Dusseldorf Marcus Diekmann is sometimes quite extreme in his business principles. “I believe in the principle of the part-time CEO,” says the managing partner of the bicycle retailer Rose Bikes. A full-time CEO interferes too much in day-to-day business and gives his team too little freedom. That is why the entrepreneur always has at least one second job in another company at the same time.
On January 10th, the Rose Bikes boss takes on a particularly tricky part-time job. He becomes managing director of International Brands Company KG (IBC), a subsidiary of the Düsseldorf-based Peek & Cloppenburg group of companies. His mission: to revamp the traditional fashion retailer’s high-turnover, but largely unknown, own brands.
He will manage IBC together with the previous managing director Konstantin Kirchfeld, who will continue to be responsible for purchasing and production. “I’m really looking forward to working with you,” says Kirchfeld. Diekmann brings important strengths in sales, marketing and digital business. In addition, he should be responsible for expanding management.
Patrick Cloppenburg personally, boss and co-partner of the family company, lured Diekmann to Düsseldorf. The 39-year-old apparently has high hopes for the shirt-sleeved digital experts. But very different worlds collide in this ambitious project.
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“I’m not an expert in fashion,” says Diekmann with disarming honesty. “But I know my way around brands.” There are so many great small, medium and large brands in the fashion industry, but also interchangeable brands that there is still a lot of potential. “It is clear to us: brands need their own character, just taking beautiful photos will not be enough for us,” he emphasizes.
Sales also via Amazon and social networks
Apparently, he also sees a lot of potential in the own brands that IBC looks after. “P & C’s own brands are also an important segment. They have good products, but are barely perceived as a brand by customers,” observes Diekmann. So far, they have often been the inconspicuous alternative to the manufacturer’s brands.
But with enormous importance. The Düsseldorf family-run company with almost 140 stores in Germany, Austria and Eastern Europe does not give any figures. But according to publications in the Federal Gazette, sales in Germany before the slumps as a result of the corona crisis were just under 1.4 billion euros. According to insiders, 25 to 30 percent of this will come from the sale of own brands. And that without explicitly advertising these brands.
The fashion retailer has 140 branches in Germany, Austria and Eastern Europe.
(Photo: Peek & Cloppenburg)
That should change in the future. “The store brands are to become real brands that are also sold directly to customers via digital channels,” announced Diekmann. The brands would have to function independently. At the same time, they should attract more customers to the shops by increasing their awareness.
IBC will initially focus on two or three brands. “Jake * s and Review in particular have mega potential,” explains Diekmann. “But I could also imagine bundling business under a new brand.” In particular, digital sales are to be expanded via platforms such as Amazon. As a sales channel, messenger services and social networks would be even more important than your own online shop in the future.
It is not P & C’s first attempt to make more of its own brands. A few years ago, the company tried to market the McNeal brand outside of its own branches and even opened its own McNeal branches, but stopped the attempt in 2016. Two years earlier, the company had tried to make the Review brand better known with a large advertising campaign – without much success either.
Open management culture with a lot of personal responsibility
Diekmann now wants to tackle this more fundamentally. “You can also become a lifestyle with basic articles,” he is convinced. He wanted to appeal to the general public, with top quality at top prices. “Regardless of the positioning, it has to be clear, courageous and it has to be pulled through at full throttle.”
And that’s exactly how the culture should be. “We want to build real consumer brands, and for that we also need a very special culture in the team,” he says.
His résumé so far shows what such a culture should look like under Diekmann. The 42-year-old comes from the start-up world. In 2010 he founded the e-commerce agency Shopmacher and later co-founded the online agency Kommerz. After that, he first headed the digital transformation at Matratzen Concord and was then head of digital at the Dutch bicycle manufacturer Accell. At the beginning of 2019 he went to the bicycle dealer Rose Bikes, where he is now CEO and co-partner.
He is also involved in start-ups, for example together with national goalkeeper Manuel Neuer in the software company VoteBase. He also advises companies on digital transformation.
Diekmann, who does virtually everyone without asking, lives an open management culture at Rose Bikes with a lot of personal responsibility on the part of the employees. “At Rose, we managed to act like a start-up, even though we are a traditional company,” he says.
Start-up spirit for the traditional retailer
And he wants to bring as much of this spirit as possible into his new job at IBC, for which he has reserved two days a week. “My new team can also rely on the familiar start-up spirit,” he promises.
Many managers in the traditional world of P&C might be a little suspicious of this bird of paradise with no experience in the classic textile trade. There is still a lot of thinking in terms of hierarchies and careers, the “you” is more of a standard in everyday dealings.
In addition, after the sales losses of the past few years, the IBC parent is more focused on cost thinking than on a creative departure. You can also see that in the top managers that CEO Cloppenburg has recently brought in for important positions.
Stephan Fanderl, who was previously head of Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof, has been on the board since the beginning of the year. The traditional trade manager was more involved in restructuring and had to pull through the merger of Karstadt and Kaufhof – including savings and downsizing.
Edgar Hert has been responsible for strategic purchasing at P&C since last year. The ambitious manager was previously at Daimler and is now supposed to lead negotiations with suppliers at the fashion retailer’s much tougher than before, according to the industry.
So it is probably a good thing that the new addition Diekmann has its own separate area in the IBC subsidiary. “Everyone who knows me knows that I have a strong opinion and that I only subordinate myself to common goals, but not to titles or hierarchies,” he emphasizes. “This creates my freedom for creativity and innovation.”
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