Christoph Bläser
What are the group’s keys to success in the responsible economy?
Responsible economy is part of Econocom’s DNA since Jean-Louis Bouchard founded the company nearly 50 years ago. Being responsible for Econocom’s region Germany/ Poland, we have done a lot regarding CSR. According to external calculation Econocom Germany has reduced emissions last year by 14%, we have offset unavoidable emissions by engaging in environmental projects every year and since 2021 Econocom Germany has the status of a climate neutral company. In addition, my team and I thought about new solutions to support our existing customers on their CSR journey as well as winning new customer.
What innovations do you bring your clients?
As mentioned before the circular economy is our nature, which we have proofed with IT assets. Over the last years we have developed a product called “smartmpp” (Employee PC Program). With smartmpp, our customers are able to raise their profile as an innovative and employee-friendly company, gain plus points as an employer and give yourself an edge in the highly competitive labour market when recruiting skilled workers. The next logical step was to use this solution for something outside our IT world which brings value to our customers. So we came up with “smartbike” combining our skills to handle the life cycle of a large numbers of assets with the skills of “mein-dienstrad.de”, a partner who has an in-depth knowledge of the bike market in Germany. On top of this solution the German Government taxwise supports companies and their employees by using bikes. We have set our focus on ebikes being an environmental friendly way to commute to work, even for longer distances.
Why has the financing of electric bicycles been so successful?
I would say there are 3 things which create the demand for smartbike
- People are aware that we as individuals have to change our behaviour on a daily basis to save our planet
- Companies want to be attractive employers. For an example for the Generation Y a lot of no monetary elements are important like being environmentally friendly
- The tax support from the German government
Our smartbike solution combines all the points perfectly. As always in sales if your offer meets the customer demand, you are successful. Frankly I am very proud that my team developed this product.