6

Magazine12

send your answers before february 1st

We will draw two winners from the correct answers and fly them to barcelona for the match between fc barcelona and Villareal the number 2 and 3 teams respectively in the Spanish league (status

as at 13 November 2007). The match is set to take place on 9 March in the legendary Nou Camp stadium, but you will fly to Barcelona already saturday 8 march in case the match is moved forward by one day on account of the television broadcast. DT magazine books and pays for your ticket, your flight and your hotel. All you need to do is to bring a bit of pocket money.

use the coupon or send your answers by e-mail to:[email protected]

Name:

Address:

Zip and City:

Country:

Phone:

E-mail:

Employed at:

send this coupon to DT group, att.: charlotte gullach, gladsaxe møllevej �, 2860 søborg (Denmark)

YOU MUST PAY TAX ON THE PRIZE

B2B LogIStIcS SHoP

The winner of bezzer wizzzer and a holiday for two in one of DT group’s holiday homes was lars hammargren from beijerbyggmate-rial in bollnäs, sweden. congratulations to lars! perhaps you will be the lucky winner this time.

”I was thrilled to win. In spring I plan to travel to a place near Co-

penhagen together with my wife Lotta and my two kids, Amanda aged 11 and Linnea aged 6. We are going by train. It will be fantastic to go to Denmark. It is exactly 30 years since the last time I was there.”

your answers

1:2:�:4:�:6:7:8:

A B C

1�Magazine

The first nails can be traced back to ancient Rome, the first civiliza-

tion to begin smelting iron ore to produce iron. But the ancient Egyptians were the very first to fix two pieces of wood together. They did this by means of small wooden dowels, the name we still use today.

The Romans melted long nails

For many hundreds of years, nails were hand-made. It was only a few hundred years ago that nails began to be produced using machines.

The nail was born in rome

and then made them square. The nails became steadily thinner the closer to the tip you got, and the head was considerably larger than present-day nail heads.

At that time, nails were prima-rily used for fixing wood boarding and wooden roofs on houses and fortresses. And these nails were no small matter: In the Ro-man fortress of Inchtutihil, the

The sTory abouT The nail

Magazine14

northernmost Roman fortress in Scotland, 875,000 nails were found, weighing a total of seven tons.

For the first few hundred years nails were forged out of iron ore, but as time passed, steel came into use. The first mass-produced nails were cut from steel plate and may be traced back to 18th century United States.

At the beginning of the 20th century, nails began to be pro-duced from round steel wire.

Our modern day nails are mostly made from steel, but brass is also used as a raw material. Apart from the fact that the materials used for nails have changed throughout history, the nail’s surface has also undergone changes.

In order to prevent nails from becoming rusty, they are galva-nized.

Since the times of the Romans, we have hit nails with a hammer, but an invention as-cribed to American veterans from WWII is an important milestone in the modern history of the nail. During the 50s, Americans developed the first nail gun and tried to manufacture it. The fast repetition of the machine gun inspired this invention, and they worked continuously on develop-ing it for many years. On their way, they received assistance from, amongst many others, heavyweight boxing champion Jack Dempsey, and it looked like

B2B LogIStIcS SHoP

another American dream come true.

However, the four friends who developed it were never to earn any money on their invention. They went bankrupt and were forced to sell their patent as part of the bankruptcy settlement.

In 1959, American nail manu-facturer Paslode manufactured the first mass-produced nail gun: The Gun-Nailer.

where does the raw material for DT nails come from? It comes from various big steel rolling mills in Finland. The material is high-quality steel that does not contain heavy metals

how many tons of nails do stark and DT respectively sell every year? Stark sells 569 tons and DT Group sells about 1,100 tons. This is equal to the weight of 16 and 31 Sher-man Jumbo tanks respec-tively.If you placed all the nails that DT sells in a year end to end, they would cover a distance of 2,700 kilome-tres – the distance from Copenhagen to Paris and back.

where is the world’s larg-est nail factory situated? It is situated in Illinois in the US, and is called Paslode.

Three short facts about DT’s nails

1

2

3

Every year, sales of hand nails fall by five percent, but sales of shooting nails grow equally, says Stark in Denmark.

The way nails are used has changed over the years. The good old hammer has compe-tition from the nail gun, and

each year every 20th hand nail is replaced by a shooting nail.

