Germany's Wuerth Group flourishes in China's promising sales markets

The Wuerth Group, the world's market leader in the field of assembly and fastening materials, prides itself on the great diversity of its customers and the relationship it maintains with them through its sales force.

Dai Xia, senior vice-president of Wuerth, added those relationships have existed for many years and is a key factor in the success of the firm.

Wuerth's China headquarters is in Shanghai. The company said it has the right products and service solutions ready for a one-man business, a State-owned enterprise and a multinational company from a variety of fields.

The requirements of customers in the metalworking, automotive, woodworking and construction sectors have become increasingly complex over the years, forcing Wuerth to come up with different ideas to meet them. Wuerth offers a wide range of products, including chemicals, tools, personal protective equipment, material processing, anchors and fasteners. "Most of our high-end products are developed within the Wuerth Group," Dai said.

Recently, a new research and development center was inaugurated to meet the needs of the market with diversified products.

When the wave of digitalization hit, the group took advantage of the trend and developed many digital marketing and operational tools, which not only made online and offline business develop synergistically, but also played a key role in expanding brand awareness and industry standardization in the future.

Wuerth customers now benefit from a wide range of C-parts. Though the parts traditionally appear as unimportant products, as soon as they are missing, they cause enormous costs, Dai said.

Wuerth's solutions help not only to prevent missing C-parts in production facilities, workshops and construction sites, but also to specifically increase the earnings of these companies.

Wuerth has been deeply engaged in automobile maintenance, assembly and repair for decades, and brought the advanced German automobile maintenance concept to Chinese consumers. The Wuerth Auto Shop program was rolled out in China in 2019. "In total we have now around 400 shops located in China providing standard German-style services," said Dai. Recently, Wuerth vigorously deployed digital marketing tools to integrate service and product knowledge into the mobile terminal for the convenience of shop owners, technicians and car users.

The Wuerth Group was founded in 1945 by Adolf Wuerth. At 19, his son, Reinhold Wuerth, took over after the sudden death of his father in 1954. He founded the first company branch outside Germany in the Netherlands in 1962 and started its international expansion.

It took three decades before its first company in China was set up in 1994. Today, the group has more than 400 companies worldwide operating more than 20 independent companies in China ranging from trade companies such as Wuerth China and Wuerth Industry China to production companies securing the high demand in quality products. The companies combined employ around 3,000 Chinese.

Wuerth's own production companies ensure independence from supply chains aside from being at the customers' beck and call, Dai said.

"Personally and digitally, we would like to grow our business further to live up to our pioneering role as a world market leader in the field of assembly and fastening materials," he added.

songmengxing@chinadaily.com.cn