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Creative minds wanted: e-commerce agency hmmh has set up a new branch office in the capital. The trade boom on the Internet makes more staff necessary. Business is humming. In the crisis year the Bremen agency increased its sales by ten percent – to 13.6 million euros in the e-commerce segment alone.

It numbers among the biggest specialists in the segment. The agency ranks third among Internet agencies in terms of volume of professional billings for e-commerce services (see table), after T-Systems Multimedia Solutions in Dresden and dmc in Stuttgart. The entire sector is profiting from the trade boom on the Web and coped with 2009 far better than other segments.

“If all goes well, we’ll get close to the 15 million euro mark in sales,” explains Management Board Spokesman Stefan Messerknecht. It is important, he says, to be among the Top Five in the e-commerce ranking. Growth leads to expansion: “We not only target new customers in the Berlin region,” adds Messerknecht. The head of the agency has also set his sights on creative minds in the capital. Not everyone wants to move to Bremen.

“By the end of the year the Berlin team will be ten strong.” The store of e-commerce experts in the greater Bremen metropolitan area is exhausted – new personnel often comes directly from universities. There are 230 employees at the headquarters - including the other branch offices in Oldenburg (25) and Hamburg (five) the total now comes to 270 staff members. “In 2011 we might even top the 300-employee mark,” Messerknecht is confident.

“At the Hamburg and Berlin locations hmmh cooperates with IT consulting firm Texcelerate. Staff is partly employed by us, partly by our partner. The partners aren’t connected to each other as corporate entities.”

According to Messerknecht, that will remain so. The Berlin team is managed from the Bremen headquarters. The increase in staffing is geared to business development. In the current year, for instance, hmmh was able to win over Air Berlin as a new client, followed now by textile manufacturer Trigema and art supplier ars mundi. New customers contribute 50 percent of the additional sales. Messerknecht expects additional orders from the Mobile Commerce, Social Commerce und TV Commerce segments. “Trade with the mobile Internet at the moment is developing enormous momentum,” says Messerknecht. hmmh has, for example, implemented an iPhone application for Air Berlin.

Source: Werben & Verkaufen 23/2010

Author > K. Städele