Author: Kloepfel
Crude oil price continues to rise HWWI total index rose by 2.2 % (US dollar basis) Crude oil price increased by 4.3% Index for food and beverages declined (Hamburg) In March, the HWWI commodity price index rose by an average of 2.2 % per month(in euros: +2.6 %) compared with the previous month. The HWWI commodity price index rose to 119.2 points (in euros: 117.0 points), 2.3 % (in euros: +6.7 %) lower than in March of last year. Only the index for energy raw materials showed growth in March, rising by 2.7 % (in euros: +3.1 %). The monthly…
A bull and a bear symbolize positive and negative price developments on the stock market. The two animals, whose sculptures can be found not only at the stock exchange in Frankfurt am Main but also at the Alte Hopfenpost in Munich, also decorate the new homepage of Kloepfel Corporate Finance GmbH. Since last week, the website of the M&A specialist shines in a new design, completely in the modern style of the Kloepfel Group. The company radiates professionalism, trust and commitment not only in its work, but also online. The new homepage offers visitors quick and easy access to the…
Lean purchasing in the hotel industry The chefs of well-known Steigenberger hotels tasted 800 kg of meat from eight different suppliers over two days. The result: Savings in six digits for the Steigenberger subsidiary H.E.A.D. Hotel Equipment and Design GmbH. Duran Sarikaya, CEO Kloepfel Consulting, reports on the joint project in an interview. How did the team work at the beginning of the project? Our task at Steigenberger Hotels AG was primarily to optimize the purchasing of food and beverages. In the course of this we approached the existing suppliers at the beginning of the project in order to negotiate…
Customer satisfaction is becoming more and more important in many companies. Purchasing is also affected by this. Internal customers, such as production, as well as external customers, the end consumers, expect from the purchasing department that the products they want are available at the right place at the right time and meet the quality requirements. By selecting the right suppliers and a suitable purchasing strategy, purchasing can successfully meet the expectations of their customers. However, recalls in the automotive industry, supply bottlenecks or image damage caused by poor working conditions can have a negative impact on internal and external customer…
Medium-sized companies miss their targets – What is the reason? Economic problems and lack of personnel occupy the middle class From 10 January to 13 February, the purchasing consultancy Kloepfel Consulting surveyed 229 specialists and managers from small and medium-sized enterprises on their goal achievement in 2018 and the emerging risks in 2019. The sobering result: Only 35 percent of the companies surveyed were able to fully achieve their targets for 2018. Were you able to achieve your targets for 2018? Nine percent of those surveyed stated that they had missed their targets for 2018. 56 percent were only able…
Kloepfel Engineering can reduce your product costs by 10% to 40% Use one of the highest award-winning Cost Control product costing software applications to accurately track and optimize the true costs of your own products and those of your suppliers. It also gives you a benchmark of what the product costs worldwide. Additionally, you can also commission our Kloepfel Engineering Team to calculate product costs, or seek advice on value analysis. Services: Kloepfel Engineering’s Cost Control software features four core performance points. With target costing, Cost Control determines how high the product costs may be in order for the product…
Fair working conditions for truck drivers After long negotiations, the European Parliament has finally implemented the EU mobility package. The package is intended to ensure fair working conditions for truck drivers and was very popular in the logistics sector. In the much-discussed areas of cabotage, driving times and rest periods, as well as posting in road transport, the majority of MEPs voted in favour of a new regulation. Throughout Germany, professional drivers are now to be paid according to the principle of “equal pay for equal work at the same place”. Transit traffic and bilateral traffic are excluded from this.…
Smartphone business to become more profitable The Japanese electronics manufacturer Sony has announced that it will relocate production from China to Thailand. The factory in Beijing is to be closed in a few days. Smartphone segment for Sony a loss-making business The Group hopes that this will lead to cost savings in the manufacture of smartphones, and is talking about 50 percent. Currently, the smartphone segment is a loss-making business for the manufacturer. The fiscal year now ending recorded a loss on the sale of smartphones of the equivalent of 850 million euros. Experts even advise Sony to give up…
The reason is Airbus subsidies from the EU The USA again threatens to impose punitive tariffs on European exports. The reason for this is disputes over illegal subsidies for Airbus, which have been levied by the EU. As a result, trade commissioner Robert Lighthizer presented a provisional list of punitive tariffs on goods worth around eleven million dollars. In addition to products and components for the aviation industry, numerous other goods are also affected, such as various types of cheese, olive oil, oranges and seafood. The USA has already filed its application for punitive tariffs with the World Trade Organization…
