Elektro-Apparatebau Olten (EAO) is a leading manufacturer of electromechanical miniature push buttons and tact switches, keypads and keyboards, front panel engineering, changeover switches and SMT components. With approximately 650 employees and a turnover of 125 million Swiss Francs, EAO’s objective is to penetrate the world market.
EAO’s products have applications in industrial electronics, medical, computer, telecommunications, aeronautical and military markets. The key to the company’s success is that each product range complements the others.
In recent years the market has changed, and so has the strategy for the EAO sales. Special customer designs and individual needs have to be fulfilled. EAO has introduced two projects which have been created to encourage a change in culture and organisation from a components supplier to a supplier of complete systems: TOCUS - Total Customer Satisfaction - covers all business units and aims to meet these objectives. The second project is the Solution-Sale which has been positively received within EAO.
The EAO group started a SPIN® Selling project for their German-speaking salesforce recently. The main task for this project was to meet the growing complexity of the sales proposition and to develop the skills to be able to identify the ‘right’ solution. As part of this project, Huthwaite Deutschland GmbH delivered one SPIN® Manager programme and two SPIN® Selling programmes.
“We have to be excellent in understanding the Human Machine Interface Market applications. We have to advise and recommend the ‘right’ solution to our customers and therefore ensure that we have solved their problem and helped them to achieve full end-user satisfaction. This is a key part of our strategy”, emphasises Manfred Sweekhorst, managing director of EAO Lumitas in Essen.
The project is in the early phases and Huthwaite Deutschland will be offering further support to EAO.
“We have to advise and recommend the ‘right’ solution to our customers and therefore ensure that we have solved their problem and helped them to achieve full end-user satisfaction. This is a key part of our strategy."
Manfred Sweekhorst, Managing Director, EAO Lumitas