(05/2021) For over a year now, medical device suppliers have been at the forefront in the fight against the pandemic, both manufacturers and trading companies. The supply of medical facilities and service providers has the highest priority. In the middle of this is also the Amefa specialist retail group in Limburg with its subsidiaries Praxis Partner and Medimex. The Praxis Partner Fachversand for doctor and laboratory supplies has also supplied the fever clinics, test centers and doctors in the Limburg-Weilburg district with protective items, disinfectants and Covid antigen tests. The MTD editorial team spoke to Marcus H. Simon, Managing Director of Amefa GmbH, about the current challenges, crisis management and the structure of the group.
Mr Simon, there is currently no other player in the healthcare sector that can ignore the issue of Corona. How were Amefa and its daughters Medimex and mail order company Praxis Partner affected by this last year?
2020 was a year that demanded a lot from all of us. We have pursued two major goals: on the one hand, to maintain operations without the virus bringing our company to a standstill; on the other hand, to make goods available to the market via known and new sources. We achieved the former by giving employees the opportunity to work from home very quickly. Around three quarters of administrative employees are currently working on the move. In logistics, we have introduced a six-day week in two-shift operation.
Market out of control
Unfortunately, we were only able to partially meet the goal of making sufficient goods available to the market. Amefa has been around for over 50 years. During this time we have built close relationships with our suppliers. Even in these difficult times, we could rely on these partnerships. That does not mean that we would not have liked to have received more goods at one point or another. Procurement in Asia presented us with new challenges: examining new sources of supply, lack of transport capacities, exploding prices. The market was and is in part still out of control. We took responsibility, accepted the challenges. We also had many sleepless nights. But as a well-coordinated team from purchasing, sales, QM and management, we survived this time well.
You were caught between all chairs: Everyone wanted something from you - clinics, doctors, trading partners ...
That is correct, but loyalty is important to us as a serious company. We have tried primarily to supply all of our regular customers in the specialist trade and doctor shop with goods. In many cases we have succeeded in doing this. If we were able to procure goods beyond these requirements, we made them available to our shareholders to ensure supply in the hospitals.
Trustful cooperation with long-term suppliers
And how did it go with the suppliers on the other side?
As already mentioned, we have cooperated very well with all long-term suppliers. We deliberately refrained from working with sources that are not from the medical technology industry and were only looking for quick money. We believe this was a good decision if, for example, you are looking for a B. followed the legal disputes between suppliers and the federal government.
The T was certainly a special case
