CEO (Chief Executive Officer), Conrad Electronic SE
Conrad Electronic: Die beeindruckende 100-jährige E-Commerce Transformation mit CEO Ralf Bühler
Erfahre in diesem exklusiven ChefTreff Podcast-Interview mit Ralf Bühler, CEO von Conrad Electronic, wie das traditionsreiche Unternehmen in nur zwei Jahren eine bemerkenswerte Transformation vom stationären Einzelhandel zum B2B-Beschaffungsriesen vollzogen hat. Ralf bringt 30 Jahre Marketing, Vertrieb und E-Commerce Expertise mit und teilt seine einzigartigen Einblicke in diesen radikalen Kurswechsel.
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About Ralf Bühler
Ralf Bühler, CEO of Conrad Electronic, has discussed the company's transformation from a business-to-consumer (B2C) to a business-to-business (B2B) electronics supplier. In podcast interviews from 2023 to 2025, Bühler stated that Conrad shifted its revenue from approximately 80% B2C to 80% B2B within about five years. He described the decision as requiring "Mut und Einsicht" (courage and insight) and said the company's approach combined digital transformation with maintaining personal customer relationships. Bühler noted that Conrad focuses on digital procurement solutions, including eProcurement systems, and limits its marketplace to quality partners such as manufacturers and authorized distributors. Bühler characterized Conrad as "die Gallier des E-Commerce" (the Gauls of e-commerce), emphasizing the need for proactive employees with internal drive. He said the company aims to solve B2B challenges such as supply chain security and resource efficiency. Reflecting on his career, Bühler stated that he received some roles because he was "frech genug und fordernd genug" (bold and demanding enough) to assert his readiness, and he advised his younger self to be even more curious and self-confident.
Transcript (40 segments)
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Host0:00
In today's edition of Cheftreff, we talk about 100-year company histories, entrepreneurship, transformation, clarity in action, and a very exciting business case that started early with the shift from classic B2C to B2B with a consistency I haven't seen in almost 200 episodes. A great conversation with the CEO of Conrad, Ralf Bühler. Enjoy.
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Ralf Bühler0:59
Thank you, glad to be here.
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Host1:01
As I learned, you grew up around the corner in Munich, so a home game, right?
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Ralf Bühler1:08
More or less. Even if Munich wasn't always home, I lived around the world a bit, but yes, Munich for elementary school, high school, most of my life. Now in the Regensburg area.
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Host1:21
And you've been at Conrad since 2019, I think? Since 2019, but the family still lives in Munich?
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Ralf Bühler1:28
Yes, we didn't move. We came back from London and settled in eastern Munich. Family is there, and I commute wherever the day takes me.
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Host1:41
Okay. Conrad has been since 2019, you said since 2021 you've been overall responsible as CEO. But your career path has always been in the tech industry, right?
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Ralf Bühler1:58
Yes, there are certain points in life you remember. Conrad played a role early on, setting me on the path where I ended up. Anyone who knows Munich knows Conrad on Schillerstrasse was an institution. My first PC came from there, and through that interest in computers, I ended up in electronics. Most of my career was at semiconductor manufacturers or distributors, a few years in England, a few in Hong Kong, but always B2B. That's the connection. When Conrad decided to shift into B2B, I was contacted, and my background and Conrad's interests matched well. So I ended up at Conrad.
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Host2:58
That's a nice keyword because you are going through an extreme transformation, in a positive sense. You were always a caterer for the B2B environment with your products, but it has shifted even more in the last 5 to 7 years, right?
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Ralf Bühler3:30
Yes, I mean, we've become this century, which is always an event to reflect on how we got to where we are. There are a few themes that run through the company's history, and one from the beginning is the ability to recognize and seize opportunities around technology. We started as a classic B2C player, but from the mid-90s, we realized our value proposition resonated with business customers. But it took a few more years to structurally cement that in the business. About 8-9-10 years ago, we said, 'Aha, there's something we can meaningfully work on.' Then came changes in consumer behavior, and we realized B2B is more than just an appendage; it can carry the company into the future. So about 5 years ago, we really started on this transformative path to move from our core business into B2B, strengthening our strengths, making investments, and under the keyword digital transformation in procurement, it was the right time to shift into the B2B segment.
