How Marc Fielmann is rebuilding the optician chain and managing it through the pandemic

“The Zero Hour”
How Marc Fielmann is rebuilding the optician chain and managing it through the pandemic

Marc Fielmann is CEO of the optician chain of the same name

© Carsten Koall // Picture Alliance

For two years now, the founding son Marc Fielmann has been the sole head of the optician empire, at just 32 years of age. He is driving international expansion and digitization – will we soon be able to order glasses completely online?

By Lucile Gagnière

Order glasses online? Why not – nowadays you can order almost anything online, from t-shirts to dinner. However, the matter is more complicated, “because there are certain measurements, the eye test, the fitting, the incorporation of the glasses, which you just can’t do online,” said Marc Fielmann in the podcast “The Zero Hour”. At least not in terms of quality.

The son of the company’s founder, Günther Fielmann, has been at the helm of the family company for two years, at just 32 years old. Since then he has been expanding abroad, driving digitization forward – and had to steer Fielmann through the corona pandemic, where the optician, according to the boss, got away with “a black eye”. This year the company is growing strongly, according to the latest forecasts, sales should increase from 1.4 to 1.7 billion euros.

The challenge of digitization

For Marc Fielmann, the pandemic was also a form of maturity test, he sees the crisis as a “test”. He has received a lot of praise and recognition from long-term employees for crisis management. The optician can feel the fourth wave. “The frequencies are falling,” said Fielmann. But it is not acute or “dramatic”.

For some years now, Fielmann has been increasingly relying on online, which means much more than e-commerce. The optician has invested 15 million euros in measurement technology alone and has registered 25 patents. “The long-term goal is that we can map the entire online glasses purchase in quality,” said the CEO. That still requires research and development. An online eye test, for example, is already possible, but modern smartphones are required and the process is only possible up to a certain visual acuity.

Another topic that is currently being researched a lot: smart glasses. According to Fielmann’s assessment, they have the potential to “change the market significantly”. Startups from all over the world are currently investing millions in the segment.

Listen in the new episode of “The Zero Hour”:

  • How Marc Fielmann describes his relationship with his father
  • How it came about that he broke glasses himself in front of a customer
  • Why Fielmann cooperates with the IT company Teamviewer

You can find all episodes directly at Audio Now, Apple or Spotify or via Google.

source site-4