Jürgen Köber: Rhenish looseness and Swabian thoroughness
Jürgen Köber from Cologne had the best prerequisites when he joins MAPAL as a sales consultant in 1985: the trained toolmaker with a master craftsman's certificate had travelled the world as a fitter for many years, gaining a great deal of experience in both technical matters and in dealing with customers.
His main customer is Ford in Cologne, which he initially looks after from his daughter's former children’s room. It is part of his sales strategy - and his understanding - to drive to the Ford plant every morning, speak to the technicians there and look after the MAPAL tools. “The advice and support are the most important things,” he still says today, “these are not tools that were self-explanatory or which you buy like a drill.”
This support also includes that, for quick solutions on customer requirements Frieder Häberle's testing department becomes active or carries out trial machining. Jürgen Köber sees this as the decisive unique selling point of MAPAL; he sees himself as a problem solver for customers. As such, he even encourages the development of the external reamer.
Because the sales concept is so successful, he experiences the rapid growth of MAPAL as well as the increasing number of sales representatives. They are organised into ten sales territories in 2000, later into four. Jürgen Köber becomes Area Sales Manager Northwest. With his 23 colleagues in the sales area, he looks after North Rhine-Westphalia, the Benelux countries and northern France.
As time goes by, he learns to appreciate the Swabian thriftiness and thoroughness of the company, even if he has to drive his spartan first company car - without a radio and second wing mirror - until the exhaust falls off. Like many other challenges, he takes it as it is with a Rhenish casualness that is sometimes alienating in Swabia. For example, when he regularly brings the employees in the sales department in Aalen small gifts during his visits.
When Jürgen Köber retires in 2020, the coronavirus pandemic prevents him from having a happy farewell party. Nevertheless, he looks back on his 35 years at MAPAL with satisfaction. “I was lucky and jumped on the right train at the right time. There was never a standstill, things were always moving forward. That was great.”
