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Dr. Christian Kober, Senior President of Hoffmann Group Asia, accepted our exclusive interview.
Q:So thank you for having us today Dr Kober. Could you give us a brief introduction about Hoffmann group China?
A:Okay, thanks for the opportunity to talking to you today and Hoffman is Europe's largest distributor of tools. That means we are not producing but we have many, many brands which we are supplying to our customers, to our industrial customers. So all our customers are industrial companies and we bring the same concept here to China. We have a warehouse here in China. We have been active in China now for over ten years, growing every year double digits together with the modernization of the Chinese industry.Q:In which year did Hoffmann group come to China?A:In 2009 we came to China. We were always in Shanghai. Close to here originally with logistics and our offices but now we have separated this.Q:Why did your group make decision to move to here to Hongqiao?A:Well. There were numbers of reasons for this. Hongqiao has a very Morden environment. We want to attract generation Z people, people who are familiar with the Internet our business is moving more more to the Internet to our own e shop. We want also to project to modern image to our customers. So these were key reasons for choosing this and then they are the excellent connections to railways, airport. Obviously roads and subways.Q:You already been here for more than one years. How do you feel now?A:Well.Very good. And what I can say is also that compared to before, many more customers visit us because also our customers, it's easier to come here, which is a nice side effect.About which customers were visiting us where actually maybe not. Maybe the best example is not really our customers, but last year we had a big visit group from our mother company, SFS in Switzerland, which is a stock listed Swiss company, about thirty or forty people including the owners of the company. And naturally it was very nice to show them this kind of environment, which before we couldn't have done it, we wouldn't have invited them to our office.I think for all our employees and for myself, an excellent location like my CEO said when he visited us for the first time here, can really feel the energy.Q:In Hoffmann Group's presentation video, we can see some slogans like "Pioneering simplicity" and "Simply personal", could you tell us more about them? Why the concept of "simple" means so much?A:We want to make the life simply for our customers. So our customers buy many, many small items. Here you see a few of these items, they buy screwdrivers, face masks and so on. And they just want to have one supplier for these small items that don't want to have trouble with these items. And there were. That is how we help our customers to make their life more simple. That was from the beginning, the concept. But we are always, and this maybe comes back to pioneering, we are always improving on this. I think, especially here in China, we now have our telephone sales. Here we have what we call RPA, which is robot assisted programming here. So we have many more modern ways now to improve the life of our customers.Q:Last year, Hoffman has been recognized as the regional headquarter of transnational company, What's the significance of this designation?A:Well I think there are a number of advantages to this, one is naturally also when we talk to the government it gives us a different status. To new stuff that makes it more easy to attract stuff because we can say we are the