Plato Group B.V. devides supplier- and distributor brands within organizational structure

Plato Group encompasses the following brands: Clipper, Promotiv, Compacon, IGO and Heroes of Print.

Helmond, the Netherlands, July 27th 2018 -  Plato Group is an international group managing the entire supply chain regarding promotional merchandise. The company, founded in 1945 in the Netherlands, had 30.000m2 of warehouse - and imprint facilities to support their customers with all kind of imprinted promotional products. Sales activities are taking place locally, 13 different European markets are serviced by local offices. Beside the Netherlands this is currently happening from Belgium, France, Germany, Spain and Austria. The group currently staffing 400 FTE with an annual turnover over €65M.

The Plato Group organizational structure

The vision of the Plato Group is to help everyone is Europe boost their visibility. This is an unique position on the market. Every brand has its own characteristics to meet specific client needs. Clipper as supplier has a clear focus on fulfilling the entire supply chain to support distributors' activities and build strong relationships with them. The distributor brands Compacon, IGO and Heroes of Print all have their own unique value proposition and target group.

With immediate effect the organizational structure will be divided between supplier- and distributor activities. Distributors will focus on their own performance and business development, seperate from the supplier Clipper. Clipper will be just one of the suppliers of the different own distributor brands. They all will have their own cost structure and P&L.

The sales- and marketing organization for Clipper will be completely seperated from the distributor activities.

"Where a supplier has a clear focus on products and additional services, the distributor has a clear focus on customer demands. This are two different worlds, especially in the fast changing environment we are living in. With the new strategy we have defined for our group, it became clear we also should change our organizational structure to implement the strategy in an optimal way", Ron Boer, CCO of Plato Group, explains.

Clipper

"Since Clipper changed the value proposition and the market approach at the beginning of 2016 the business is growing very fast. Now the time is right for a next step", Ron Boer stated. "We will have an European sales- and marketing organization lead by a newly appointed Commercial Lead, Ruben van 't Loo. Category management will report directly to the Commercial Lead as well, so sourcing of new products and development of the existing assortment will be more driven by customer demands- and market developments. Also a Customer Technology Support Team has been appointed, as we see customer demands more and more are based on technology. Together with marketing and sales we believe we have created a strong and sustainable team that will enable Clipper to enter successfully the next phase."