Portrait- Strategy - Core Competences
We provide bathroom furnishings.
Our target customer groups are the modern large-scale retailers. RIDDER provides a large selection of complete, complementary categories of goods with a positive networking system for retail sales (category management).
Our innovative product developments focus on articles with a high utility value, quality "Made in Germany" and a strikingly European design.
Creative marketing, elaborate presentations, exemplary service and comprehensive logistical solutions have made RIDDER a solid business partner for many years: RIDDER products are sold in 41 countries around the world.
The organization of the company is designed for maximum flexibility. This strategy enables RIDDER to continually adapt the corporate management to the individual needs of our customers.
The sum of our services guarantees lasting success: We maintain numerous, long-standing and well-balanced partnerships.
Dirk Busch-Ridder:
"As a teenager, I couldn't imagine working at RIDDER, but things turned out differently. After my training as an industrial clerk at RIDDER GmbH, I studied business administration, after which I planned to work abroad in France and Belgium. At the same time, the sales manager in charge had decided to become self-employed and resigned. My father subsequently offered me his position and today I am one of two managing directors. For me personally, the 90s were the best time in all those years. We became well-known and had the right contacts, although interpersonal contact was the „be-all and end-all“. On the other hand, it was almost too late when our father decided to break new ground, combined with the loss of by far our biggest customer back then and the ending of the traditional mail order business. From today's perspective, however, the decision and the introduction of "Assistent" was 100% the right strategic move. Throughout my time at RIDDER, the focus for me and the company has always been on the people".
Marc Ridder:
"I always wanted to work with people, so a commercial career became an early thought in my mind. So I did a very shortened apprenticeship at RIDDER and then went on to study business administration. After my graduation, it was not yet foreseeable that I would one day join my parents' company. But my father showed me my personal prospects at RIDDER and, in the end, the possibility of becoming self-employed and working with close people, some of whom I have grown fond of, induced me to choose RIDDER. The successful expansion of exports as well as becoming a managing director and thus more responsibility were the best times for me personally. The generation change, combined with the loss of our largest customer at the time, was an exciting and sometimes challenging time. For me, the focus is on the people and the company. Even today, without people, nothing would work and without the company, people would hardly achieve anything."
Why products for the bathroom?
Together with his son Jürgen, Christian Ridder realized quite early that it was also possible to produce individual components used in the manufacturing of plastic closets (foil, aluminum rods) for making shower enclosures. At first, the process was still very provisional, but it soon reached the current technical standard. From this point onwards, the company successively changed from a household goods supplier to a bathroom specialist. Starting with shower curtains and accessories, then shower and bath mats and later also bathroom carpets. Although the latter were always as bought-in products. Our company now also sells wall-mounted bathroom accessories, toilet seats, mirrors and shower accessories. In addition to these "bathroom articles", there was also a time when we had mirror tiles, tile decors and ready-made curtains in our assortment. ready-made curtains partly from our own production in northern Italy.