Today we had another company visit, this time was with another familiar company for us Grand Rapids folks. This Steelcase location is located right in downtown Munich and it’s facilities are very modern (as you would expect).
We were led around by the customer experience manager, Klaus. Klaus was very accustomed to showing groups around their building and was very enthusiastic.
This facility was not a manufacturing plant for furniture like their Grand Rapids location, but rather what they called a learning and innovation center. Between the 3 connected buildings that Steelcase occupied, 2 of them were off-limits for us as memebers of the public because they were primarily devoted to Research and Development for new products.
The third building that we saw, in some ways doubled as both a show room and an office for employees. Klaus mentioned that they get around 100 visitors a day (usually current or prospective customers). This third building is all about building company values through the floor plan. This is a big selling point to customers which goes beyond the furniture itself. Part of what Steelcase provides, is consulting to the customer to see how the customer can make best use of its space.