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| Managing
director Gabriele vom Hofe |
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| The
WOODLAND-headquarters in Dormagen: Here is the
callcentre where our customers can reach us as well as the
location of our delivery coordination, product development
and where our showroom is located. Big and small customers
alike can visit at any time. |
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Children and
Parents "straight from the heart"
The mail order
firm WOODLAND was founded in 1992. Within a few short years the
organisations founder Gabriele vom Hofe had made the firm
the unchallenged leader and trendsetter in the German market for
high quality childrens adventure furniture. The resulting customer
orientation led to an intelligent range of products which
are adaptable to the childs needs and have in mind the maximum customer
use.
Every WOODLAND
customer has their own unique "customer experience" and
the managing director Gabriele vom Hofe has taken into account her
experiences as a young mother of small children: Gabriele vom Hofe
says:
"The
play beds that were on the market at the time were not my idea of
a good combination of price-performance relationship,
environmentally friendly, flexability, design and safety"
"Therefore
there was nothing else I could do except produce my own ideal play
bed for our children with the help of an experienced carpentary
crew". A succesful business idea was born ...
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| Teamwork
must be used, if good ideas are to become successful in
the area of customer orientated products and services |
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| In
Callcentre |
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| The
showroom in our Dormagen headquarters. When are you
coming to "test" it? How
to find us?. |
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| The
customers are our only concern
Customer
behaviour has changed: As well as a first class price
performance relationship, the young family also has an
increasing choice of brand and therefore aspects such as accident
prevention, the wood, workmanship quality of the
design and last but not least the service
are playing an ever increasing role. Traditional norms
which were the classic way of trading and dealing with
customers are nowadays being increasingly questioned.
During
the 70's and 80's there was a lack of competition (or
ideas) and suppliers in the children's furniture market
because they rested on their laurels. However these days
are gone and a new consumer generation changed the demands
in the market. So according to this, WOODLAND lives by the
important rule: "Give the customer more than they
could possibly expect and then you will be successful."
Gabriele vom Hofe:
"We
don't just want our customers to be happy, we want them to
be enthusiastic!"
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| Overcoming
the traditional industry norms
The theme
of accident prevention is especially close to the heart of
Managing Director, Gabriele vom Hofe:
"...
We believe that with the theme of "Accident
prevention with children's beds", young parents
are aware on the whole that with conventional safety
standards on bunk beds are not as safe as they should be
despite extensive testing procedures e.g.those for the
approved safety standard sign. This can give parents a
false sense of security, for example in areas such as
safety railings on bunk beds, where the ruling appears at
a ridiculous 17 centimetres! "
WOODLAND
would like to draw attention to the important theme of
child safety especially for families with young children."
More...
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One of
our aims: To overcome the boring standards of the
industry with fun child friendly interesting furniture.
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High quality wood
for high quality products
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New
"Ideas" in wood
Meanwhile the
WOODLAND brand is not just a symbol for quality but insiders also
know that it is synonymous for being both
environmentally-and child friendly but today nearly every
young family has its own idea of children's furniture. Through a
wide range of products especially in area of adventure beds,
WOODLAND the market leader has created an unchangeable brand image
and business profile within its market niche.
Gabriele vom Hofe
states: "... it is understandable that other
manufacturers sometimes lack the optimistic or innovational
ability of WOODLAND and therefore try to imitate it. However the
unmistakable relationship of price performance to quality and
service can't be so easily copied. WOODLAND has been built on the
foundations of its market leadership."
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Wood
from a sustainable forest.
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| Environmental
protection through the purchase of raw materials |
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 The
wood used in the production of WOODLAND furniture has been
purchased from sustainable forests which
means the ecological balance of the forest has been
protected. Likewise the forest is just a short distance
from the sawmill. Our knot free 1st class wood
doesn't come from remote forests and does not have to be
transported an unnecessarily long distance by polluting
vehicles but nearby where our own strong regulations are
enforced, protecting the environment. Therefore the kind
of wood we use represents a significant contribution
to the environment through its purchase..
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| Our
WOODLAND-Production team working with environmentally
friendly traditional woodcraft techniques. "Quality
over Quantity" is our motto.