international, the Asia headquarters of the Hoffman group. We have also the Asia functions here obviously including myself, who's responsible for Asia, and are now starting. In the past we only exported from China to our mother company in Europe, but we now have a concept to export from here, from Hoffman to our Asian mother, daughter companies in Singapore, in Malaysia and India, and also to our partners, all Asia. So to really create an Asia for Asia business here.It simply gives us a great status also in the eyes of our customers.Very simple speaking if you can say one of our customers is Volkswagen or Busch for example going there and saying we represent Hoffman Asia, gives us a different entry card to our customers then just saying okay I come from Hoffmann China.Q:How about car business?A:Many of the big car companies are our customers also Chinese car companies Geely for example is our customer and these customers and these brings us back to the Asia headquarter. Geely I'm not so sure, but SAIC from Shanghai they are investing in Thailand they are setting up a manufacturing and Thailand and we Can provide service to them here in China we can provide to them service and Thailand other countries and there again Asia headquarter helps because they understand that we are not just China we can support them wherever they go.Q:As we know, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is visiting China this week, what is the Hoffmann Group's expectation for this visit?A:Well. I think our expectations are on the one hand that he would help to keep the China German relations smooth I think they are doing well the relations.But you know how fast things can nowadays change unfortunately so I think his visit also represents the mutural respect and trust between China and Germany. From a company point of view, my only hope would be on my only request if I would be able to talk to him, would be, to ask him to talk about the data protection law. So I'm not against it. It makes sense. But at the moment it creates a lot of workload for the companies. And how can one help the companies to reduce this workload, to make this law more practical fast?Q:This year also marks the 10th anniversary of the establishment of the China-Germany comprehensive strategic partnership, as for Hoffmann Group, did you feel some real changes in these ten years?A:Well. the change which I have seen but I can honestly speaking I cannot say whether they are related to this partnership agreement or not, is that for us Hoffman we have better access to state owned enterprises that also goes comes because state owned enterprises are becoming increasingly professional in the procurement. Most recently we could also see that China has opened VISA free entry for Germans for fifteen days which is extremely helpful for a fast because we get visitors from our headquarters and we don't need to plan ahead anymore.So therefore, from my perspective, these kind of small steps are very, very important to make business simply more efficient, more simple and were have happened over the last ten years.Q:What is the company's vision for the future development in China？