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vialogO r g a t e c 2 0 1 2 S p e c i a l I s s u e

A great success!viasit at Orgatec 2012

impulseIntelligence meets designMore on page 6-7

re-pendThe first pendulum shell chairfrom viasitMore on page 4-5

Orgatec 2012Record visitors againthis year...More on page 8-11

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vialogS p e c i a l I s s u e 2 0 1 2

We have a very successful Orgatec 2012 behind us and the fair was an important step in the development of viasit and the enhan-cement of our brand image. I would like to take this opportunity to thank our development team and designers Ralf Umland and Mar-tin Ballendat, who were the focus of our stand with our new product ranges impulse and re-pend and the reinterpreted and already very successful scope range.

Overall, at viasit, 2012 has been a very eventful year. A year during which we have invested in our business in a number of ways, with our new website and general marketing activities and the reinteg-ration of logistics, sales and product development and last but not least, the agenda has been set for a successful future thanks to the development of new products.

re-pend has demonstrated an emotional appeal to our customers and visitors from the design community and with this reaction we will be able to tap into new target groups over the coming months and years with this product.

impulse impressed, above all, due to its new technology, clean crisp lines and sensational comfort. The whole viasit team is alrea-dy looking forward to the official sales launch of both products in the spring of 2013.

As you can see, we are heading into the New Year together well prepared and with a healthy portion of optimism.

Best wishes,

Thomas SchmeerManaging Director

Dear Partners,

Editorial

Logistics Improved quality of service and cost savings ............................

New in Sales Michael Wahlberg ....................................................

re-pend Timeless and elegant design .................................................

Interview Martin Ballendat ............................................................

impulse Modern comfort and clean lines ..........................................

Interview Ralf Umland ................................................................

Orgatec 2012 Record visitor numbers to the viasit-stand ..........................

Relaunch New concept and interesting value-added ............................

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Contents

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The viasit team deliver enhancedlogistics quality

Our new in-house logistics team has been in action since April 2012 and has already deli-vered great succes.

Two main priorities were achieved with the re-integration of logistics into our factory. For one, we were able to counteract the increasing cost pressure from the haulage industry and second-ly, significantly improve the quality of our delivery service. “The majority of our domestic deliveries are now processed by our own fleet. Our delivery performance has substantially improved and we

are considerably more flexible now, particularly as far as delivery within a project is concerned”, says Holger Pfeil, Head of Logistics. As a part of this new strategic focus and in-house expertise we have also acquired new, more reliable, logistics partners for our European export business.

Improved quality of service and cost savings

New support in Sales

viasit has repeatedly and deliberately strengthened its Sales team for domestic business.

Michael Wahlberg will support our Regional Sales Manager and specialist retail partners as the per-son responsible for „Strategic Sales“. The aim is to provide additional and strategic support to our partners for major projects in addition to the exis-ting support within the sales region.

Michael Wahlberg

Mr Wahlberg brings exceptional experience to our team and has worked in specialist retail for many years with the Samas Group and most recently at Interstuhl.

Michael Wahlberg is 35 years old, married and has one daughter.

We welcome him to our team!

Michael Wahlberg:Strategic Sales Department

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re-pendInnovative shell chair, timeless and elegant design

re-pend-Design: Martin Ballendat

re-pend, which achieves an exceptional design standard, is the result of a collaboration with de-signer Martin Ballendat, the designer of scope, and viasits own in house R+D team.

re-pend delivers dynamic sitting with its functional concept. With this product, viasit is expanding its portfolio, emphasising its design focused brand and widening its appeall to architects, designers, speci-fiers, design conscious companies and residential opportunities. re-pend can be ordered from March 2013 and is available in white, red and black with the option of upholstery at a very affordable price.

