Podcast
For two years now, the founding son Marc Fielmann has been the sole head of the optician empire, at just 32 years of age. He is driving international expansion and digitization – will we soon be able to order glasses completely online?
Von Lucile Gagniere
Order glasses online? Why not – nowadays you can order almost anything online, from t-shirts to dinner. Still, things are more complicated “because there are certain measurements, the eye test, the fitting, the incorporation of the glasses, which you just can’t do online yet”said Marc Fielmann. At least not in terms of quality.
The son of the company’s founder, Günther Fielmann, has been at the helm of the family company for two years, at just 32 years old. Since then he has been expanding abroad, driving digitization forward – and had to steer Fielmann through the corona pandemic, where the optician, according to the boss, “with one black eye” got away. This year the company is growing strongly, according to the latest forecasts, sales should increase from 1.4 to 1.7 billion euros.
The challenge of digitization
For Marc Fielmann, the pandemic was also a form of graduation, he sees the crisis as a “Practical 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 going down”, says Fielmann. But it wasn’t acute or “dramatic”.
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 for us to be able to reflect the quality of all online glasses purchases”said the chief executive. That still requires research and development. An online eye test, for example, is already possible, but modern smartphones are required and the process is only possible up to a certain visual acuity.
Another topic that is currently being researched a lot: smart glasses. According to Fielmann, they have the potential, the market “to change significantly”, Startups from all over the world are currently investing millions in the segment.
Listen in
- 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
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Source From: Stern
Jane Stock is a technology author, who has written for 24 Hours World. She writes about the latest in technology news and trends, and is always on the lookout for new and innovative ways to improve his audience’s experience.
