Driving new value with customer centric finance solutions

Andreas Schmitz, Schmitz Cargobull (left) and Carlo van Kemenade, DLL (right)

Joint ventures don’t typically draw comparisons to good marriages. A few, however, do make good on that promise. Schmitz Cargobull Finance (CBF), the 15-year joint venture partnership between financial solutions provider DLL and Europe’s leading trailer producer Schmitz Cargobull AG works. By building customer value and trust.

Europe’s leading trailer producer

DLL has been supporting Schmitz Cargobull since the 1990s when it focused on its home market in Germany. To back its expansionary plans with strong finance solutions, the CBF partnership was sealed in 2000. In 2007, they extended the successful partnership, just as world markets suffered a serious recession.

The experience of staying strong together, through tough market conditions, helped build the trust further. “With our market tumbling down significantly,” recalls Schmitz Cargobull CEO Andreas Schmitz, “DLL didn’t hesitate in sticking by us. It’s at such times that you realize who your friends really are.”

Together through thick and thin

We had been working together for years,” says Carlo van Kemenade, Chief Operating Officer and member of the Executive Board at DLL, “and we remembered how Schmitz Cargobull helped us when we needed it. They had shown us a strong commitment, so we would do the same.” The partners navigated through the storm and by 2010 were achieving healthy monthly sales again.

“You cannot underestimate the importance of this working relationship and the trust that it builds,” says Schmitz. “Our business relationship is almost like a marriage, you work together to find ways to make it work and you go through thick and thin together – this is what creates a true partnership.”

Driving sales of 100,000 trailers

Backed by DLL’s financial strength, industry expertise and global reach in over 35 countries, the CBF partnership has expanded across 19 European countries and has financed more than 100.000 trailers at a combined value of €3 billion.

Customer centricity to unlock growth

Both Schmitz Cargobull and DLL expect the CBF partnership to continue to flourish for another 15 years and more. In the immediate future, they are working on new technology and finance solutions aimed at delivering fast, flexible and cost effective options to the trailer market.

Together, for example, they have created a new revenue stream from refurbished and remanufactured trailers that is both green and profitable, as part of DLL’s Life Cycle Asset Management (LCAM) program.

Schmitz says, “These new offerings met the growing need for more flexible, usage-based solutions, rather than ownership-based solutions for end users in this market. As the first refurbished product offering in this segment, this program helped Schmitz Cargobull AG increase their strategic value to their end customers. Offering end of life treatment increases the quality and reduces the average age of trailers, while lowering cost of usage for end customers.”

In future, the aim is to further expand Schmitz Cargobull’s Value Added Services through the application of new technology and data capture (telematics), LCAM, the service partner network and spare parts.