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Interview:Interview with designer Martin Ballendat

Please explain the basic concept of re-pend to our readers:re-pend is a classic, timeless, tilting shell chair. Its spe-cial feature is its movement which is produced by a bearing, intelligently fixed above the pivot at hip height, which is a similar principle to that of a swing. We use the swing principle to our advantage with the pendu-lum movement of the re-pend shell, as here as well the body‘s centre of gravity lies below the tilting axis. This development is an innovation within the market sector.

Where do you see the pendulum shell chair being used by customers and do you think that viasit can tap into new customer groups with the re-pend?The chair not only has the functional quality descri-bed but its good design with the striking support frame also visualises this function; this is a sophis-ticated design. Both qualities, i.e. form and function open up new target groups. New functional areas of use are, for example, anywhere several swivel chairs need to be accommodated in a small space. Think about “bench workstations”, which are not al-ways standard office workstations but are often for-med by just one long table with a number of seats where work is done on a temporary basis. As a re-sult of its formal quality, re-pend should also apeall to architects.

Do you think that use in private areas will also play a part here?Yes. Most certainly! As you don‘t generally have huge working areas at home either. There is perhaps a bu-reau or small table converted into a workspace, where you don‘t want a huge chair. That‘s why very tra- ditional office chairs are not ideal for living areas, how-ever good the design is. re-pend provides the ideal prerequisites for this with its classic shape, which is associated with the 1960s.

With pure, viasit has taken an approach that is being continued with the scope, impulse and re-pend. Where do you see viasit‘s positioning in the medium-term?I think it was right descsion to take an approach of line-ar, modern and clear design with these four products. Despite this, I believe that there is a clear distinction between re-pend and scope. As an international de-signer it is my job to create innovations. With re-pend the special feature is the visualised pendulum, with scope the spidery back suspension combined with the flexibility due to the pendolo pivot. Both models are instantly recognisable and unique compared to the competition. Although that is both a good and bad thing at the same time. As someone with excellent

knowledge of the market, I know that the best selling products are usually good redesigns. Pioneering pro-ducts open up markets, redesigned products validate and exploit these. A company‘s portfolio is well served if they have a clever mix. I believe that viasit has acted very intelligently here.

How do you assess the current market situation and who are your strongest competitors at the moment?I believe that viasit has developed from a classic swivel chair producer into a more sophisticated, retail focused brand since Orgatec 2010 with its clear products such as scope, impulse and re-pend, its ambitious trade fair booth and the company policy over the last few years. Active marketing should now be pushed in order to make further progress in this direction. The new target group for viasit should be Architects. Naturally, it will be difficult for us to establish ourselves in this field but it will be worth it.

We also spoke together at Orgatec 2010, back then you praised viasit as a partner for development, would you reemphasise this statement from back then today and what is the significant difference between the two projects?My team and I really enjoy our collaboration with via-sit. It is a real pleasure working together with them as they have a professional development team and the management makes clear decisions and then sticks to them. I would still highlight these positive attributes. With scope, I was involved in viasit‘s core business, with re-pend we were entering a whole new ball game; that‘s a major difference. If I could work with viasit again in the core business for the next project, it would certainly be more pleasant for me. This year I was also able to exercise significant influence over viasit‘s overall image with my trade fair design and proposal for the re-pend brochure design. I am delighted that they still place their trust in me.

Mr Ballendat, thank you for the interesting, exten-sive interview.

Martin Ballendat:1958 born in Bochum

1983 qualification in Industrial Design at the University of Folkwang, Essen

1983 – 1986 designer for Sedus Stoll AG in Waldshut

1986 – 1995 Head of Design and Product Develop-ment at Wiesner Hager, Austria

Since 1995, independent design company now with 18 employees and two locations in Germany and Austria

Since then, has worked for over 30 furniture brands in the contract and residential sector in 11 countries. Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Holland, UK, USA, Poland, France, Thailand and Egypt.