Hand nails and the hammer are threatened by other chan-ges to. Many DIY people have thrown their love of the screw machine and prefer the screw instead of the nail.

hand nails become shooting nails

1�Magazine

If there is anything a customer is counting on finding in a shop carry-

ing building materials and equip-ment, it’s a screwdriver. There-fore, there is no reason to make him aware of where in the shop he might find one.

When the customer steps up to the wall containing the screwdriv-ers, the effect of space manage-ment starts to show. The screw-driver the shop would prefer to sell is the one that the customer sees first.

“And that will typically be a screwdriver of our own brand, one that combines low price with high gross margin,” Logistics Manager Ruddi Nielsen from Silvan explains.

a difficult choiceBut screwdrivers are also charac-terised by the fact that they are sold in series, typically with eight screwdrivers per package, and that forces the planners to make diffi-cult choices.

“What I would really like to do is to place the best-selling screw-drivers with the highest gross mar-gin together at eye level, but on the other hand, it looks rather stu-pid if screwdrivers of the same se-ries are not placed together,” says

Lately, a new concept has slowly but su-rely been introduced in the retail trade. But what is space management really? And does it work?

The screwdriver has its own place

Ruddi Nielsen.

The fact that some screwdriv-ers sell bet-ter than oth-ers is solved by giving them better facings: the most popular screwdriver in a se-ries receives perhaps 3, 4 or 5 rows, whereas the least popular has to make do with a single row.

This method has two ad-vantages: The most popular screwdriver gets the best ex-posure, which secures extra sales. At the same time, Silvan’s requirement for efficiency is satis-fied because the storage space is on the shelves in the shop.

Space management is the way you place the goods on the indi-vidual wall.

It is a fact that 80 percent of all customers turn to the right when they go into a big shop. Therefore, the first thing they see is a de-partment containing products with a high gross

ask The guru

(and it is not accidental)

SPacEmanagemenT

Magazine16

margin that they do not expect to find. In Silvan’s case, it is the paint department that greets the cus-tomers to the right of the entrance.

In general, the principle is to give the best exposure to those departments that contribute a high gross margin and that the customers do not expect to find in the shop.

a world championship in compromiseIn Beijer, Sweden, the tools al-ways hang, whenever possible, on

an end wall that is visible from the cash desk when you

come into the shop.“It is designed to

inspire the customer to buy, irrespective of whether the cus-tomer is a crafts-man, a man or a woman. The trick is that every-body should be inspired during their tour of the shop and, pref-erably, should see the tools from the cash desk

when they get into the shop, even

if they only came into the shop to buy wood prod-

ucts,” says Torgny Baldefors, who is also a shop consultant in Beijer.

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Does space management work? Yes. That is one thing they are certain about in Silvan. About seven years ago, the company carried out a study that was to have far-reaching implications for the chain.

The shop assistants were given the opportunity to expose a certain group of products for a six-month period, and afterwards they rearranged the same product group according

to space management principles. The result was astonishing: sales of the products went up by 20%.

Since then, Silvan has worked consciously and objectively with space management and is ready to start employing the next generation of space manage-ment: individual solutions for each of its biggest shops. This is because customers in different parts of the country behave differently.

sales up by 20%

– the planning of, for exam-ple, how the various types of screwdrivers and screwdriver brands are placed relative to each other.

SPacE managemenT

– the planning of, for ex-ample, how the department containing screwdrivers is placed relative to other de-partments in the shop.

FLooR managemenT

Tools ought to be at least two to three years in the same place so that the customers know the loca-tion, but they should generally have the same placing as long as possi-ble, he thinks.

The basic idea is not to move things around too much.

Torgny Baldefors mentions that the layout of a shop might be changed because, for example, the results from the flooring de-partment are poor, while the paint department is doing well. But the profit on flooring is better, and therefore it might be sensible to swap the two departments around.

“Shop design is a world cham-pionship in compromise. A shop is never 100 percent right. There will always be something that receives poor placement,” he says.

17Magazine

layout of the shop too much. It can be a bit boring, I think.

6. I have my lunch break at around 1 p.m.

7. I have worked in Cheapy for about two and a half years: ten months in the shop in Halmstad and before that in the shop in Trollhättan.

8. We are four employees. We always eat alone because we have lunch in shifts in our lunch room.

9. For lunch, I prefer leftovers from yesterday’s dinner that I bring along.

10. We talk about a lot of things: what we are going to do at the weekend, what we did the day before, and so on. All sorts of everyday stuff.

