Monday, December 20, 2021
32-year-old runs Fielmann
“With one black eye” through the pandemic
Two years ago, Marc Fielmann took over the sole management of the eyewear company of the same name and had to steer the family business through the greatest economic crisis of the post-war period. At the same time he is rebuilding the optician chain and investing millions in digitization.
Sell glasses online? Why not – nowadays you can order almost anything online, from t-shirts to dinner. Nevertheless, the matter is more complicated with glasses, “because there are certain measurements, the eye test, the fitting, the incorporation of the glasses, which you just can’t do online,” said Marc Fielmann in the podcast “The Zero Hour”. At least not in terms of quality.
The son of the company’s founder, Günther Fielmann, has been at the helm of the family business alone for two years at the age of just 32. Since then he has been expanding abroad, driving digitization forward – and had to steer Fielmann through the corona pandemic, whereby the optician, according to the boss, got away with “a black eye”. This year the company is growing strongly, according to the latest forecasts, sales should increase from 1.4 to 1.7 billion euros.
For Marc Fielmann, the pandemic was also a form of maturity test, he sees the crisis as a “test”. He has received a lot of praise and recognition from long-term employees for crisis management. The optician can feel the fourth wave. “The frequencies are falling,” said Fielmann. But it is not acute or “dramatic”.
Online is more than e-commerce
For some years now, Fielmann has been increasingly relying on online, which means much more than e-commerce. The optician has invested 15 million euros in measurement technology alone and has registered 25 patents. “The long-term goal is that we can map the entire online glasses purchase in quality,” said the CEO. That still requires research and development. An online eye test, for example, is already possible, but modern smartphones are required and the process only works up to a certain degree of visual acuity.
Another topic that is currently being researched a lot: smart glasses. According to Fielmann, they have the potential to “change the market considerably”. Start-ups all over the world are currently investing millions in the segment.
Listen in the new episode of “The Zero Hour”:
- How Marc Fielmann describes his relationship with his father
- How it came about that he broke glasses himself in front of a customer
- Why Fielmann cooperates with the IT company Teamviewer
You can find all episodes directly at Audio Now, Apple or Spotify or via Google.