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Host5:16
You also, I found remarkable, scaled back the stationary business. I came across something from Jörg Dubil, former VP Corporate Intelligence, who spoke about the complexity trap of omnichannel in January 2017. At the same time, Werner Conrad said in the Maschinenraum podcast that omnichannel or multichannel was already done by his great-grandfather with store and catalog, and since 1997 you also had an online shop, very early. And then this strategic decision to go completely into distance selling. I know you're going a bit in another direction now with the news, but that's extreme clarity from management, right?
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Ralf Bühler6:15
Yes, such large transformation processes first require courage and insight. When you start a transformation, you have to realize at some point that it can't go on like this, and you have to decide on a clear path. That's why the omnichannel topic, especially when you've decided on B2B, is a complex environment. On one hand, you inevitably continue to serve B2C customers because you're not granular in the stores. You have the issue of assortment that works better in stationary retail than in distance selling. For us, it was important to say where we want to go, and then how our path could look. Now, honestly, Corona acted as an accelerant, fueling that clarity. Before Corona, we saw that physical retail was getting more difficult. We used to say 'consultation robbery' happens – advice on site, purchase online. Through Corona, we realized that the shift to distance selling is not completely reversible. So we were clear: we want to do B2B, and the omnichannel approach we were pursuing was too complex. It was only logical to close the stores, with big discussions and emotions, but strategically it was the right decision. However, there are aspects of physical retail that are still relevant for B2B customers – not needing 4000 square meters, but for convenience and speed, having local stock is important. That's why we are currently testing a different format at one or two locations to see if omnichannel can still be part of our value proposition. We'll see the results.
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Host9:18
The Profi Stores, exactly. And where are you starting?
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Ralf Bühler9:22
We started in Hürth, near Cologne, just before Corona. It was an exciting time to start a test. We started in Hürth, and now we are testing in Regensburg and Mannheim. The first results say 'continue testing', and the future will show if we roll out further or not.
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Host9:57
Now I found the B2B shift interesting: from 25% share to about 70%. That's a massive shift and also a massive confirmation of the strategy, right?
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Ralf Bühler10:16
Yes, it's nice when the plan works. That the B2B model has potential for Conrad was not just my realization; it was already clear to Werner Conrad before me. I think what we have done really well in the last 5 years is the combination of digital transformation – how we enable procurement for businesses not just on the website but also in eProcurement – without losing the human, personal knowledge. Platforms and computers are plentiful out there, but how do you combine the human listening, problem-solving, proactivity with digital processes to create value for the customer? I think we've succeeded. You're right, we do about 70% of our revenue in B2B today, and about half of that is through eProcurement, where we have direct system connections to our customers, making transactions simpler, faster, more cost-efficient than emails and phone calls. That's what we've done extremely well. But we also realize that not everything that glitters is gold, which is why I still use the term '100-year-old startup'. We learn something new every day, and we learn that some things we theoretically thought of are not as good as we imagined. But we've become really good at testing, learning, and iterating – how to get from idea to implementation quickly, and if it works, scale; if not, next idea. Our customers appreciate that because we don't force a 'take it or leave it' approach; we are very good at fitting into customer environments and building solutions for the customer, not past them. That's part of the success of going from 25% to 70% with at least stable revenue.
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Host13:14
We're talking about around 700 million euros in revenue, which is a big number. I had a fascinating conversation with Ludwig Meister from the technical wholesale sector, who integrates deeply into customer value chains, even predicting how many parts they need. Are you also in that area?
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Ralf Bühler13:49
Yes, but our approach is different. I used the term 'fire department' earlier – we solve problems that no one foresees, better than others. To do that in the B2B field, we need a huge number of products. You can't just say we have computers and a few components; to create value in manufacturing, infrastructure, crafts, construction, you need a vast array of products. Our main focus is to provide access to a curated assortment of many products, giving the customer a one-stop-shop experience. So when something is urgent, they call Conrad – 112 is Conrad, not the fire department. They call because they know they'll find the product they need. So our approach is to cover a broad range of topics. What you mentioned about predictive capabilities – we can't do that across millions of products. But we have segments where we can do it better due to the data we have. We use AI to extract relevant information from the mass of data – we have 100 million visitors on our websites, 30-40 million transactions on eProcurement systems. Without algorithms and AI, we can't get relevant insights. We use it for predictive models, similar products, replacement products, to better serve our customers.
