Europe's leading service platform
Austrian journalist Corinna Milborn welcomed the audience and began by congratulating the two managing directors of Markant AG, Dominik Scheid, and Markant Austria, Thomas Zechner, on the anniversary. The now firmly established event started as usual with a joint interview with the two managing directors, who looked back on the last year and talked about Markant's goals in the international context.
Despite the tense situation due to the past pandemic years, the ongoing war in Ukraine and the inflationary situation in Europe, Markant Group was able to grow internationally by 9% (2023) thanks to its many strong partners and also gain new partners in retail and industry and launch new services. «I see great opportunities for business development in the future», says Dominik Scheid.
«I can also paint a positive picture for Markant Austria for 2023», Thomas Zechner also confirmed. The development of settlement turnover is currently approx. 13% higher than in the previous year and again approx. 35% higher than in 2019. «This very good development once again shows the performance of our company for retail and industry in Austria», Zechner continues.
In the context of success, Scheid also particularly emphasised the values of Markant Group on which the company's vision is based: trust, cooperation and progress. The further development of the service portfolio is also based on these values. Data management services in particular are gaining in importance here. Scheid emphasised the relevance of industry partners: «Our focus is also increasingly on the needs of manufacturers and backward processes of the partners. Because this is where immense and unnecessary costs can often be saved.»
The Markant Business Platform was launched in August 2023 to offer all these and other services to customers who are not suppliers and retailers. «It is one of the largest projects in Markant's history and enables us to now make the service offering available to third-party customers», Scheid informed. «Our vision: future through cooperation. The goal: to become the leading digital B2B service platform in the FMCG & DIY industry. We already have the industry's largest and strongest network in Europe.» «For Austria, this specifically means continuing to push the GDSN pool together with Bayard as a data provider for all manufacturers, suppliers and retailers inside and outside Markant», says Zechner.
In conclusion, the managing directors once again emphasised that customer benefit is also the unit of measurement and the connecting factor to the partners. «There are big challenges, but we have the power to develop solutions together for our industries», Zechner encouraged.
