Interview with Tomáš Pimpara
| Mr. Tomas Pimpara is the Head of Logistics at Rossmann Czech Republic, Germany’s second-largest drugstore chain. He holds full responsibility for warehousing and flow of goods in the company while creating middle-term and long-term strategies. |
1. Technology development and digitization play an essential role in the successful expansion of business. What solutions have you implemented to optimize your processes? I would like to highlight the latest technology for voice picking, where a headset is not needed. It jumped our work productivity by leaps and bounds. We also develop internal warehouse software for measuring and evaluating labour productivity, attendance and management of other support processes taking place in the warehouse. We are currently testing a paperless receipt of goods at our stores. 2. E-commerce sector is booming. How do you choose your strategic partners to provide the best possible customer experience and efficient last-mile deliveries when it comes to the infrastructure? E-comm is a new sector for us, we only launched our e-shop at the end of 2021. When choosing partners, we look primarily at the added value they can offer our customers. We want to make full use of our network of stores and prepare packages for collection within a few tens of minutes. So far we are doing great. Of course, we also offer home delivery, where we will invest time and resources in 2022. 3. The economy suffered its most significant setback since the Great Depression. Looking at how the economy has been doing in recent months and considering the inflation, what kind of changes/adaptation in your strategy you had to undertake at Rossmann? We were very lucky, our stores remained open during the epidemic. Nevertheless, we had to learn to respond much more flexibly, especially in terms of changes in consumer behaviour and the strength of our stores. We have learned many new things and most of them will remain in our portfolio of crisis solutions. We are already feeling inflationary pressure, so this year we are focusing a lot on increasing efficiency so that we do not have to fully reflect the rising input prices to the customer. 4. The issue of sustainability is growing in intensity. How does Rossmann participate in the green approach? I dare say that we have been among the best retailers for a long time. I don’t want to speak for the whole company, but in the case of logistics I have not used stretch film for many years, we supply everything in stores in returnable packaging, we have a very high penetration of pooling pallets and we have LPG vehicles in our fleet. We are also currently dealing with waste issues. |
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ROSSMANN, Germany’s second largest drugstore chain operates more than 4,000 stores in nine European countries and employs more than 56,000 people. ROSSMANN in the Czech Republic is a joint venture of Dirk Rossmann GmbH Germany and A.S. Watson Hong Kong. A.S. Watson is the largest health & beauty retailer with a worldwide turnover of 17 billion euros and 15,000 stores. In the Czech Republic, ROSSMANN has 158 stores with an annual turnover of CZK 4,5 billion. ROSSMANN follows the needs and wishes of its customers. ROSSMANN is the only company to have developed an exclusively digital loyalty program in the application – ROSSMANN CLUB. In its modern stores, ROSSMANN offers customers, in addition to a wide and high-quality range of branded products, also products of its own brands ISANA, Babydream, enerBIO, Alterra, Ideenwelt / World of Ideas / and others. The products of the private labels Alterra and enerBiO were the first in the Czech Republic to receive the GREEN BRANDS quality seal award for sustainable business. ROSSMANN is a leader in the field of sustainability within its operations, as evidenced by the project in selected Drogerie stores without packaging. Since In 2009, the company redistributed more than 62 mil. CZK to help children at risk and families in need.
www.rossmann.cz |