GRUP MANAU successfully implements an omnichannel business model between the professional and end customer
Construction and household material distributor MANAU, SA, Catalonia’s leading warehouse distributor founded in 1942, has switched its business model to the omnichannel system following a successful pilot test at its store in Badalona. The new model aims to engage with the end customer, which includes both professionals and private individuals, via the company’s physical stores in Barcelona, Badalona and Vallirana, and also using an online and offline strategy that puts professionals and end users/private individuals in contact with each another in order to carry out high quality projects, and always in collaboration with its Club del Reformista customers. Commenting on the initiative, Víctor Manau, Grup Manau’s Sales Director and member of the fourth generation of this family-run business, which recorded a turnover of 16 million euros in 2017, said that to achieve this goal, we gradually changed our business model, moving from being a product distributor to becoming a purveyor of services and experiences. Furthermore, Víctor Manau, pointed out that the end customer is no longer simply looking for a product, but also a service, and this is precisely why we have adapted our business model to the new market reality.
Our primary goal is to meet the needs of professional customers, construction companies and property developers alike by setting up a Project Management Department that provides a complete end-to-end service (taking care of planning, execution, product selection, supervision of the works and rendering), both to the end customer and professional according to their needs. The added value we aim to achieve with this model, added Manau, is to become experts in project sales and consultancy so that this expertise will directly impact the end customer who is, in short, the one requesting the service, and to whom we must provide technical and practical advice with a single goal – to enhance the comfort and well-being of the end user.
Membership of Ibergroup, one of the largest multi-specialist distributor associations in Spain, allowed Manau to professionalise and optimise the change process, develop its own high-performance brands and build synergies with the other members, which also allowed it to develop strategies focused on creating added value.