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| That
makes the difference
WOODLAND
does not win the quality competition through mass
production and high tech machinery production lines. In
contrast: in many parts of the productions phase, the
professional qualitity-level
can only be achieved through hard work and hand crafted
skill. This clearly has an effect on the workmanship and
the durability of the product. The WOODLAND-customers feel
"That
makes the difference!"
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Productions
manager Michael Bittorf (pic above):
"WOODLAND wins the quality competition not
through mass optimised production lines, but
actaully this is only realisable through many production
phases and pre-set quality-Levels
and this can only be achieved by high quality hand
crafting of the products."
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Darek
Wischnewski can't imagine not working in the
production- controlling department. One of his
most important tasks is quality management. |
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Environmental
protection in the production process
Because the
product is untreated, it leaves the production process
environmentally friendly and all of our wood components free of
harmful substances. The wood surfaces that are veneered or
treated through other processes such as lamination, lacquering or
using products that release similarly health
damaging emissions, are forbidden at WOODLAND. (If our
customers want we will treat the surfaces of the wood with
environmentally friendly wax.) The glued-wood joints, which for
example are necessary in shelves and cupboards, are only done
using non-poisonous soluble white glue: Environmentally friendly
manufacturing methods are not just 'healthier' for the end user,
but results in an environmentally friendly working climate for our
workers too. Through the resulting piece of mind, the workers can
achieve an excellent standard of product.
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| Production |
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| Packing
and Delivery
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| Storage |
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www
- world wide woodland
WOODLAND-Customers
are not only in Flensburg or Berechtesgarten but also in Singapore,
Moscow, Cape Town and Atlanta. Gabrielle vom Hofe says:
"Many
german parents, who live abroad rely upon their german parenting
magazine products to be delivered to the far flung corners of the
world. Therefore it is inevitable that families in other
continents notice us, e.g.through adverts and word of mouth.
In recent times
the internet is also a powerful tool in
international marketing, so much so that WOODLAND is always
delivering more and more products abroad. So we receive more and
more orders from internet users in the furthest corners of the
world e.g. New Zealand, South Africa, Russia and India. Likewise
it is nice to receive offers from traders in other countries. e.g.
not just in the E.U. but also in America or Canada. No wonder: the
internet offers users so many enticing possibilities which the
conventional mail order companies cannot achieve: By creating and
using a modern NEWSLETTER
and E-mail
service WOODLAND has made communication with the customer more
interactive and direct.
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| Building
up the online-service
Technology makes
it possible to look on the WOODLAND website now and find out more
up to date and extensive information than in the WOODLAND
catalogue! Through internet technology the customer orientated
advice service about "children's bedrooms" will get ever
more expansive. So at the moment WOODLAND work together with so
called "content partner's" such as Parenting magazines,
who make editorial contributions towards important parental themes.
Completely new:
From now on there is an excellent Forum
on the WOODLAND homepage in which customers and interested parties
can air their views and compare consumer information. A search
function which is easy to use leads customers quickly and
efficiently to the themes which they are interested in.
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| Customer
service by phone and Internet: Especially on-line WOODLAND
customers can be faster and more precisely informed in
comparison to standard static catalogue materials. |
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There is
also a planned link to a specially created site dealing
with childrens sleeping tips.
Here you can get special tips to help your child sleep but
you can also get access ordering facilities for books and
other literature on the subject of "Sleep
problems with children", if you are worried about
it. This service works in tandem with the large internet
book supplier AMAZON.DE.
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| PLacement
student Jens Bombeck: "With WOODLAND I can
attain an excellent view of the economic wokings of a
typical direct mail-order company and that is to say
e-commerce business in the furniture industry. At the
moment am helping to expand the WOODLAND homepage
assisting in putting new products into the data bank."
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| Ex-Placement
student Julien Huet: "Très bien! Cela
a fonctionné! "I have successfully moved
into the french market for
WOODLAND!"!" |
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Placements
at WOODLAND
We always try and
include one or two capable placement students in our team, who are
studying in the area economics and want some practical experience
with WOODLAND: one of these is Jens Bombeck. The student from
Wilhelmshaven studied economic engineering and did a placement for
5 months at WOODLAND.
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| Our
dutch economic placement student Heleen van Leeuwen (Pic
above) carried out an empirical customer questionnaire.
Aside from this,she translated and promoted our excellent
dutch
website |
| Here
you can find out what placements are available: |
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