Over 100 design prizes and awards including: 17 x Red Dot, 2 x Best of the Best, IF-Award Hannover, Best of Neocon Chicago Gold and Silver, Good Design Award Athenaeum, Best of the Best Interior Innovations Award, Focus LGA Stuttgart in Gold and Silver, Design Plus Award, Materialica Award, IIDEX Gold Award Canada, Saarland State Prize, Josef Binder Award in Gold, Aus-trian State Prizes, awards in Belgium, Holland, Japan, China, Hungary and many more.

Member of the Rotary Club,

married with four children.

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impulseA work chair with exceptional comfort and clean lines“All of our our experience and customer feedback from the last few years is invested in this product”, says Werner Schmeer. With this expertise, viasit has created a product, which sets new standards in de-sign, ergonomics, ease of use, comfort and price.

With its expanding International markets, the Company

needed a product that complied with all international stan-

dards and this was a key factor during the development

process. The entire product range will be available in an

upholstered and mesh version. The work chairs deliver

class leading ergonomics, features and comfort at an af-

fordable price and is suitable for all aspects of the work-

place. impulse is available to order from March 2013

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What were the greatest challenges that had to be overcome before and during the develop-ment of the impulse?It was clear from the very beginning that the product had to be positioned in an aggressively priced mar-ket segment, where tenders and framework agree-ments play a key role and it was therefore obvious from the start that the product had to be an all-singing, all-dancing, all-rounder. viasit‘s target aim to create a work chair at a price comparable to the linea was a huge challenge, as it needed to be significantly more modern, offer more and enhanced functions and provide even more options. From the start we focused very clearly on the operating concept desi-gned and developed for scope. Another important point was the basic modular principle, which was to avoid different components being required for the different back designs for the upholstered and mesh versions. This principle had to be applied to both the work and meeting chairs and the swivel chairs and thanks to these functional frames, the entire product group follows a clear design line.

Where do you see impulse in viasit‘s product portfolio?I see its position in the mid-price segment with am-bitions upwards and downwards, depending on fea-tures. impulse meets the required EN, NPR, British Standard and ANSI/BIFMA for International busi-ness. The product has a unique selling point on the market with its operating concept and design stan-dards and in my opinion, viasit has taken exactly the right approach with its foresight and vision.

You were at the trade fair and presented the pro-duct yourself. How happy are you with the visi-tors‘ response to the new product?I presented the product myself and talked to many people at the trade fair. It was important to me to ex-plain the product from a designers perspective, as this contributes to customers and retailers having a better understanding of the development process and thus the finished product. Customers received the product very positively due to its many options, different settings, ease of use it and the clear design line throughout the entire product family.

With pure and scope, viasit has taken an ap-proach that is being continued with impulse and re-pend. Are you happy about this development and where do you see the Companys positio-ning in the medium-term?

I definitely welcome this. I previously managed pro-duct development at viasit for several years and du-ring this time developed futura and filigra, which initi-ated this approach. As pure tends to follow the “less is more” principle and has an object-based focus, I would not compare it with the right approach. For many years viasit was a classic office chair manu-facturer and did not really take on the competition in the contract sector. With products like re-pend and pure we are now positioning ourselves more stron-gly in this sector.

The office furniture market is very susceptible to fluctuations and reacts very sensitively to economic trends. How do you see the current market situation in this context?The office furniture market has to battle with the same slumps as other industries. Market luctua-tions are becoming more and more sensitive and happening faster. It is important to have a good port-folio and to develop products such as scope and im-pulse. However, the approach of independence, the design focus that viasit has taken and also the colla-boration with independant designers is the situation. The fact that viasit has invested in the right products over the last two years means we are ideally positi-oned on the market. It was exactly the right decision to launch scope on the market and to follow up with equally as important products, such as impulse.

Mr Umland, thank you for the interesting, exten-sive interview.

