Trade Talk Reseller Park
Trade Talk Reseller Park Rocks For more than 12 years, Reseller Park — run by TT Messe’s Jan Nintemann — has been a business-only oasis within Berlin’s giant consumer electronics event. Today, it has grown to more than 60 exhibitors. From the packed tables and crowded aisles, Reseller Park is one of IFA’s important subcommunities, and as a business community it serves exhibitors, distributors and dealers. It serves exhibitors, year after year, who want to take advantage of a turn-key or customised exhibits, of the shared promotional activity, of the built-in joint hospitality area, of the personalised service with the administration of exhibiting. It serves distributors: some who want to exhibit to reach broader geographical areas and some who visit to sign up new manufacturers or to take advantage of the hospitality. It serves dealers and retailers as a place to see many interesting products and to benefit from the hospitality zone. If you want to understand the success of Reseller Park, you might make comparison to the internet world: if a single exhibitor’s stand is equivalent to a single manufacturer’s web page, then a Reseller Park would be more like a LinkedIn or XING. Reseller Park works in a collaborative way in a business ambiance. There are two Reseller Parks at IFA 2014 – more up-to-date and attractive than ever before. The 60+ exhibitors are divided across about 750 sq m in Hall 9 and about 1.050 sq m taking up the whole of Hall 7.2c. In addition to the traditionally wellrepresented telecommunications sector – sectors such as consumer electronics as well as specialists in smart home, and white goods are increasingly drawn to exhibit in the Reseller Park. Judging from previous years, this number and variety of exhibitors creates a business gravity that continues to attract high profile trade visitors. Hall 9 Stand 203 Hall 7.1c Stand 101 IT’S ANOTHER “VERY SMART” YEAR AT IFA Editor-in-chief and Director Consumer Electronics of two consumer magazines – “Video” (celebrating its 35th anniversary) and “Connected Home” – German journalist Andreas Stumptner has been attending IFA for 15 years. We asked him what he sees as being the hot topics this year in the CE, Mobile and HA industries at IFA. I think this is another very “smart” year at IFA. New smartphones following the trends of Samsung and Amazon are around, as well as smart TVs, which are now “grown-up”, after many years of development. Ultra HD and OLED TVs are ready for mass market now. And I think in all CE segments voice and gesture control are being lifted up to a much more professional level. HA is set to again go greener and be more “smart home ready”. Overall, the connected home aspects will be omnipresent, from TVs over wearables to the fridge. Another interesting question could be: “What are the conclusions out of the downfall of the photo and video camera market?” Will there be again smartphones or other devices replacing them in total now? What do you see as being the hottest product categories? From a mass media point of view: Curved and 21:9 TV sets with UHD and/or OLED; wearables and gadgets like Google glass look-alikes and better smart watches. From my personal point of view, all that CE and HA stuff which will be able to talk to each other in an intelligent connected home. Any tips for a breakthrough name, service or application at IFA? All products based on augmented reality; wearables; maybe bendable TVs, although no one needs that. Do you think vendors / manufacturers should change the way they communicate to the industry? If so, how? THE CRITICAL EYE – AND COMMENTS OF THE MEDIA AT IFA Each day in IFA International, we bring you feedback from media at the show, helping buyers and manufacturers get a better understanding of how they work at IFA. Andreas Stumptner Editor-in-chief and Director Consumer Electronics, "Video" and "Connected Home" Explaining their product strategy and values of new technologies would be better instead of just showing that price competition is the most important way to pressure the market How important is IFA for you in your information gathering process and what do you find are the most useful aspects in this respect? For us, IFA is indeed the most important event for information gathering. We have all relevant companies at one place, at the Messe Berlin fairground, and the timing just before holiday season starts is very good. I have to say: For us as special interest journalists personal appointments with the companies are more important than press conferences. What are your favourite aspects of the show in general? Again, having all important industry people at one place, watching the show becoming more and more a global meeting point and having enough time and space to touch the latest products 14
Exclusive Interview Premium Brand, Global Company Haier European CEO René Aubertin positions his company in a new light with strong ambitions HAIER’S SMART HOME CENTRE Thanks to Haier’s powerful new tablet, users can control a variety of home appliances. “People will be able to manage their air conditioner, dishwasher, water heater and so on, all thanks to our smart home solution,” says Aubertin. “This is our main thrust at IFA and we have a specific corner at our booth to show this.” Haier’s Tianzun air conditioner is also on show for the first time. It is the first home appliance in the world to receive Apple’s official MFi certification. The air conditioner connects automatically to any iOS device, without any complex registration process, enabling users to control the air conditioner settings remotely. “The design of the unit is quite remarkable and is based on direct customer feedback”, says the Haier CEO. “We envisage a future in which all home appliances become connected internet terminals, allowing cutting edge technology to perform mundane household tasks at the touch of a button.” Haier has been performing particularly well in a number of European markets, but what is the overview of the company as we head towards the end of 2014? We put the question to René Aubertin, CEO of Haier Europe. Today, we are performing quite well in all countries, with best performance levels in Russia and France. All in all, 2013-14 will be a good year for us. Why? Because today, we finally have a complete range of products. In the past, Haier was very good in cooling, washing products and dishwashers, but in others it was not so strong. Now, for the first time ever, we have a complete range of air conditioning and solar water heaters, which is very good, as energy saving is a major consumer trend. Secondly, we have a great range of TVs, and thirdly, we have a good range of portable devices such as tablets and smartphones. This complete range gives us the possibility to penetrate all markets, with customers perceiving Haier as a premium brand. In April, the CEO of Haier, Zhang Ruimin, was named in Fortune magazine’s Haier is not only a company making industrial products, but also that it has a very strong business model list of “The World’s 50 Greatest Leaders”. This news must have been a great morale booster for your staff We are very proud, because this shows that Haier is not only a company making industrial products, but also that it has a very strong business model as well for strategy, management and long term processes and is a truly global company. We knew that before, but now this has been recognised. For a long time now, everyone working at Haier has been told they should work as though they were their own CEO. Everyone has their own individual business landscape, and each individual staff member is encouraged to behave in this way. Secondly, we are working to change the organisation of the company, not only the hierarchy, but more in the sense of fostering positive exchange. Gone are the times when the senior manager spoke to the deputy manager, who spoke to the foremen, who spoke to the staff. Now we have a different way of handling information. We have built what we call a “community of interest”, which is a kind of group working as project management, not as a company. So somebody might be responsible for the community of interest in one product category, and this person manages everybody: R&D, factory, procurement, marketing and sales. They manage this as a project, not as a boss in hierarchical terms, but at the level of an expert. This is the way we want to drive the business. What other highlights can we see at IFA? We continue to show energy-saving major appliances. We are showing a cooling product with a very strong energy saving programme. And as you know, our washing machine has the lowest energy consumption in the world: A+++ minus 50%. Secondly we continue to underline long product life cycles. In our top of the line washing machines, we give a twelve-year guarantee on the compressor, and our top refrigerator also has a twelve-year guarantee on René Aubertin CEO, Haier Europe the compressor. We are also pushing very big capacity, as we have learned from our customer interaction platform that more and more people want bigger capacity cooling. At IFA you can see a fridge with XXL capacity. www.ifa-international.org IFA International • Tuesday 9 th September 2014 15
