Bad Münder. Although rising energy and raw material costs, unrest on financial markets and the high value of the Euro have had an effect on domestic and foreign business in the office furniture industry, Wilkhahn was able to expand its excellent results from the previous year even more in the first six months of 2008. A key reason is the strategy of balancing out business cycle risks by means of broad-based, international business: in 2007, sales outside Germany accounted for 72 percent of the total, 50 percent of which was achieved in markets outside Europe. In the first half of 2008, stable developments in Germany, Switzerland, the Benelux countries, Eastern Europe and the Middle East were particularly positive. Wilkhahn Inc., the US sales subsidiary founded at the beginning of this year with its showroom and headquarters in New York, also made a highly positive contribution to this development. This more than offset the difficult market conditions in Great Britain and Spain.

Opened this June: the new showroom of Wilkhahn Inc. in the famous Starrett-Lehigh Building, New York, Manhattan. Photo: Wilkhahn

International market leader for high-quality conference furniture
Wilkhahn Management feels there are excellent reasons as to why the company will develop better than the market for the rest of the industry in 2008 too. “We are investing heavily in existing markets and in new ones. This has enabled us to consolidate and expand our position as international market leader in the field of high-quality conference furniture”, says Holger Jahnke, President International Markets, by way of explaining this positive prognosis. The “Planning guide for conference and communication environments”, which was published by Birkhäuser Verlag this spring, as well as the “Interactive Planning Guide”, which can be accessed via the company’s website, are both great proof of the competence with which Wilkhahn has achieved top ranking throughout the world.

Trustworthy pioneer for sustainability
Moreover, the fact that Wilkhahn is one of the globally recognized pioneering companies in terms of conserving resources is now paying dividends in view of the general increase in environmental awareness. “Whilst the novelty of being green wears off quickly with many companies on closer scrutiny, we have already reduced our CO2 emissions at our main production site by nearly 80 percent. And above all, we have had a trustworthy, ecologically responsible design concept that comprises high quality, repair-friendliness, material coding and labelling and easy disassembly for 20 years now. Bad products remain bad and superfluous even if they have allegedly been produced in an environmental compatible manner”, says Wilkhahn President Dr. Jochen Hahne, putting the Wilkhahn approach into a nutshell. An increasing number of customers and architects throughout the world are now coming to realize that environmental compatibility is primarily a question of quality. Wilkhahn is the first office furniture manufacturer to join the “Deutsche Gesellschaft für nachhaltiges Bauen” (DGNB, German Society for Sustainable Building) with a view to incorporating the aspects of quality in use and the service life of the buildings concerned into the environmental label that is planned for Germany to be called “Deutsches Gütesiegel Nachhaltiges Bauen” (German Quality Label for Sustainable Building).

Since early this year, there has been virtually CO2 neutral production at Wilkhahn: the combined heat and power unit is run with renewable raw materials. Photo: Wilkhahn

Orgatec 2008 provides growth impetus
Further positive growth impetus is expected from Orgatec 2008, the most important international trade fair in the office furniture industry, which is taking place in Cologne in October. In addition to long-standing design classics and innovative furnishing solutions for conference and communication environments, Wilkhahn will be presenting several newly developed product lines. “Anyone who is familiar with Wilkhahn knows about the high demands that we make on new developments. Really good products need high investment and that is why architects, customers and market partners can look forward even more eagerly to the Wilkhahn Orgatec performance”, Holger Jahnke promises.

Further details:

Wilkhahn
Wilkening + Hahne GmbH+Co.KG
International Communications
Burkhard Remmers
Fritz-Hahne-Straße 8
D-31848 Bad Münder
Tel. +49 5042 999 169
Fax +49 5042 999 130
Mobile +49 172 544 9975
burkhard.remmers@wilkhahn.de

new:
mai public relations
Matthias Mai
Pasteurstraße 40
D-10407 Berlin
Tel. +49 30 8411 4808
Fax  +49 30 8411 4807
Mobile +49 163 325 0099
mm@maipr.com