Ralf Umland:1959 born Troisdorf (Cologne/Bonn)

1987 qualified in Industrial Design at the Bergischen Universität Gesamthochschule Wuppertal

1988 Product Development Manager, Design and Mar-keting at Selecta Werk Bank- und Kasseneinrichtun-gen, Arnsberg

1993 Project management of Product Development and Design at König + Neurath Büromöbel-Systeme, Karben

1996 Product Development and Design Manager at Viasit Bürositzmöbel, Neunkirchen

2004 Founded design company, Ralf Umland Design, Product Design and Development

National and international design awards

Teaching: Lectures at the Saar Academy of Fine Arts, Saarbrücken and at the Hochschule Coburg, Design Faculty, Integrated Product Design

Interview:Interview with designer Ralf Umland

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Orgatec 2012Record numbers visit our stand

Bucking the trend of ever decreasing visitor numbers at international trade fairs, viasit re-corded a 40% increase in footfall compared to Orgatec 2010 – an incredible success!

This remakable increase pays testament to the companys continuous programme of product deve-lopment and International expansion policies over the past few years.

The stars of our show were the new re-pend and impulse products which were received with great energy, excitement and enthusiam by our custo-mers and new visitors alike and we look forward op-timistically to a succesful 2013. Our succesful show was celebrated together with our customers at our legendary Thursday night party.

The pictures speak for themselves, enjoy some impressions of the trade fair over the next few pages.

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RelaunchNew website delivers more energy and information

More than just seating “The presence of our furniture display was also strengthened so that our customers see us as an office furniture brand and not just a chair company in the future”, says Jörg Bur, Head of Marketing at viasit. The sophisticated and high quality products by Swiss company system4 are marketed exclu-sively by viasit and complement their own product range perfectly.

Better service within the networkAnother important component was to increase the services offered within the network. Several more improvements were introduced with the new web-site and besides the product information that is accessible to the public, important information is stored and available in a separate customer login area. Specialist retail partners have the option of downloading all important material once they have

New contemporary and user-friendly concept “viasits new website is the result of implementing a consistent, customer-focused concept”, says Jürgen Philippi, Managing Director of the zweiP advertising agency from Saarbrücken “Whilst the focus was on product families on the previous website, individual products take centre stage on the new website.”

The new concept was achieved using a different navigation approach and cleaner more crisp pages where product images are clearly presented in lar-ge format. The new navigation concept is no lon-ger focused on ranges but on the purpose of each respective model and as a result visitors find their way around without requiring any knowledge of in-dividual ranges.The significant changes follow the fact that viasit is now perceived as a design focused brand and is more interesting for Architects, Desig-ners and private users.

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RelaunchNew website delivers more energy and information

logged in. And that‘s not all, with the re-launch of the website a web-to-print portal was integrated, which allows partners to directly order standardised and personalised marketing documents to use in shor-wooms or marketing campaigns.

This makes it easier to support partners and opens up the possibility of acting quickly and effectively on the market. Our new website is an important com-ponent in the further development of our brand and provides the perfect basis for future marketing.

Facebook – social mediafor new target groups In future, we will expand our social media activities with Facebook. “With our new products, especially re-pend and system4, we are becoming increasin-gly more interesting for new target groups”, says Thomas Schmeer, viasit Managing Director.

In order to apeal to new target groups we need to use new tools and Facebook is a more interesting and better basis to easily and directly reach out to them. “In order to stimulate new market good de-velopment, it is important that we are directly sup-ported by our partners”, says Jörg Bur. “I would therefore kindly ask you, our worldwide partners, to visit us on Facebook, become a fan and forward this

information on to your own customers and partners. This is easy, stimulating, great funand will positively influence joint projects.”

As our fan on Facebook, you are also always up-to-date with the latest topics and information, often before any “official” communication is underway.

We wish all of our customers and partners a peace-ful, relaxing and very Happy Christmas and a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year.

Concept & Design: www.zweip.com

Photography: viasit GmbH, Wolfgang Klauke (Orgatec 2012)

I m p r i n tviasit Bürositzmöbel GmbHBoxbergweg 4D - 66538 NeunkirchenGermanyTel. +49 (0) 6821-2908-0Fax +49 (0) 6821-2908-290info@viasit.com

http://www.viasit.de/en/home.html