First Interview with studio guest Gerd Kerkhoff, Business Consultant
- 00:02:20
- DW-World
First Interview with studio guest Gerd Kerkhoff, Business Consultant
Founder and owner of Kerkhoff Consulting in Dusseldorf DW-TV: We're joined now by Gerd Kerkhoff. He's the founder and owner of Kerkhoff Consulting in Dusseldorf. Thanks for being with us here today. How did you get here - budget airline or regular fare? Gerd Kerkhoff: Regular fare but with an airline. I took Lufthansa to get here, but normally we try to take budget airlines. DW-TV: So sometimes due to time constraints it's not possible ... Gerd Kerkhoff: Yes, because the appointment was fixed two days ago. With this short time, we only have the possibility to take the Lufthansa by normal fare. DW-TV: Now what kind of companies are coming to you right now in the current global financial situation? Is there a particular branch that you're seeing more of these days? Gerd Kerkhoff: Generally speaking, I would say every type of company is coming to us at the moment. Service companies, like insurance, or production companies and trading companies. What we feel at the moment is that most of the production companies are out of the field of automotive suppliers because they have more problems - as you can read and see worldwide. DW-TV: Now when a company comes to you, where do you begin with the consulting or advising process? Gerd Kerkhoff: The process is generally an analysis where we analyze all material groups, all services that they are going to buy. We try to benchmark these figures in order to see where potential savings are. ยด DW-TV: If businesses follow your advice, how much can they actually improve their operations? Gerd Kerkhoff: You can say that generally 10% of the purchase volume can be the potential saving. DW-TV: Have you seen any cases lately where businesses in your opinion are simply beyond your company's ability to help them? Gerd Kerkhoff: I would say that we can help more or less every company in order to get these kinds of savings, and we have never had the situation when we went in that we had to say that they are state-of-the-art and we have nothing to do. DW-TV: Have you had to turn anyone away? Gerd Kerkhoff: No. DW-TV: Alright, we'll back with you in just a minute, Mr. Kerkhoff.
DW-World | March 10, 2009
