Vorwerk (company)
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| limited partnership | |
| Industry | retail, electronics, textiles, chemistry, services |
| Founded | Wuppertal, Germany (1883) |
| Headquarters | Wuppertal, Germany |
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Key people
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Walter Muyres (Managing Partner), Reiner Strecker (Managing Partner), Frank van Oers (Managing Partner) |
| Products | household appliances, fitted kitchens, cosmetics, services, carpets |
| Revenue | 2.8 billion € (business volume 2014) |
| Website | www.vorwerk.com |
Vorwerk is an international diversified corporate group headquartered in Wuppertal, Germany. The main business is the direct distribution of various products like household appliances (e.g. vacuum cleaners), fitted kitchens or cosmetics. Vorwerk was founded in 1883.
The family enterprise, which is operated as a limited partnership, has 12,000 full-time employees and over 590,000 self-employed sales representatives in over 70 countries worldwide (as of 2014). The largest proportion of sales representatives (546.000) work for the US-based subsidiary JAFRA Cosmetics. For the year 2014, the company posted revenues of 2.8 billion Euro.
In 1883, the Barmer Teppichfabrik Vorwerk & Co was founded by the brothers Carl (1847–1907) and Adolf Vorwerk. That very same year, the brothers parted ways again and Carl Vorwerk continued to run the company. The firm initially manufactured high-quality carpets and upholstery fabrics, and later also the looms used to make them – first under an English patent, and then under an improved proprietary patent.
Carl Vorwerk’s son, Carl jr. (1878–1904), was to be his successor as company director, but he died just a few months after taking the helm in 1903. Thus, upon the death of the company founder in 1907, his son-in-law, August Mittelsten Scheid (1871–1955), became sole managing partner. Under his leadership, the company diversified following the First World War, taking up the production of gear units and electric motors for gramophones as its military research efforts halted.
As radio grew in popularity in the 1920s, gramophone sales dropped precipitously. This dire situation gave rise to the birth of the “Vorwerk Kobold” in 1929: chief engineer Engelbert Gorissen developed out of a gramophone motor a high-performance electric upright vacuum cleaner. On 25 May 1930, a patent was granted for the Kobold “Model 30”. At first, sales of what was at the time a completely unknown appliance in Germany were very poor, despite the relatively modest price of 20 Reichsmarks. Only when direct sales were launched in 1930 – the brainchild of Werner Mittelsten Scheid (1904-1953), a son of the company founder – did the product meet with success. By 1935, 100,000 “Kobolds” had been sold, by 1937 half a million and by 1953 one million. Already before the Second World War, in 1938, the first foreign sales organization was established: Vorwerk Folletto in Italy.
During World War II, the main plant in Wuppertal-Barmen was severely damaged in a May 1943 bombing, after which August Mittelsten Scheid’s sons, Werner and Erich Mittelsten Scheid, jointly took over management of the firm. The sales organization, which had held the company above water during the war years by selling various products, discontinued operations that year.
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Wikipedia