This snapshot was taken by Jen-ny Christianson, who has been employed in the Halmstad shop since it opened three years ago.

we arein a nutshell

Beijerbygg has its headquar-ters in Häggvik, north of Stock-holm. The biggest shop is located in Uppsala. We have 1,500 em-ployees in Beijerbygg and we fo-cus first and foremost on profes-sional craftsmen, as 70 percent of our customers are from this segment. They may visit any of the 67 shops we currently have. We also have combi shops that carry a broad range of products aimed at both professionals and DIY people. Our turnover is al-most 3.5 billion SEK. We were es-tablished in 1866 in Malmö and became part of the DT Group in 1989. Anders Wassberg has been our CEO since 2001. You can find us on the Internet at www.beijer-

bygg.se.

“Everything from assisting our customers to planning the delivery routes for our distribu-tion trucks,”

says foreman Mikael Larsson, Beijerbygg, Uppsala.

1. There is no such thing as a typical day. All my days are dif-ferent, but you might say that 50 percent of the time I work in the office and the rest I as-sist the customers, process orders, fill up goods and help out as transport manager.

2. I start work at 6:30 a.m. every morning.

3. I use my bicycle or I walk to get to work.

4. The varied types of work are the best: everything from as-sisting our customers to plan-ning the delivery routes for our distribution trucks.

5. I don’t like the stress. Some-times there’s just too much work to be done.

6. I have breakfast from 9 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. and lunch from 12-12:30 p.m.

7. I have worked here since Sep-tember 13th, 1988: 19 years.

8. Chicken wok.

9. We eat together in our de-partment.

10. We talk about sports, most-ly football and ice hockey. We support the local football team, Sirius, that was close to moving up, and even Färjes-tad, the ice hockey team from Karlstad. Otherwise, there is a lot of talk about internation-al football such as Barcelona,


conTinueD from page 11

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Arsenal and Inter. And then there is my 9 month old son, and naturally, there is also some shop talk.

This snapshot was taken by Ivan Olofsson, who has worked in Bei-jer for 37 years.

we arein a nutshell

Starkki has its headquarters in Lahti, southern Finland. The big-gest shop is in Herttoniemi, in Helsinki, where 127 Starkki em-ployees are ready to assist both the occasional DIY man and the professional builder. Starkki has a total of 1,215 employees, and our CEO is Markku Willström. Stark-ki has existed since 1868 and became part of the DT Group in 2000.

We have 19 shops and a turn-over of € 450 million. This makes us the second biggest distribu-tor of building products in Finland. Our biggest competitor is K-Rau-ta, which is a part of the Kes-ko group (the Finnish equivalent of Wal-Mart – editor), which has shops in Sweden and the Baltic countries. K-Rauta has 41 shops and focuses mainly on DIY cus-tomers. You can find us on the In-ternet at www.starkki.fi.

“I want to give each customer individual serv-ice,” says sales assistant Ville Ranne, Starkki, Helsinki.

1. There is no typical day, and that is the best part of the job. My job consists of assist-ing customers and loading

and unloading products. Some days may be quite calm, dur-ing which we have a chance to reorganise, whereas others are very busy from beginning to end.

2. My working times vary. This week, my workday starts at 12 noon and next week at 6 a.m., but there may also be days when I need to turn up at 8 or 9 a.m.

3. I normally cycle to work, both in the summer and in the win-ter. It takes me about 5 min-utes. In the winter, it is a good way of waking up when I have to start work at 6 a.m.

4. I meet new challenges and learn something new every day. This might be something about assisting customers or about new materials. I enjoy it when there is a lot to do. It never becomes tedious.

5. That is a big question. But I don’t like it when it is so busy that I cannot give every cus-tomer the individual service I believe they ought to have.

6. When I have my lunch de-pends on when I start work. Normally I have it in the mid-dle of the day, but when I start at 6 a.m. I may just as well have my lunch at 10 a.m.

7. I have worked here for nearly 3 years.

8. I enjoy a real meal with beef, potatoes, rice or chicken, be-cause this is a physically de-manding job. We are lucky to have a cafeteria that serves two hot meals every day. The cafeteria is a big, big advan-tage of this workplace and

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19Magazine

it saves me a lot of time at home.

9. We eat at different times, but there are always a lot of peo-ple who eat at the same time.

10. Mostly we talk about work-related matters. We prefer to keep private matters to our-selves. Some times we talk about ice hockey. The world championship is a great top-ic, particularly the matches against Sweden.

