In recent decades, the Alliance Association and its sister association Der Küchenring have proven that associations can work together in partnership rather than in competition. The KüchenTreff association from Wildeshausen shares exactly this basic idea and joined forces with us.
Our trio alliance started in March 2020 and initially focused on joint purchasing, but now extends to all three associations and the entire company spectrum. We all see ourselves as team players, and through the new management structure, we will be able to act even more effectively and successfully in the future.
Read here for an in-depth interview with the management.
All three partner associations are economically autonomous and equal, but act together. The performance and brand strength, both in the furniture and kitchen market, will be further expanded in the future to meet the challenges of the highly competitive market. Our concrete plans particularly consider the furniture sector, which needs even more intensive support in the area of digital services.
We see ourselves as team players. Conflicts of interest or competitive thinking? None at all. We focus on commonalities, particularly in purchasing, in exchanges with the industry, and in marketing. Tasks and competencies are bundled. Due to the large overlap of tasks, we don’t have to act individually in each association, but can apply solutions threefold in some cases or develop them jointly and across the board. This saves time and costs, allowing us to act faster, more flexibly, and more efficiently than other associations.
Even though it’s commonly said that one negotiates with “the industry”, we always mean the people on the side of manufacturers and service providers with whom we have been cooperating for decades in some cases. Percentages, profit margins, purchase and sale prices, delivery quantities, article numbers… of course, every conversation and negotiation is about figures, data, and facts. But these conversations can only succeed if the interaction is characterized by respect and humanity. We are proud and very happy to work with so many renowned companies that all stand for quality.
