All your spare parts and repair materials with one click (PES Wind Magazine 6/2020)

Alle Ersatzteile und Reparaturmaterialien mit einem Klick

Stefan Weber, Gründer und Geschäftsführer von WINDSOURCING.COM, hat mit dem PES Wind Magazin gesprochen. PES WIND: "Es war ein großartiges Gespräch und wir waren beeindruckt von den neuen Lösungen, die WINDSOURCING.COM entwickelt und umgesetzt hat. Von einem Startup zu einem Online-B2B-Shop, 9 Jahre später und mit einigen der Top-Player der Windindustrie als Kunden und Lieferanten.

PES Wind caught up with Stefan Weber, the founder and Managing Director of WINDSOURCING.COM. It was a great meeting and we were impressed with the new additions to their solutions. From a small online service to an online B2B shop, 9 years later, boasting some of the top players in the wind industry as customers, or suppliers.

PES: Hi Stefan, it’s a real pleasure to welcome you back to PES Wind. We’ve spoken a lot to you and your team over the last few years and we have seen your company go from strength to strength. As always, we are happy to say that once again we have many new readers, so for their benefit please could you give us a brief overview of WINDSOURCING.COM?

Stefan Weber: Thank you very much for having us again. I am very happy that we are able to talk to PES Wind bring you up to date on what’s happening, In short, our business model can be described as follows: supplying all spare  parts, accessories, and materials for the maintenance and repair of wind turbines, from a single source. In short, everything that the service part of the wind energy sector demands.This is the business model that Windsourcing.com launched at the beginning of the last decade. We offer an online catalogue with over 50,000 references, and have customers all over Europe, as well as in Japan, South Korea, Australia, Canada, United States, America Central and South. The idea of founding a specialized company in the supplying spare parts and consumables for the wind turbine market came about as a result of a purchasing group, which we set up with other independent service companies in the wind sector after sales market. What we wanted was to make clear the availability of spare parts and repair materials on an online platform. As a consequence, we started up in December 2011. The market reaction was almost immediate. Very soon we were being contacted directly by the service companies for their demands. As a result, Windsourcing.com became a specialized distributor and assumed the purchasing and warehousing of products and solutions demanded by the wind energy market, from Vestas, Siemens Gamesa, etc. and also responsibility for the logistical support to our customers. 

PES: Are you finding the wind market is still a growing area, or are things slowing down? 

SW: The wind energy market is definitely a growing market. Of course, there are currently areas and regions where the sector has problems, e.g. in Germany, but in general the market is still expanding. The benefits to the offshore wind energy market especially contribute to this growth, which we will certainly continue.  

PES: We have heard you have some new partnerships and products; please could you bring us up to date on these? 

SW: WINDSOURCING.COM has expanded its product range, for example: Wind Power Coatings by Bergolin GmbH & Co. KG and the ALEXIT® BladeRep® product range by Mankiewicz Gebr. & Co, for the maintenance and repair of wind turbines and rotor blades. We are pleased to have won further major brands from Bergolin® and Mankiewicz, and to be a trading and logistics partner for these products with immediate effect. Bergolin and Mankiewicz offer product lines for the coating and repair of surfaces, particularly for the wind industry, which we can now also offer to our customers. 

PES: We see that you started a B2B online shop for wind turbines in February, why did you decide to do this, how does it work and what are the benefits to your customers?

SW: In February, we took our next big step and launched a B2B-Online-Shop for wind turbine spare parts. From now on our customers can navigate in a login section of the shop and add the products to the shopping cart and order them quickly and conveniently with one click. We have all the usual spare parts and repair materials for maintenance and repair in stock and we offer a large part of them for direct sale through our shop. The big advantage for the customer is that the current stock is directly visible.

PES: We know you have a regular stand at WindEnergy Hamburg and 2020 will be no exception, how and why is this such an important event for WINDSOURCING? 

SW: Windsourcing has been present at WindEnergy Hamburg since the first event in 2014. Naturally, we will be participating in the next edition in September 2020. Based on our experience of the last exhibitions, we are expecting visitors from all over the world again this year, and we are looking forward to welcoming our current clients and to meeting new customers and business partners in person. During the fair we will introduce new products and we will present our solutions for the wind industry after sales market. 

PES: It seems like business is expanding, how are you managing the work force, have you needed to take on extra staff? 

SW: Yes, absolutely. Our business is growing  continuously and this in several ways. On the one hand our product range is increasing from week to week due to gaining new supply partners. In addition, our intensive efforts to develop new markets are making themselves felt. This year we have already received orders from Brazil, this is a first for us. Thirdly, fortunately we are also recording a continuous increase in the number of new customers. Some of the measures leading to this positive development include website optimization, digitalization and communication in trade media. We manage our workload in terms of preparing offers and processing orders with the help of digitalized processes and tools, which we have continuously developed since the foundation of WINDSOURCING.com and continue to professionalize. A large part of the processing of enquiries and orders is handled automatically using our own tools. This also includes the communication to our warehouse. We are looking for new colleagues especially for the purpose of business development in existing and new markets worldwide, i.e. for support on a more strategic level. 

PES: Does this mean that Spain and Middle and South America are new target areas for you and geographically speaking, are there any other markets you would like to break into?

SW: We expect strong growth in Southern Europe. WINDSOURCING.com’s main market is Europe, yes, but in recent years more and more requests have come to us from other markets, such as North and South America. 

PES: What makes your service standout from the competition, why should customers choose you? 

SW: The advantage of WINDSOURCING.com is our extended supplier network and close collaboration with our supply partners. Thus, we have an extended knowledge of the products and the necessities of the wind energy market. Also, our experience and professionalism in the logistics we offer to our customers is one of the most important advantages. We are a distributor focused only on the wind industry, and that gives us advantage. Both in terms of knowledge of the market as well as the short time it takes us to find product solutions for our customers. For example, there is no other distributor in the market that brings together so many specific products for rotor blade repairs as we do. And, on the other hand, we are very flexible and quick at satisfying the needs of customers and suppliers.

PES: What goals have been set by WINDSOURCING for 2020? 

SW: We have already fulfilled one of the goals set for this year: the launch of our online store in February 2020. The online shop provides our customers with access to our large range of products, our stock, stock availability, delivery times... This makes it easy for them to place their orders. The second goal for 2020 is to continue adding new manufacturers to our catalogue and thus expand our product range. With this end in mind, we expect a strong growth in sales, especially from customers in southern European countries.

PES: What do you think will be the greatest opportunities and challenges for the wind industry in general and WINDSOURCING.COM in particular, over the next few years?

SW: The wind industry is under constant pressure to optimize every aspect of the business: costs, technology, processes, etc. I think the biggest challenge will be keeping up the impetus when adapting to these requirements. In the European wind industry, we hope that the Brexit will not affect the supply chains too much. We see the need for the serious involvement of the British wind industry, that’s to say both customers and suppliers. The challenge for us will be the further digitalization of our processes. As I mentioned earlier, we just launched our online B2B shop and, in the years to come, we would like to integrate many more features on our website. I am quite optimistic that we can keep up the momentum and reach our targets. One last thing, just to say we hope to welcome current and new customers and suppliers to meet with us at our booth at WindEnergy Hamburg in September. Please make a note to stop by.