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Host16:17
The interesting thing is that you also started early building a B2B marketplace, a curated sourcing platform. You said, 'We don't have to design the entire assortment ourselves; we can position ourselves as a specialist marketplace.'
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Ralf Bühler16:49
Yes, when we looked at it, we knew that to create that experience and value for the customer, we couldn't serve it from our own inventory alone. So the obvious approach was to make not only Conrad's inventory but also the inventories of many market participants accessible, while maintaining the quality and service Conrad stands for. We wanted to only allow companies on the marketplace that meet that quality. So from the beginning, the idea was to build a marketplace with not 500,000 suppliers but maybe 500 or 1,000 that match Conrad's quality and service, with assortments relevant to our customers. We have consistently pursued that path. Another aspect behind the marketplace idea, especially in this curation, is a sustainability thought: why should goods be produced that are already available somewhere in the supply chain? Why should five retailers order the same product five times when it's already available once or twice? So the second thought was how to make that existing inventory visible and how to make it visible across borders – cross-border e-commerce. In B2B, cross-border is still not trivial, especially in Europe with different VAT laws. So those were the three aspects: we need a larger assortment to be the fire department, we want to better utilize existing inventory, and we want to create visibility for that inventory across Europe so that it doesn't matter if the goods are in Italy, Germany, or Poland – they must be available to customers everywhere. That's the path we are on with our marketplace.
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Host19:34
That's a good keyword because you mentioned internationalization. In the B2B environment, you were always international. I'm interested: did this B2B shift distribute evenly across country markets, or are they all different?
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Ralf Bühler19:55
Yes, we as Conrad have been at home in 17 European countries for a long time, not just since yesterday. It's funny how you say countries are different. They have different histories. We are an organically grown company, so each country has its own peculiarities. For example, in Germany, with 100 years of history and a lot of B2C, that history doesn't exist in other countries. So the B2B shift feels different within the Conrad Group. In some countries, they feel like they've finally come home because they were always more B2B than B2C. In other markets, we had more investment needs to make the change. So we are now serving foreign markets much more strongly than in the past. We've been in 17 countries for many years, each different in size and challenges, but we believe that the business model we built in Germany has the same relevance in almost all major European markets. Because think about the challenges medium and large companies face today: supply chains that are not 100% stable, an aging population in Europe meaning fewer people available to do the work, and in B2B, the complexity and variety of products purchased to manufacture other things. We try to solve all that on our platform. We try to give people time to focus on important things through digital means, secure product availability, and do that with the same quality across Europe. If we solve that, we solve the problems B2B is facing, and Conrad will continue to be successful for the next 100 years.
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Host22:25
What fascinates me about your setup is that you have both B2C and B2B in one company. In B2C, we've seen a lot of progress over 25 years, but B2B is a much larger market with a time lag in digitalization. You have the learnings from 20 years of D2C business. How much easier was it for you?
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Ralf Bühler23:20
I think the big benefit we brought was the understanding of how important it is to serve the end consumer. In B2B, especially with large companies, products are not used by the person who procures them; they are used by people working in factories, on assembly lines, repairing machines, on construction sites. We had the heritage of how to get the product to the end customer. That helped us enormously. In B2B, we started by asking: how do we provide the strategic buyer with a controlled process that doesn't require them to place every order, but still allows the training manager in some plant to order from Conrad in their system? B2C helped us because we didn't have to learn that from scratch. Also, B2C helped us handle the diverse requirements. In B2B, you might think you can have one process for all companies, but that's not true. Every company is slightly different, uses different system landscapes, has different procurement processes. The mindset of not going in with 'one size fits all' but listening to what they need and adapting our solution to integrate into their systems without forcing them to change their processes – that legacy from B2C made it easier.
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Host25:44
Do you have any customer examples, without naming names, to make it more concrete?