Deliveries in Australia in the future by drone Google will now be the first company in the world to deliver via drone. The required license was granted to the US-American digital corporation in Australia. The subsidiary of the Google parent company Project Wing has been testing drone flights in the Australian capital Canberra and the neighboring city Queanbeyan for one and a half years. This route is suitable because of the long distances between the city and the satellite districts. A trip through the city center and back can take up to 40 minutes. The route is therefore suitable for…
VW, Daimler and BMW in crosshairs The car manufacturers VW, Daimler and BMW have been making illegal agreements about exhaust gas cleaning for years. This has now been confirmed by the EU competition authorities. According to the agreement, more environmentally friendly technologies were not offered for sale despite their availability. Specifically, the agreements are said to have concerned AdBlue tanks, the size of which the manufacturers had agreed among themselves. Particle filters in Otto engines were also deliberately not installed. This would reduce fine dust emissions. The accusations of the agreement are based on research by the news magazine Spiegel.…
Kloepfel Corporate Finance exclusively advised the founder of the Brüning Group on the strate-gic partnership with CIC Capital and PESCA Equity Partners. Munich, March 2019 – The Brüning Group comprises the individual companies Brüning-Euromulch GmbH, Brüning-Megawatt GmbH, Brüning-Logistik GmbH, Brüning International GmbH and Gebrüder Meyer GmbH. Positioned as a supply and disposal company, the Group established itself, inter alia, as a market leader in the supply of biomass heating and power plants. The Brüning Group is a pan-European service provider that structures and pools the flow of energy-yielding bulk materials, mainly woody raw material, for both thermal and material recycling…
No matter if customer, supplier, subcontractor or freight forwarder. The SCOR model illuminates even the darkest corners of the supply chain. With the right application, high efficiency and cost potentials can be realized. The Supply Chain Operations Reference Model (SCOR model) is a supply chain management concept which was developed by the Supply Chain Council in 1996. The aim of the SCOR model is to provide a basis for supply chain optimization, allowing a precise representation of the six primary management processes: planning, procurement, production, delivery, return delivery and supporting processes. These processes include any interaction with own customers and…
Positive forecast, but a lot of work The car rental company Sixt, one of the largest in Germany, doubled its profit to 439 million euros in 2018. The reason for this is the constantly growing demand for rental cars at home and abroad and the sale of the stake of DriveNow, a car sharing company, to BMW. CEO Erich Sixt looks positively on the current year. On Monday, he announced that he expects a significant increase in sales and stable earnings before taxes. The car rental business in the USA and other European countries continues to expand. However, Sixt still…
Cooperation with Japanese Space Agency JAXA Together with the Japanese space agency JAXA, Toyota now wants to start a new era in space research. The first project is a manned fuel cell vehicle with which it should be possible to explore foreign planets. The concept vehicle is about six meters long and will provide space for about four astronauts. The mobile space station can be operated both manually and from Earth, but autonomous control is also possible. In combination with an efficient fuel cell propulsion system, the rover will have a range of up to 10,000 kilometers. “At JAXA, we…
Excessive demand leads to delivery problems Sporting goods manufacturer Adidas presented its sales figures for 2018 at the annual press conference. Although it was possible to increase sales by five to eight percent (currency-adjusted), production bottlenecks put a spanner in the works for the Group. Currency-adjusted sales rose by eight percent to just under 22 billion euros. In particular, demand in the mid-price segment was so high in North America in the first six months of 2018 that it could not be fully met. “We have a delivery problem and we are very unhappy about it,” says Kasper Rorsted (CEO…
Total of 100,000 jobs affected According to figures from the Leibniz Institute for Economic Research Halle (Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung Halle, short IWH) around 6,600 employees in the German logistics sector could lose their jobs if an unregulated Brexit occurs. This was reported by the newspaper Deutsche Verkehrs Zeitung (DVZ). Scientists from the IWH and the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg have jointly created a simulation in which the job effects of a hard Brexit and the resulting decline in exports were determined. The figures do not include other dangers, such as a decline in the willingness to invest. The impact was…
Allegation of unfair competition The music streaming service has lodged a complaint with the EU Commission against the tech group Apple. The Swedish company accuses the US group of unfair competition because of the commission Apple withholds from competing providers. In addition, the rules of Apple’s app store restrict user choice and slow down innovation, according to Spotify CEO Daniel Ek. For apps uploaded to the app store, the providers receive 70 percent of the revenues generated by the app. The remaining 30 percent will remain with Apple. This also applies to purchases within an app, for example if a…