The family company Seidensticker celebrated its hundredth anniversary in 2019 – a year later, sales plummeted dramatically.
In an interview with Business Insider, the two heirs, Frank and Gerd Oliver Seidensticker, and CEO Silvia Bentzinger explain how they dealt with the crisis.
They also talk about the division of management – and how the successor in the traditional company is structured.
It’s a warm, spring-like February day in Bielefeld. The sun shines in the garden with the small duck pond. We are on the premises of the family company Seidensticker. The old villa in which founder Walter Seidensticker lived is still standing here. In the adjoining buildings, seamstresses used to produce the white shirts for which the company became known. Today, fashion is made for the world market.
When we enter the garden, Gerd Oliver Seidensticker is sitting on an inconspicuous chair and is quickly typing a message into his mobile phone. He is a direct heir of the founder and has been on the management board of Seidensticker since 2004. His older cousin Frank Seidensticker, who is also the third generation to run the company, waves to us from a balcony. The two are part of the management, but the CEO is the trained lawyer Silvia Bentzinger, who does not come from the family.
The interview takes place in a conference room with a direct view of the garden. Frank and Gerd Oliver Seidensticker pour us coffee into the cups with the Seidensticker logo. As a greeting, we are offered the du. After the first Corona wave, when everyone returned from the home office, the employees were also offered the familiar form. That should make communication easier.
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In 2019, the company celebrated its centenary without any worries – a year later, sales plummeted due to the pandemic. “The last few years are certainly among the most challenging years in the hundred-year history of the company,” says Bentzinger.
Sales lost by almost 70 percent
It was extremely difficult for Bentzinger at the time. The 46-year-old only assumed CEO responsibility for the brand in January 2020 and was already struggling with a drop in sales of almost 70 percent in March. “As the first external managing director in Seidensticker’s 100-year history, the tension in such a situation is of course particularly high. That was a very, very difficult situation for me. Of course it wouldn’t have been existential for me, but it would have been for the shareholders.”