From the area of marketing and sales promotion to digitalization and IT concepts, training and seminars, to central regulation and contract conclusions with the industry, Mitegro GmbH & Co. KG offers a wide range of services to strengthen the competitiveness of the nine medium-sized and owner-managed electrical wholesale companies.

"We work very closely with the wholesalers and suppliers, negotiating, for example, framework agreements with currently over 200 suppliers, from which the shareholders benefit," says Managing Director Mirco Rode. "On the other hand, the suppliers benefit from the significantly increased interest of the members, since, among other things, optimized processes in many functional areas ensure more efficient work. In addition, the suppliers are continuously present in the many communication channels, for example, in the transfer of expertise, right up to the sales staff."

Article data and AI

A major challenge for the wholesalers is the topic of article data. These are centrally queried by Mitegro from the suppliers, processed and optimized according to the requirements of the respective target groups, up to semantically optimized texts for end consumers.

"Currently, we have 4.1 million data," says Mirco Rode. "As the construction industry has become increasingly international, we also translate the data into several languages. Due to the rising complexity, we also make extensive use of Artificial Intelligence in article data management."

The company also exchanges information on the latest developments in the markets in professional discussions with its shareholders and suppliers. Another important area of Mitegro is the eAcademy. In the academy for suppliers and wholesalers, knowledge about new technologies and products is conveyed directly from the suppliers to the electrical wholesale traders and their customers through LIVE webinars or short videos.

The learning platform for electrical, domestic, and industrial technology makes content accessible 24/7. An integrated Learning Management System tests the training content afterwards, so that participants can receive a certificate of their newly acquired knowledge upon successful participation.

Ever-expanding network

Since the merger of two purchasing cooperations of electrical dealers in 2005, more activities have been added. With ELTROPA, the cooperation has its own craftsman brand for the electrical trade, offering various products for the areas of installation, equipment, data and network technology, as well as lighting technology.

The sister company KALOG is a service company for the procurement of cables and wires, buying them internationally, storing them, and making them available to wholesalers. Additionally, e-masters, a marketing and service cooperation of now over 3,500 medium-sized electrical and SHK trades and dealers nationwide, supports its members in the areas of marketing and advertising, further education, as well as organization and procurement.

"With e-masters, we have a subsidiary that directly supports thousands of craft businesses in their daily work," explains Mirco Rode. "e-masters provides over 170 services for the member companies, from vehicle leasing to personnel recruitment. This keeps us very close to the craft businesses. It also helps us with our future development. We are constantly improving the services for suppliers and wholesalers. We want to work even more efficiently and, for example, in the marketing area, we plan to centrally collect in a Digital Asset Management system the content that a supplier makes available to wholesalers in the future. We continue to see potential in our individual functional areas and want to bundle even more activities of individual wholesalers."