Looking back on a successful company development
“Not the price alone is the decisive factor to establish yourself on the spare parts market. Quality, availability und fundamental knowhow are equally, if not even more important.” This is how Werner Huth, General Manager and founder of INTERPART GmbH & Co.KG, looks back on the company’s development of the past 25 years.
When INTERPART Germany started in November 1988 as the German representative for its partner and naming company in England, large market shares where soon established throw-out the German speaking countries and constantly expanded. A trend that continues until today. Meanwhile INTERPART is not only market leader for JCB aftermarket and OEM spare parts in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, but the INTERPART network as such with its local representatives in more than 80 countries worldwide.
But development does not allow to rest on the achieved, but to establish new markets with innovation and courage. In the early 90’s the spare part range was widened by aftermarket parts to fit CATERPILLAR and by the end of the century also for KOMATSU. Steps that made it necessary to put up a new building with a larger warehouse in 1997 and leave the old rented grounds. This building in Dernbach, in the heart of Europe, is still the company’s domicile.
It takes more than just offering a product to achieve such results. From the first day on the target concept was not only to offer spare parts, but also the sustained service and support that goes beside. Fundamental knowledge of the machines, technical know-how, extensive documentation and any support for the technicians and mechanics working on the machines was always a matter of course. Constant quality control at suppliers and manufacturers are absolutely essential to ensure the required persistency. OEM specifications where always the minimum requirement.
From the beginning INTERPART used electronic data processing to support their service. A living concept which is grows and develops day by day. “Today our databases carry more than 1,4 million spare parts which are available off the shelf or can be sourced within only a few days”, Thomas Huth states to this evolution: “For fast and sufficient customer support our technical documentations and catalogues cover 250 gigabytes of data material.”
Naturally all standard services that you expect from a spare parts wholesaler are part of the offer, such as same day shipping, express shipping, neutral direct shipping to end users, on-line price and availability inquiries, order status checks and shipment tracking ect. For INTERPART this goes without saying.
But the world keeps revolving. What will be progressing in the next 25 years? Werner Huth: “We will constantly be widening our product range as we always have. The manufacturers keep engineering new machines that require our attention. Parts are being developed and improved. The communication and data networks between us and our suppliers are permanently being increased to provide better service and information to our customers. The same counts for our quality management which we soon will have certified by DIN ISO 9001:2008.”