This snapshot was taken by Ve-li Pinomaa, who has worked for Starkki for five years.

we arein a nutshell

Before you go on reading, please be aware that this is about Wolse-ley, UK and not Wolseley world wide. Wolseley UK has its head of-fice in Leamington Spa in central England. In its 1600 shops, more than 13 000 people are employed. Wolseley UK carries several trade marks such as William Wilson, En-con, Unifix and Bathstore.com. Our customers have about 400 000 items to choose from. Our CEO is Nigel Sibley.

“We are a proper football shop”, says branch man-ager Charlie Cross-Baker, Wolseley, Little-hampton, England.

1. I am the manager of the plumbing department and a typical day is spent providing service to our customers. Not only within plumbing. It may al-

so concern electricity or issues relating to construction. I also do a lot of office work.

2. I arrive at work at 7 a.m. and I leave at 5 p.m. Monday to Fri-day. I even work some Satur-days. All in all, this adds up to about 50 hours a week.

3. I drive my car. The distance is 18 kilometres. In the morning, it takes me a quarter of an hour, but in the evening it takes 30-40 minutes. The traffic is bad.

4. “Usual” does not exist. My work changes every day.

5. I hate suppliers of all my heart. They are terrible at presenting bad excuses for not being able to offer the service they ought to.

6. I have a five minute lunch break at my desk before I go outside to have a cigarette. We have had a new Act of Parliament which says that we must stand at least a metre and half away from the building to smoke.

7. Three years in this shop, eight years with Wolseley.

8. Most of the lads go to the can-teen, but I prefer the five min-utes at my desk.

9. I have a ham and cucumber sandwich, and this has been my regular diet for eight years. My girlfriend prepares my lunch.

10. Mostly, we talk about football. We are a proper football shop. We support Tottenham Hot-spurs that just recently fired their manager Martin Jol. They ought not to have done that. He is the club’s best coach ever. Or else we talk about boxing, time-ly orders and suppliers.


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10 quesTions...

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B2B LogIStIcS SHoP

shorT news

This was the mes-sage from Wolseley’s group financial direc-

tor Steve Webster at the an-nual accounts meeting with DT Group management.

Not only has the DT Group delivered very satisfactory an-nual accounts, but the group has also succeeded in incorpo-rating the so-called SOX prin-ciples in only nine months. SOX is a control system that is de-signed to ensure that the ac-counting figures are correct and checked; this is a complicated process to implement, and

“Congratulations on a very good result. I would like to ask you to salute your employees as an acknowledge-ment of a very satisfactory effort.”

Praise from Wolseley

other Wolseley enterprises have spent between two and three years implementing it. For the DT Group, the process has been introduced with very few minor problems, and the result was top class.

“A lot of employees have put in an extra effort in order to succeed, especially among the administrative staff in the divisi-ons and centrally. Our goal was to disturb daily operations as little as possible; therefore, qui-te a large number of employe-es have not even noticed SOX,” says DT’s CFO Jørgen Clausen.

But the 1,219 DT em-ployees who chose to save in share options

this spring can rest assured and wait for better times ahead. Ir-respective of what happens to the share price, no-one will lose their money.

The options are valid for three or five years. In reality, the employees have reserved the right to buy shares at the share price that applies at that time.

The Wolseley share lost its breath over the summer and the autumn, and on October 18th the share price was 786. This means that there is quite a distance to the option price of 1038.

Safety net under the share savers

“But if the share price is not good enough, you can just re-frain from buying. Instead, they will receive all their savings back,” says Jacob Larsen, DT Group’s HR and communications manager.

One might say that the em-ployees have secured the right to a lottery ticket that they can redeem if there is a profit and refrain from redeeming if there is a loss.

21Magazine

There is at least one safe, easy shortcut to becoming a better

customer consultant: do it your-self!

Swede Anders Hedfors con-structed his own 20-square-me-tre outdoor living room together with a friend. It was a big project with many challenges, but it also helped him to offer better advice to his customers in the Cheapy shop where he works.

“Everything you do yourself can be used later when you give advice to the customers, and it also provides an opportunity to make additional sales.”

The customer consultants who are occupied with DIY projects in their leisure time use their experience in the job. It is easier to give advice when you have faced the challenges yourself.

