COMPASS

MRS. HILLEKE, IN 1979 COMPASS PUBLISHED ITS FIRST CATALOG WITH 24 PAGES. TODAY, YOUR MAIN CATALOG COMPRISES OVER 450 PAGES. HOW DO YOU KEEP FINDING NEW AND INNOVATIVE PRODUCTS FOR YOUR RANGE?

Filling a catalog with ever new products is a new challenge every year. Our philosophy is to select and test the best products in each area and offer them to our customers. Therefore, our buyers are constantly traveling around the world to find new and innovative products that can be offered at unrivaled low prices through bulk purchases and direct imports. But even proven articles are constantly reviewed and improved in dialogue with customers and professional sailors. We regularly receive awards as test winners. Especially in the development of own and exclusive products Compass shows the competence built up over decades.

A big advantage is of course that our managing director Michael Dehler is himself a passionate sailor with heart and soul, who regularly spends his free time actively on sailing and motor boats with his family and is internationally successful as a regatta sailor. From their own experience and with great competence, products can thus be assessed, new ones discovered and put through their “paces”. As an experienced skipper, he knows what people are talking about when it comes to quality, reliability and practicality of equipment. In addition, many of our employees are active water sports enthusiasts. Our personal passion and the professional know-how of each individual ensure that our products deliver what we promise.

ANYONE WHO IS ACTIVE IN THE FIELD OF WATER SPORTS MUST BE ABLE TO RELY ONE HUNDRED PERCENT ON THEIR EQUIPMENT AND THE QUALITY OF THE MATERIALS. HOW DO YOU ENSURE THAT YOUR PRODUCTS DELIVER WHAT THEY PROMISE?

TO WHAT EXTENT DO YOU WORK TOGETHER WITH EXPERTS FROM THE WATER SPORTS SCENE IN THIS REGARD?

Of course, the exchange of experience with professional sailors should not be underestimated and is extremely important for us. Not only is cooperation with sailing experts helpful in finding the optimal product, it also allows us to test our products under the toughest conditions at the same time. The resulting results flow directly into the article optimization.

An important aspect here is central data management. This means that all product information and related assets (media data) “converge” in one place. In addition, this organized structure of data allows us to target the data for rejection, despite the high volume of data. For example, the necessary flexibility of an online channel (web store) can be used optimally to always bring the latest products quickly to market and at the same time offer a huge range of over 30,000 items.

IN ADDITION TO LEAFING THROUGH THE PRINT CATALOGS (OVER 6,000 PAGES PER YEAR), YOUR CUSTOMERS CAN ALSO BROWSE THE INTERNET AT THEIR LEISURE. HOW DO YOU ACHIEVE AN UP-TO-DATE AND MARKET-DRIVEN OFFER IN YOUR CHANNELS?

IN ORDER TO MANAGE THEIR PRINT AND ONLINE CHANNELS MORE EFFICIENTLY, THEY LAUNCHED A JOINT PROJECT WITH APOLLON IN 2013, WHICH THEY ARE STILL INVOLVED IN TODAY AS THE MAIN MANAGERS AT COMPASS. WHAT WAS YOUR FOCUS? WHAT DID YOU WANT TO CHANGE AND WHY?

Our company has been using an electronic database since 2001, but at that time it was still a kind of “mini PIM”. At that time, the focus was still clearly on print, but this allowed us to efficiently produce multilingual catalogs with a very small team. In recent years, however, the online store has become extremely important. In addition to the number of articles, the data volume of (high-quality) product information and media data has increased dramatically at the same time. The focus was therefore on uniting all departments and channels with an omnichannel system. Another goal was to digitally map as many processes as possible in order to manage more extensive advertising materials and online ranges with the same number of employees. Purchasing, for example, is already working with the software to control the future product range.

An important factor achieved with the new system is the improvement in data quality, as only one system is now used for maintenance and control. In addition to this, however, the issue of data security is also important, as smoothly functioning output to all channels is of great significance for efficiency. But the issue of speed also plays a decisive role in meeting the increased requirements. This means producing an ever-increasing number of pages and advertising materials – but with increasing quality. The premise here was that all data should be available and reusable at all times, so that the web store could be filled as quickly as possible, for example.

WHAT WAS PARTICULARLY IMPORTANT TO YOU IN TERMS OF MEDIA DATA, ESPECIALLY WITH REGARD TO PRINT AND THE ONLINE STORE? WHAT HAS BEEN OPTIMIZED? WHAT DID YOU WANT TO CHANGE AND WHY?

SINCE THEN, ONLINE MEDIA NET HAS ACCOMPANIED AND SUPPORTED YOU IN A LARGE PART OF YOUR BUSINESS PROCESSES, FROM THE VERY BEGINNING TO THE FINAL OUTPUT IN ALL CHANNELS. WHAT POSITIVE EFFECTS DOES THIS PARTNERSHIP HAVE ON YOUR DAILY BUSINESS?

A major advantage is certainly the central use of the software, which has already been briefly outlined. For the cooperation of individual colleagues and also departments, this has many advantages in the daily work. In this way, individual activities, such as the maintenance of new article information, are directly interlinked, thus minimizing parallel or duplicate work. Another positive aspect is the digitally mapped processes. This means that the status of individual workflows or the entire production can be viewed at any time. At the same time, we can constantly optimize and streamline individual work processes with the help of software support. In addition, other projects help us to constantly improve our offer on the market. For example, since the beginning of the year, we have been using 360-degree images of our items in our web store, which are created directly by apollon and made available via a lean process.