SME owner confirms benefits for SMEs to 'go digital'
An SME (small and medium sized enterprise) proprietor told how he has used the Internet to expand and specialise, at the Commission-organised 'SMEs Go Digital' conference in Brussels on 16 May. Bernd Kütscher runs a small bakery called Kütscher's Backstube in the rural German region of Eifel. This family business was established in 1910, and now has 14 employees. The bakery had always been relatively successful within the village, but had a restricted market, and faced competition from cafés and supermarkets. When Mr Kütscher won the national stollen (a traditional German Christmas cake) bakers' prize three years in a row, in 1999, 2000 and 2001, he used the Internet to publicise this fact, thus introducing his product to a wider audience. 'People in the village had always bought our stollen. The online shop allowed others to buy it,' said Mr Kütscher. At first Mr Kütscher's venture into e-business was restricted to Germany, but following the introduction of the euro and changes implemented by the business so that customers could use credit cards instead of bank transfers, customers from all over the world are now able to purchase Kütscher's Backstube's products online. Customers now include engineers at the Ariane 5 launcher in French Guyana. In order to draw potential customers to the website, Mr Kütscher had the company added to search engine lists and placed adverts on other websites. Mr Kütscher also used the media to publicise his e-business. He placed a recipe for stollen on the website and received media coverage all over Germany with headlines such as 'Award winning stollen baker reveals recipe'. In the run-up to Christmas, Kütscher's Backstube now receives over 1000 orders per day for his famous stollen. 'This would not have been possible without the Internet,' he said.