I TRADE TALK I Société
I TRADE TALK I Société Française de Garantie (SFG) takes on repairs for major brands Repair and not replace: outlining the strategy of Wertgarantie Patrick Döring is the chairman of the board of directors at Wertgarantie. With over 3,000 retail partners in Germany, the specialist insurance company arrives at IFA 2022 to meet old friends and make new ones too. What brings you, and Wertgarantie, to IFA this year? We are here as a strong partner of all our associates in the retail business. We have a longstanding collaboration with electronic cooperative Euronics, and have more than 3,000 retail partners in Germany. You are seeing your family, in a way… Exactly. HERE AT IFA, IT’S EASY TO MEET A LOT OF OUR PARTNERS, BUT ALSO TO IDENTIFY NEW ONES good risk-taker for this external warranty business. If the risktaker is the parent company, it's easier to create smart and good products for our retail partners in this sector. Back to IFA. How important is this event for the industry? It’s very important. Insurers like us need to see what the industry is producing and selling to the people. Business is all humandriven, what we are doing here is relationship management. Here at IFA, it’s easy to meet a lot of our partners, but also to identify new ones, discussing with them which business opportunities there are in the future Frédéric Brizard, General Manager of Société Française de Garantie (SFG), the French subsidiary of Wertgarantie, explains the company's decision to internalise reparations earlier this year. Mr Brizard explains: "The goal is to develop a B2B strategy in close partnership with Wertgarantie across the entire value chain, from the client, product and the distribution for the French, Belgian and Luxembourg markets. In the short term, we are aiming to sell more than a million policies on the French market and position ourselves as one of the main providers. In addition, we are looking to develop innovative insurance policies to compliment the sale of finished products from our partner brands, manufacturers and distributors. How would you explain your company’s strategy? In the last few years, we have been investing a lot to repair and not replace. What we see here especially is the increasing importance of high quality products, more expensive, but repairable home appliances and white goods. I believe for a lot of people, a day without a dishwasher is nearly as painful as a day without a mobile phone. Tell us about how Wertgarantie is supporting its French subsidiary, SFG. The acquisition of Société Française de Garantie in 2014 was a strategic investment to jump into the French and the Belgian markets. As a strong national insurance brand, we believe that it's good if companies like SFG, which sell external warranty to their partners, have access to a With the creation of SFG Services and hiring of 150 technicians who specialise in repairing white and brown goods, we have been able to manage the entire value chain since december 2021. Today, we are a designer of warranties, a customer relationship manager, and an approved repairer for the biggest brands. Since the beginning, our strategy at SFG has been to repair all household products. But with the support of Wertgarantie, we will further strengthen our reparability strategy and reinforce our position as a major player in the field of repair and service solution offered to the consumer via SFG Services IFA INTERNATIONAL • MONDAY 5 TH SEPTEMBER 2022 17
