Insight

At the start of the year Sebastian Ovenhausen became the new managing director of sales at Lederer GmbH, taking over from Peter Henke who retired at the end of 2024. Here we speak to Sebastian about the current market situation and the plans Lederer has for 2025 and beyond. 

Tell us about your career within the fastener industry and your new role at Lederer. What plans do you have for the business over the next twelve months?

“I joined the fastener industry in 2008 and for the last four years I have been managing director of NORMTEC Montage-und Befestigungstechnik GmbH, a subsidiary of Lederer. During this time, I have been carrying out the integration of NORMTEC into the Lederer Group, which was completed at the end of 2024.

Over the next twelve months I plan to consolidate Lederer’s market position, whilst also driving forward with internationalisation. To do this we will look to further extend the business’ current strengths in C-parts management, its product range, the quality assurance it can provide to customers, as well as its vast service portfolio.”

What are the key markets for Lederer (both industrially and geographically) and what are the current challenges and opportunities within these markets?

“For Lederer our key markets are industrial end users and wholesale businesses in Germany and the wider EU. As most companies will be experiencing, the market situation remains difficult due to the weak economic situation, with procurement markets and manufacturers not being fully utilised, which leads to pricing pressure. There is also low demand in many end user industries, including automotive and construction. 

Regarding challenges, there is the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) regulation, which is requiring a lot of time and effort to ensure we are compliant and able to report the relevant data. We have employed somebody who’s sole focus is on CBAM and ensuring that as a business we are able to take care of every requirement and that all supply chains continue to function smoothly. We will also use the collected data for CBAM to evaluate our suppliers within our supplier management and work with them towards lower emission products and a reduction in CO₂ emissions.

As for opportunities within the market, I think a good indication for this will be at the upcoming Fastener Fair Global show, which
will take place in Stuttgart, Germany, at the end of March. As always, we will have a strong presence at the show and look forward to
meeting with customers and suppliers to continue building strong relationships.”

What investments has Lederer made in recent years? Why did you make these investments and what benefits do they offer your customers? 

“Our logistics is something that we are always focused on, so that we can ensure we are able to meet our customers’ needs quickly, reliably and competitively. As a business we have also looked to invest heavily in sustainability, and energy supply, in order to fulfil not only our legal requirements, but also our responsibility in a global context – whilst maintaining and further improving our competitiveness. Examples of this are the photovoltaic system we have installed across the entire warehouse roof, as well as heat pumps that we have introduced within the company.

Other areas of interest for us going forward will be how we invest in innovation to help us progress as a business. This includes Artificial Intelligence and how it can be used for optimising our logistics and processes, as well as robotics and automation within our warehouse, such as AGVs (Automated Guided Vehicles), which we see as a key technology for modern, automated logistics processes.”

Sustainability continues to grow in importance within markets. What steps has Lederer taken on this topic and how do you see the needs of sustainability developing in the future?

“We have taken sustainability very seriously and have already made several key steps to guarantee that we are at the forefront of the industry when it comes to the topic. An area where we have made significant improvements is in the use of sustainable materials, especially when it comes to our packaging. We have already looked to reduce the number of materials we use, whilst using lighter materials and avoiding over packaging. We have also started using biodegradable packaging, as well as using mono-materials, which makes it easier to recycle. Plus, we have introduced reusable packaging and promoted closed loops, such as ‘take back’ programmes – where we offer customers the opportunity to return packaging that we can then reuse or recycle. Finally, we have implemented automated packaging technologies, and analysed the entire supply chain, to optimise packaging in terms of volume, material and weight.

We have already introduced several key sustainability steps within our packaging, but it is just one part of the process, which is why we are looking to do the same for every aspect of the business going forward.”