Do it yourself: a safe shortcut

Anders mentions that if a customer buys a new front door, he must remember to buy the screws to fix it to the framework.

“And it is always easier to recommend a machine when you know it and even have it at home.”

Another example was a custo-mer who wanted to use an elec-tric lawnmower for his summer house.

“I have one myself, and the-refore I knew that if the grass grows high enough, the electric mower wouldn’t do the job. That meant that the customer bought a motorised lawnmower. We ear-

Top Tools

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ned more, and the customer did not have any problems mowing his grass.”

With a relatively big DIY pro-ject, you will come into contact with several types of craftsmans-hip. Anders has worked hard in-stalling windows and he has, as many of his customers have, con-sidered how to insulate an out-door living room without having a moisture problem afterwards.

“You learn a lot about products and materials when you use them yourself, and it becomes easier to sell them later on,” claims Anders.

Dane Flemming Park has had the very same experience. The projects that he carries out at home make him a better crafts-man. He is a carpenter by profes-sion, but a day’s work includes answering many questions from customers that reach far bey-ond the expertise his professio-nal background has provided him with.

The latest project he has wor-ked on at home in his row house in Virum, north of Copenhagen, is changing from oil to natural gas.

Here, he consulted his collea-gues in the Silvan shop in which he works.

“This means that we have a tremendous advantage. People are not reluctant to come out and give you a hand if there is any-thing that does not work.”

Flemming also has another re-commendation for when he gives advice to his customers and when he looking for new solutions to his

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private projects. “Ask the suppliers,” is his clear

recommendation.“I really hate to send the

customers out of the shop with half an explanation. I am often confronted with a customer who arrives rather bewildered after being given four or five different solutions to a particular problem.”

In such situations, Flemming has often benefited from profes-sional expertise from outside of the shop. When he sent the oil burner packing, he decided to put up plaster walls along his base-ment’s concrete walls. Several of the neighbours had problems with humidity, so Flemming consulted an old colleague, who presented several good recommendations. Among these was a recommen-dation to peel off all the paint from the concrete wall to allow it to breathe.

“And then, the recommendati-on was to drill small holes through the 30-centimetre-thick concrete wall and insert 20 mm PEX venti-lation pipes through them. Since then, I have had no problems with humidity at all.”

When Flemming then dealt with a customer with a similar problem, he was able to provide the solution on the spot, to the customer’s mild surprise.

“Customers are rather good at reporting back when your re-commendations have worked. This customer was no different, and he had the same experience,” says Flemming.

2�Magazine

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We are 9.489 colleagues

Silvan has outsourced its warehouse to UTi, which specialises in supply chain solutions. UTi operates the warehouse in Latvia, en-sures quality control of the products, and organises transportation to the shops. The warehouse opened in September 2005.

outsourcing

Good advice and wag-ging warning fingers were plentiful when

project manager Klaus Dol-mer was employed to outsource Silvan’s and Cheapy’s woodware operations to a partner in Latvia nearly three years ago.

“It is too far off”; “it will be too expensive”; “the deliveries will be delayed” were just some of the objections.

“There was a long queue of people along the ‘Wailing Wall’ both internally and exter-nally. They saw all the obstacles, but did not point at too many solutions,” Klaus Dolmer remem-bers.

The sceptics were soon to be right, at least partly. Because of an admin-istrative error, the warehouse unit was deprived of its VAT number by the Latvian au-

Tear down the “wail-ing wall”!experiences from silvan show that it is feasible to outsource the warehouse to eastern europe.

thorities, which delayed the start of the project for many months. After this, there were further delays because, in some instanc-es, the Latvians waited before processing an order so that they would have a full truck rather than sending off a half-full truck.

“Of course, the talk was about real problems. Admittedly, there were obstacles. The challenge consisted only of finding out how to deal with them,” says Klaus.

He invited all the involved parties to a common meeting and asked them to help tear down the ‘Wailing Wall’. He emphasises that the cooperation with Jesper Egs-mark and UTi was vital in focusing on solutions instead of problems and making the outsourcing a success story. The cooperation has now operated without a hitch for a year, and Silvan saves money on having its warehouse close to the suppliers instead of

close to the shops.“We have just reduced

freight costs by 10 percent and, moreover, the quality of the deliveries has substan-

tially improved, which in turn means less administrative

work for the Silvan shops.”

(as of �1. juli 2007)

Documents

Dt magazine 02