Happy new year!

No sooner is one bit of bad news out of the way than the next follows, and when you start thinking there’s light at the end of the tunnel, someone goes and switches it off. For us as a company, the last three years have been unbelievably challenging, both exciting and exhausting in equal measure. We’re constantly having to sort ourselves afresh and reorient ourselves, to keep getting to grips with all these bad tidings. But how long will things carry on going well? I keep coming back to this question, and I’m increasingly seeing the strain on the company and the people I meet. The proverbial fuse seems to be getting shorter and shorter.

Which makes it all the more important to surround ourselves with appreciation. Appreciation for ourselves and, more crucially still, appreciation for the people we talk to. If we can just put the principle of appreciation into practice, a lot of our problems will simply vanish by themselves. We’re happy to have so many valuable and highly regarded people around us. People we can meet on an equal footing, argue with, moan and be happy with. With whom we can enjoy the big things in life but also the small. And it’s these small things that make all the difference.

When we look back at the last 12 months and the last three years, even in the teeth of all the crises we’re left with a lot of remarkable moments for which we can be really grateful. We’re very grateful for this amazing company which is carried by these brilliant members of staff; we’re grateful to the many fantastic suppliers and partners who make us what we are. A passionate partner to customers and suppliers alike. Our success and our history would never have been feasible without the help of these fabulous companies. We are, as we should all be, aware of this every single day: it’s part of our DNA and, as such, the basis of everything we do. When we look into the future, if the forecasts are to be believed – or, more to the point, if we have no choice but to believe them – then this is what it will come down to in the coming weeks and months. Appreciation, trust and passion. Only if we manage to pull together, if we manage to work constructively together to find solutions and, above all, to keep looking ahead, will we be able to rise to the challenges of the coming months together. It’s our belief that the age of egoism is long dead and gone. We can and should all learn from one another, listen to, understand and accept each other. Accept that there are other opinions and views and that we’re not all the same. Because this is ultimately what will make the difference. We all have that certain special something; each of us has something which can enrich the rest of us. And we should band together to use what we have to make us stronger tomorrow than we were yesterday.

As entrepreneurs, we try to communicate this every day, and, notwithstanding all the stress and all the problems, we want to be a reliable, honest and open employer. A place where people feel understood, where they can unleash their potential and shape their future. A future with perspective, satisfaction and happiness.

In 2022, we managed to break all our records all over again. The year just gone was by a huge margin the best year in the company’s history! We have just shown once again at the bauma what we’re capable of. Four shops, a complete in-house till infrastructure, an amazing team of employees – and the feedback from all our customers was consistently positive.

That we’re also not going to shy away from further investment is clear from the AutoStore expansion, the STOROJET new build and the ongoing investment in our IT infrastructure. But we also invested more in new staff in 2022 than we’ve ever done before in the previous 27 years.

It’s in this spirit that we say THANK YOU – thank you for this amazing year, thank you for the open and honest dialogue, thank you for your appreciation, and thank you for the inspiration you’ve provided at all levels. We wish you all a healthy and successful start to the new year!