A:What we basically provide to China and to our customers globally as you already mentioned simplicity. Companies in China are increasingly how do you say calls driven are increasingly modernizing. I visited recently Hongqi in Changchun and I was amazed by the number of robots they had and the modern processes which they are using.And Hoffman, for all these small parts, provide simplicity and I believe that we will therefore continue to grow in China, especially with our Chinese customers.Because they benefit from this and they also benefit from our internationality. I already mentioned SAIC, but for example, CATL, the famous battery manufacturer from south China. They are setting up a plant in Hungary, and they are getting supplies from us also there. And they can buy the same things in Hungary as they buy from us here. We can give them a global service. So it's on the one hand important for the business here in China. But I think it's also good that we can support the Chinese customers in their efforts to globalize.1919年，一位名叫约瑟夫·霍夫曼的机械师在德国慕尼黑开启了自己的事业，一百多年后的今天，当年这个小小的销售代理处已经成长为一家为全球50多个国家超过13万5千家客户提供优质工具与专业建议、营收额超14亿欧元的大型跨国企业。百年企业如何顺应新时代、入驻虹桥国际中央商务区为公司发展带来了怎样的帮助、中德关系保持高水平发展对在华德企意味着什么……霍夫曼集团亚洲区高级总裁Dr. Christian Kober高博博士接受了我们的专访。
走进霍夫曼集团位于虹桥国际中央商务区内的办公室，你会注意到展柜里陈列着霍夫曼旗下的各类工具和产品，员工墙上的手印，或是休息区里记录得分的桌上足球，整体气氛轻松，员工活力十足，换句话说，和区内许多外企很相似。不过在别的企业中你几乎不会看的是，书架上有一整排按年份排列、各个语言版本的公司产品目录，这是霍夫曼集团从1936年持续至今的传统，在数字化、网络化为主的现在，纸质目录也许更多地承载着一种象征意义，但它也让我们得以瞥见些许集团的百年剪影。A：霍夫曼是欧洲最大的工具分销商。这意味着我们没有生产但我们有很多很多的品牌，我们提供给我们的工业客户，所以我们所有的客户都是工业公司。我们把同样的理念带到了中国，我们在中国有一个仓库。我们在中国已经活跃了十多年，随着中国工业的现代化发展，每年都以两位数的速度增长。Q：在公司简介中我们可以看到诸如“先锋简约”“简单个人”这样的口号，为何“简单”这个概念对霍夫曼如此重要？A：我们想使我们客户的生活简单。我们的客户买很多的小件物品，比如他们买螺丝刀、口罩等等。他们只想由一个供应商提供这些小项目，不希望增添麻烦。这就是我们如何帮助我们的客户使他们的生活更简单。这是从一开始就有的概念。但我们一直在提高这一点，这就回到了我们“先锋”的概念上。我认为，特别是在中国，我们现在运用电话销售，我们称之为RPA，它是机器人辅助程序编程，我们现在有很多更现代化的方式来改善我们客户的生活。
如同高博所说，2009年当霍夫曼集团决定开创中国事业时选择的就是上海，并且一直就是上海。2022年随着企业优化长三角布局，霍夫曼上海搬到了位于虹桥国际中央商务区核心区的虹桥国际展汇，地理上的便利不用多说，集团在这里看重的也是各项优势叠加带来的活力。而去年，更令他们感到高兴的是，霍夫曼工具贸易(上海)有限公司被上海市商务委员会认定为跨国公司地区总部。升级成为亚洲区总部，高博感到这是公司发展的一个新台阶、新起点。Q：哪些理由吸引霍夫曼集团入驻虹桥国际中央商务区？A：有多种原因。虹桥的环境非常现代，我们希望吸引年轻一代的人，熟悉互联网的人，我们的业务正在更多地转移到互联网上，进入我们自己的电子商店。我们还希望向客户展示现代形象。所以这些是选择这个的关键原因，然后是与铁路、机场的良好连接。我能说的是，与以前相比，更多的客户访问我们，因为我们的客户也更容易来到这里，这是一个很好的副作用。去年我们有一个来自我们的母公司的一个大型访问小组——瑞士的SFS，它是一家在瑞士上市的公司，包括公司所有者在内的大约三、四十人。很自然地，向他们展示这样的环境是非常好的，这在以前我们是做不到的，我们不会邀请他们来我们的办公室。我想对我们所有的员工和我自己来说，这是一个绝佳的地理位置，就像我的CEO第一次来这里时说的那样，可以真正感受到这里的活力。Q：去年霍夫曼上海经市商务委认定成为跨国企业的地区总部，这对公司带来了怎样的帮助？A：它给了我们一个非常棒的定位，也是我们客户眼中的定位。非常简单地说，我们的一个客户大众汽车或者博世，去拜访他们时我们说我们代表霍夫曼亚洲，这就给我们的客户提供一个不同的起点，比只是说我们来自于霍夫曼中国要好。A：很多大型汽车公司是我们的客户，吉利汽车也是我们的客户，这就把我们带回了亚洲总部。吉利我不太确定，但是来自上海的SAIC，他们正在泰国投资。他们在泰国建立了一个工厂，我们可以在中国为他们提供服务，我们也可以在泰国和其他国家为他们提供服务。同样，亚洲总部也在帮助他们，因为他们知道我们不仅仅是中国的，无论他们去哪里，我们都能为他们提供支持。这个4月，多国政要接连访华，按外媒形容“中国正在掀起春季外交热潮”，其中极其重要的一项便是德国总理奥拉夫·朔尔茨的来访，这是他就任德国总理以来、暌违两年对中国进行的第二次访问。随行成员档次更高、行程更长更丰富，路透社认为“这凸显了中国作为德国最大贸易伙伴的‘重要分量’”。2024是两国关系的重要一年，除了朔尔茨访华，这也是中德正式结成全方位战略伙伴关系的十周年纪念之年。对于一家在华德企，霍夫曼集团当然对中德关系保持高水平发展、两国高层交往密切充满期待，而高博本人已经在中国生活工作了将近20年，他也有非常切身的体会和愿望。Q：关于德国总理朔尔茨的访华，霍夫曼集团有何期待？A：我想我们对他的期待一方面是希望他能够帮助保持中德关系的顺利发展，我认为目前两国关系处理得很好。我认为他的访问也代表了中德之间的互相尊重和信任。从公司的角度而言，我唯一的希望、我唯一的要求，如果我能和他谈谈，我会请他也谈谈数据保护法。我并不反对。其中有一定道理。但目前这给企业带来了很大的工作量。如何能够帮助公司减少这方面的工作量，使这条法律变得更快更实际？Q：今年是中德建立全面战略伙伴关系十周年，对于霍夫曼集团来说，这十年来，您是否感受到了一些实实在在的变化？A：我看到了变化，但老实说，我不能讲它们是否与这个合作协议有关，对我们霍夫曼来说，我们可以更好地接触国有企业，这也是因为国有企业在采购方面变得越来越专业。最近我们还可以看到，中国已经为德国人开放了15天的免签证入境，这对我们非常有帮助，因为我们会有访客从总部前来，我们不需要提前计划了。因此，从我的角度来看，这些小步骤对于使业务更有效率、更简单非常重要，并且在过去十年中已经发生了。A：基本上我们提供给中国和我们的全球客户，就是之前所提到的简单化。中国企业正在不断现代化，我最近参观了在长春的红旗，我对他们拥有的机器人的数量和他们使用的现代工艺感到惊讶。霍夫曼为所有这些小部件提供了简单性，我相信我们将因此在中国继续发展，特别是与我们的中国客户一起。因为他们从中受益，他们也从我们的国际化中受益，我们可以为他们提供全球性的服务，因此一方面，这对在中国的业务很重要，但我认为，我们能够支持中国客户的全球化努力也是一件好事。霍夫曼集团是源自欧洲的工具系统合作伙伴，集制造、服务和贸易等核心能力于一体，为全球50多个国家超过 135000 家客户提供优质工具与专业建议——从个体需求分析到高效使用霍夫曼的产品。包括自有大师级品牌GARANT、工业级品牌HOLEX在内，霍夫曼提供来自全球制造商的超过50万种优质产品，包括切削刀具、手动与测量工具、车间装备和个人防护产品，致力于帮助客户简化工具采购流程和提高生产效率。霍夫曼工具贸易(上海)有限公司成立于2009年，2022年9月启用太仓物流中心，同期中国办公室迁至上海虹桥国际展汇，开启全新征程。Source：Hongqiao International Central Business District
Reviewed by Liu Kenbo, Yao Yiying and Gao Shuting