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Ralf Bühler25:51
Think about the range: from a small craft business where the owner's wife does the purchasing after 5 PM – she doesn't want to navigate complex systems; she wants to see all negotiated special prices on the website and place orders simply. That's one extreme: how to make it easy for small companies, with 24/7 availability. On the other extreme, you have a huge company with 10,000 employees, 300 locations, where people in those locations need to find a wide variety of products but are limited in where they can buy. The challenge is to ensure that in those 300 locations, people can find the Conrad assortment in their own system with the same quality. We built solutions for both extremes, and everything in between. For a medium-sized company with 200 people, maybe 20-30 people are authorized to procure. The owner wants control over who spends what. We built solutions for that too. These are concrete ideas that came from customers asking, 'Could you do this?' and we do those things in our systems.
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Host27:47
On your website, there's a lot of solution offerings. I noticed the 'rent instead of buy' topic with Grover. Is that being adopted? It seems like it's still not fully established.
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Ralf Bühler28:18
We have to be careful again when talking about Europe – Europe is not uniform. The German market in B2B is a market of many hidden champions, much tradition, and a learned culture of 'if I need something, I buy it'. So the rental model is not yet established in the B2B landscape in Germany. That doesn't mean no one does it, but it's not a trend that can be called sustainable success yet. There are product segments where it works, like consumer-near products (phones, printers) where we see demand. But for capital goods like machines, we are still far from that market being established. It's similar around Europe with nuances: France might be more open, Italy even further away. We are still convinced that there will be good use cases in B2B for renting or leasing, but I can't say if it's 2, 5, or 10 years away. A concrete example: we are looking at cobots (collaborative robots). If you have a project where a cobot would help, but it's a one-time project, why buy it if you won't use it long-term? There are concrete rental models where it makes more sense to use the cobot for a period and then return it. We are testing that with customers, but it's not prime time in Germany yet.
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Host30:45
The interesting question is: if you have the self-image of being the technical procurement platform, you have to think about other services. Are there any that are already further along?
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Ralf Bühler31:03
We have many different product categories around technology, so there is a stratification of services. We have very product-near services. For example, around measurement technology, we do calibration to ensure precision. We offer a variety of product-oriented services. In extreme cases, we also do turnkey solutions for customers, where Conrad takes the customer's idea and turns it into a physical product that the customer then uses or sells. My favorite example, without naming names, is that we manufacture a charger for one of the big emotional car manufacturers out there. From idea to packaged product, we provided the service. Then we do a lot on the digital side: curated assortments, digital solutions where we are the solution provider for software. We are looking at a very broad spectrum of solutions, either near the product or near digital procurement, and everything in between.
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Host32:48
You've seen a lot, worked in London, Hong Kong, now in Hirschau near Regensburg. The special thing is the ownership structure – 100 years of history, family-owned. Werner Conrad said that during Corona, he was relaxed because he didn't have to go to banks or investors. That 'steady hand' is important. You described the transformation, the shift from stores to B2B. How do you moderate that as a family business, with long-time employees? Some didn't make it, but you were there. How did you experience it?
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Ralf Bühler34:02
Speaking very personally: when you come into a company as a non-family member and are supposed to take responsibility, you look at a few aspects beforehand. One is whether you can work with the shareholders on a human level. But also, 100 years of success story can be both a blessing and a curse. 100 years can mean being very stuck in your ways, or it can mean being open to change with respect and openness. For me, that was a reason to say yes to Conrad. I felt from the beginning that while there was pride in the long history, there was also curiosity, openness, and awareness that it can't go on like this forever. And then with a long breath, we carried out the change. That long breath is definitely one of the factors why transformations succeed or fail. Because we don't do everything right every day; not every day is sunny, and we don't always know what to do. But the long breath makes it easier to consistently implement the strategy. As I said at the beginning, you need courage, insight, curiosity, willingness to change, and then the perseverance to see the transformation through, even on days when it doesn't go as planned. That characterizes Conrad, because this is not the first change. Werner would agree that this is probably the fourth or fifth time in our 100-year history that we've turned the company around. We have gone our way to B2B very consistently, but we are far from the end. The transformation is not complete. But that steady hand makes it easier – not the only success criterion, but it definitely makes it easier to drive the transformation forward.
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Host37:00
Okay. Now we've had 100 years. Looking forward, it's a bit difficult to make big plans, but where do you want to go? What are the next three big challenges you want to tackle as a company?
