Wirtschaftsforum: Mr. Deckers, you have your roots in the area of the lettershop. What are your core competencies today?

Daniel Deckers: We started in 1992 with typical lettershop services. However, we quickly pursued a holistic process approach – keyword Business Process Outsourcing. This led us into marketing logistics. With services like IT and DTP services, address processing, and a very large digital printing area, we now support companies in dialogue marketing with mailings, response management, action mailings, and advertising logistics – all from one source. We round off our services with our own call center, which carries out and answers emails, chats, and calls (service hotlines) for our customers.

Wirtschaftsforum: To what extent has digitalization changed your business?

Daniel Deckers: The internet has led to a decline in information logistics (traditional information dispatch by letter or catalog). That's why we decided a few years ago to enter into e-commerce as a second line of business. It was an important strategic move and has saved us in the recent past (Corona). Today, traditional companies and many well-known start-ups are among our customers. They focus on product development, storytelling, and marketing. In turn, we take care of storage, reliable and fast shipping to the purchasers (B2C and B2B), as well as returns processing. This way, everyone focuses on their core competencies. We aim to act like an outsourced department of our customers. Currently, we are introducing new software that enables our customers to control our logistical services as if with a remote control.

Wirtschaftsforum: What's more important today? The print business or e-commerce?

Daniel Deckers: Before Corona, e-commerce accounted for about 30% of the business. Now, with around a 70% share of the overall business, it has become our most important pillar. However, one should not underestimate the print business. Even companies coming from the online sector rely on print communication.

Wirtschaftsforum: Digitalization is also a driver of sustainability. What changes does this bring to your business?

Daniel Deckers: We are ISO and environmentally certified. This has been important for large companies for a long time and is increasingly becoming important for startup companies as well. We see it as our responsibility to reduce our ecological footprint. For example, we have equipped our warehouses with photovoltaics and LED lighting. For several years now, we've had our own sustainability officer. This aligns very well with all customers who also market sustainable products.

Wirtschaftsforum: How have the crises of the past years affected your business?

Daniel Deckers: Before Corona, we had three warehouse locations. Afterward, we had to set up five additional locations in a short period. Since 2023, we have a state-of-the-art facility in Bodenheim with 22,000 pallet storage spaces as well as sufficient picking areas for action shipments. This allowed us to centralize our storage more again and we currently operate four locations. The ability to quickly adjust to changing market developments is indispensable.

Wirtschaftsforum: How do you see yourself in comparison to other providers in the market?

Daniel Deckers: atrikom fulfillment has set itself the goal of acting as a leading provider of customized fulfillment processes. We offer our customers comprehensive solutions by focusing on their needs and requirements and consistently aligning our services with them. Since we cover shipping to both B2C and B2B, we are interesting for many customers. Our company size guarantees our customers flexibility and customer orientation while ensuring stability, scalability, and efficiency. Last but not least, we are a family business, which many of our customers also greatly appreciate.

Wirtschaftsforum: Where do you want to see atrikom fulfillment in the long term in the market?

Daniel Deckers: We will continue to offer our customers modern, future-oriented, and interesting solutions in the future. This includes the latest technology, but also new opportunities such as artificial intelligence. However, the basis for all this in the future will also be well-educated and customer-oriented employees. To ensure this, our next major project is the realization of our own training and development academy. Only learning companies are future-proof.