Thomann & Music Tribe to enter Super Partner Relationship

Hans Thomann, CEO of Thomann GmbH and Music Tribe’s CEO, Uli Behringer today announced the entering of a strategic relationship. The focus of this Super Partner relationship is to deliver an Obsessive Customer Experience with unique collaborative opportunities to realise co-innovation of new products, co-marketing related to learning and education as well as a unique supply chain integration to ensure all products are always in stock and readily available.

Hans Thomann commented: “The Super Partner relationship between Thomann GmbH and Music Tribe is unprecedented in the industry. However, it is a continuation of decades of close and trusted relations between our two companies. What unites us is that we are both owner-led companies that focus on our customers, characterised by flat hierarchies resulting in the ability to make decisions quickly and flexibly to the customers’ benefit.

Music Tribe with its retail brands Behringer, TC Electronic, TC Helicon and Bugera, etc. has become our no.1 selling brand while also offering one of the highest product quality levels.
It is also rooted in a close personal relationship between two visionaries in the industry. Music Tribe’s famous speed and flexibility in developing new products and optimising existing ones meshes perfectly with Thomann’s renowned spirit of innovation in customer service and dedication to getting their customers the best deal possible in terms of both support and prices.

Thomann supports customers in their buying decisions with a 400-strong team of sales agents who can draw on detailed product expertise and state-of-the-art training to advise them in 24 languages and are available through all current means of communication. A staff of 300 exclusively provides after-sales services from instrument and equipment repairs and maintenance to supply of spare parts, with a dedicated separate call centre offering rapid and straightforward assistance in 12 languages.

The newly launched Super Partner relationship will build on the excellent two-way communication between Thomann and Music Tribe. In the past, both companies have frequently cooperated in determining production quantities and flow of supplies. Now, they will enter into co-development of new products and optimisation of existing ones. Thomann is known for putting the customer first and will do everything to enable Music Tribe to react even more immediately to customers’ desire for new and optimised products, while Thomann will achieve greater availability of Music Tribe’s portfolio at significantly reduced prices for the customer.

The most vital goal for us as an MI retailer is to preserve and enhance musicians’ enjoyment by advocating for them and providing them with the best possible service and an unparalleled customer experience, and to constantly improve our efforts in doing so. In this endeavour, Music Tribe is an ideal partner, since we share the vision to always get the best deal to our customers; we can and will build on this vision. We strongly believe in the quality of Music Tribe’s portfolio, and we are overjoyed to now enter into a new-level partnership with Music Tribe to meet the constantly growing demand in a forever evolving market. Working closely together to coordinate the production and availability process promises benefits in greater availability, efficient costs structures and more attractive prices.

With this Super Partner relationship agreed, we look forward with a great sense of optimism to the future: a shared future in which we will be even better able to satisfy the demands and fulfil the wishes of our international customers.”

Music Tribe’s CEO Uli Behringer commented: “Hans and I have a personal relationship for more than three decades. We are both extremely passionate to take this great relationship to an unheard-of level, in order to serve our Retail Customers. For decades, Thomann has been leading the industry through unsurpassed Customer Experience, which perfectly matches Music Tribes’ Customer Obsession Vision. This strategic relationship will now open the door for a deep integration and collaboration – all for the benefit of the Customer we all love to serve.

How will the Customers benefit from this new Super Partnership?

1. Product Availability. Music Tribe is one of the very few companies in the industry that manufactures nearly all its products in-house. This allows us to ship all our products from our China and Malaysia factories directly to Thomann’s warehouses, saving huge time and cost resources. Our Customers will enjoy much faster access to new products, all at reduced pricing.

2. Innovative Solutions. Thomann’s tremendous product and market knowledge will enable huge opportunities around co-innovation for new products. With Music Tribe’s 8 global Innovation Centres and 400+ world-class engineers, we will be able to turn around product ideas in record time. We’ll soon be rolling out a Customer Co-Innovation application that will allow our Customers to directly participate in the definition and design of new solutions, products and features.

3. Product Marketing. Both Thomann and Music Tribe will collaborate in the creation of digital learning and education content in order to help Customers to maximise the usage of Music Tribe’s products. In the coming year we will be launching our Music Tribe Academy, an interactive Learning Management System, where our Customers and Partners can co-create courses and other content.

4. Customer Service. With the setup of this new strategic relationship, Thomann will now directly be supporting and servicing all Music Tribe products through its own Call Centre and in-house Service Facility. Music Tribe will serve Thomann with global support services as well as spare parts supply directly from our factories, hence drastically improving the product turnaround time.

Music Tribe’s Retail products do enjoy an industry-leading 3-year warranty upon registration at Music Tribe’s Community.”

Music Tribe’s COO David Hunter added: “We are truly excited about this wonderful relationship with Thomann, while now taking it to a completely new level. We’re currently reinventing our whole organisation by means of extreme digital transformation and automation of all repetitive processes. Our objective is to become a highly strategic and insight driven organisation, and we’re currently investing over US$ 50m in fully automating our current China operation. Last year we acquired 50 acres of land in Malaysia where we’re planning our second fully automated manufacturing plant. We’re very proud to have entered into strategic relationships with Microsoft and Siemens around a state-of-the-art 4.0 factory in line with our relentless execution on our Customer and Digital Obsession Vision.

Joe has been singing since he can remember and started playing guitar when he was 10. He's been using it as a songwriting tool ever since. He is passionate about melody and harmony and admires musicians who create these in unique ways. Check out his alternative / indie projects Best of Feelings and Zef Raček.

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