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Ralf Bühler37:21
We have internal and external challenges. I'll start with internal and then come to external, because we have to face them whether we want to or not. The internal challenges: we have set ourselves the goal of advancing digital procurement in companies. Keywords: cost reduction, securing supply chains, using resources more sustainably. That drives us. We firmly believe that digital procurement can be a solution or a contribution to doing that better. Everything we can do to advance digital procurement, technically or humanly, drives us. Those are the challenges we gladly take on. Then we have an internal and external challenge: we all know we need to be more mindful with resources. We must jointly succeed in B2B to not produce things that already exist five times over. It's about making them visible, purchasable, deliverable. We definitely have a contribution to make there. As a family company with 100 years, we are already very mindful with people and resources, but there is pressure from outside and inside that we have to face, whether it's the Supply Chain Due Diligence Act or other regulations. That's something that drives us. And then we are back to the term AI. One of the big challenges is that we have to deal with the scarcity of human resources – even if I don't like that term, we have to face the fact that we have to solve increasingly complex tasks with fewer people. We cannot close our eyes to the fact that we have to think differently about our processes, our joint processes with customers and suppliers. That's why AI is one of the topics we are actively and proactively addressing. Do we have all the solutions? No. Do we have the optimal use of AI across the board? Definitely not. But those are the three big topics we are dealing with.
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Host40:14
How many employees do you have? 2,500? 5,000? And if someone wants to work at Conrad, do they have to do it in Regensburg?
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Ralf Bühler40:25
We are a company that works extremely distributed. In the initial conversation, I said I definitely didn't move; I work between locations. Same with our employees. We have a large number of employees in Hirschau, but we are in 17 other countries in Europe, and in Germany we have arrived at remote work. But I have to qualify that: I think we do well in Germany not to fall into the hysteria of either 100% office presence or 100% remote work. Because much of what made the German Mittelstand or our German economic model successful was the sense of belonging, problem-solving in the shortest time, the specialization that comes from knowledge transfer between people. At Conrad, we are finding the right balance between not 100% present and 100% present. If you want to come to us as an employee, you have to be comfortable with that balance. We don't have one or the other; we try to develop the Conrad spirit – what makes Conrad – further. We try to solve problems for customers together, and we want to enable concentrated and quiet work, which might sometimes be better from home. That's the path we are on as a company.
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Host42:24
I can only underline that. I like to stand on the shoulders of giants. Alexander Kluge once said in a Brand Eins interview that the three great innovations are fire, cooperation, and storytelling. For me, the distillation is that cooperation arises from trust, and for that you have to come together. The modern campfire is the company where you like to go to exchange ideas. We experience that with our 20 people; even during Corona, we allowed people to come together regularly. You notice that something different happens. Serendipity at the coffee machine leads to ideas that don't come in a hard-agenda Zoom call. So we are definitely an employer that takes both tradition and modernity into account. I think what makes us as an employer is entrepreneurial thinking. And entrepreneurial thinking doesn't happen behind a screen; it lives from interaction, exchange, thinking around corners, and especially recognizing and seizing opportunities. That is usually not years apart but days apart – 'there's something, let's do it'. Anyone who likes to work entrepreneurially will feel at home with us. We are the Gauls of e-commerce, so to speak. Out there is the big world of the Romans, and we are the Gauls. The Gauls have to be more proactive than the Romans. We are always looking for employees who, with inner drive and customer orientation, try to move things forward. Because that's how 100 years of Conrad was possible – we want to continue, we are not satisfied with what was, we always want to move forward. This togetherness, this mindful interaction, is another big characteristic. And last but not least, when you work at Conrad, you always work for the customer. We are a merchant at heart, whether we call ourselves a platform or a merchant, digital or not. At the end of the day, we are always someone who serves the customer. Anyone who enjoys doing something for the customer is in the right place at Conrad.
There's little to add except the final question in Cheftreff: If Ralf could travel back in time to any point in his career, and whisper an insight to his younger self that would have improved the quality of his decisions – not to avoid mistakes or give stock tips – what would it be?
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Ralf Bühler46:15
To have been even more curious. Yes, I am someone who is relatively curious, you seem that way too. But especially when you are not yet sure about yourself as a person, what really makes you tick, I would tell myself: dare to be even more curious, dare to trust yourself more. Because if you trust yourself, others will trust you more too. The further I've come in my career, the more obvious that has become. But I would have liked to know that earlier; it would have gone faster.
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Host46:53
Okay, great. Thank you very much. It was fun.