Field service in the whole of Europe

What do companies do when they have a great product for the DIY market, but they don't have any contact to the DIY trade? They work on their sales, recruit a key account manager, build up a field service team which places the articles on the shelves at DIY stores.
Or, on the other hand, they do none of this, or only a part, and outsource these services - either the whole range or individual elements. "It's just like a cake," says Manuel Valsera from WM Sales Support. The company, with its headquarters in Parchim in Germany, offers such services - either the whole cake or only individual slices.
And they do this in Germany, in German-speaking regions and practically in the whole of Europe. Because the situation described above - a great product, but no access to the market yet - is worse for many companies if they want to take the product abroad.
And this is where Valsera comes into play. As Director of Sales International, together with Stephan Bongards, Sales Executive for Germany, he advises German manufacturers on how to get their products onto DIY store shelves - in Germany and beyond its borders.
While WM Sales Support works with its own team of around 50 employees in the DACH (German-Austrian-Swiss) region, it works together closely with cooperation partners in foreign-language countries. "Even if you can speak very well: you often don't get very far with English," says Valsera. And he really does know what he's talking about: he can speak six languages fluently.
In addition to this, knowledge of the particular target market is necessary and the social skills required to act appropriately there. "For me it is purely relationship management," according to Valsera, who has built up his network covering the whole of Europe during his 25 years in the industry. But he still knows: "You need local partners in each country."
So what exactly are the slices of cake that WM Sales Support can offer their customers? They are the individual elements of services that the field service carries out - in this case an outsourced field service: initial installation as well as assembly and reassembly, complete shelf management including a monitoring and planning service as well as sales services for additional placing.
WM Sales Support oversees around 2 600 DIY stores in this manner in Germany alone, as well as 350 in Austria and 65 in Switzerland. The company manages 3 000 facilities a year and oversees 9 000 shelf units. The big names in DIY trading from the whole of Europe…