Interview

Productmanagement

February 2021

What social development is currently having a strong influence on the products of the Delius brand?
From a product management perspective, the most important social issues for our business at the moment are sustainability and hygiene. These two topics are becoming more and more important and are currently being incorporated into our product development to a large extent.
For the product orientation of Delius, it has always been very important to deal with innovations at an early stage and, if possible, to be the first to do so. Our Deligard fabrics, Delitherm fabrics or our blackout innovation "Soft" are examples of how important it has always been for us to add special functions to fabrics in order to meet changing social demands.

Which of your personal skills benefit you here at Delius on a daily basis?
A great advantage in performing my job is the fact that I worked in the sales department at Delius for many years before taking on purchasing and product management responsibilities. This means that I am very familiar with customer requirements and the special features of the contract market. In addition, I benefit from my understanding of textile technology. We deal with very complex products with the most varied production stages on a daily basis. A certain textile know-how is indispensable.

What do you do to convince colleagues to change a product? 
Before a product development, I always ask myself the same questions, such as: What does the new product have to be able to do? Which target group do we want to address and what are the requirements of this target group? What are our target markets?  What are the sales expectations and what is the possible unique selling proposition?  In the end, we weigh up the opportunities and risks of a product development. A presentation of a new product idea that is well argued and documented with figures is usually convincing.

Thank you!