Let me introduce you to Rene Wiertz, an Italian CEO who founded 3T Cycling. The enterprise was created in 1961 and from the start it has always been leading the innovation in the bicycle industry with advanced designs or the use of new materials. The company lost its position in the early 2000 due to increased competition from companies in Germany, the US and Asia.
In 2007, Rene acquired the 3T brand name and re started the company from scratch... Successfully!
No magical recipes to make your enterprise grow
Hard work. Hard Work. Hard Work
Rene made the company a success without any major magic, simply hard work. Basically he set out the following strategy:
- simple/easy to understand product line up: high end with superb quality so that consumers understand immediately the good-better-best approach we offer.
- strong marketing
- active sales approach, and approaching sales as a global company
- hiring good people, right mix of bike passion and professional background
Moreover, he has worked for 12 years in a big company (Philips) before taking over 3T, which gave him the background and the experience to set up 3T as a global company with talented people in all key disciplines.
From a local enterprise to an international company
They started in Italy in 2007. But as all production is taking place in Asia, Rene quickly opened an office in Asia to be closer to the factories. The office in Taiwan is taking care of supply chain and quality control, the Italian office is in charge for marketing, sales and product design. This year we opened our 3rd office in the US, which is a pure sales office. From this office they sell to dealers direct.
(If you want to find tips in order to develop in Italy, read the article of our expert Paolo Ferrari)
Some tips to make your company grow
First, Rene advices to rapidly hire someone on board who can run operations and who is organized. A local founder is driven by opportunities and creativity, but bringing quickly a person to support the entrepreneur is essential.According to Rene, it is better to define your values clearly and hire for values. Keep hammering on these values to ensure a consistent approach of your company in the market.
Some mistakes to avoid
Rene strongly recommends to hire slowly and fire quickly. He told me he lost quite some money hiring the wrong person.
"Better having no one than the wrong one"
Also, try to keep your business model simple: it is very easy to make your business become complex, thinking you save some money, but complexity is a very costly issue that is often under estimated.
I hope this aticle gave you interesting tips to help your enterprise grow! Thank you Rene for sharing all these precious information!