Our only consideration in pricing a product is how cheaply we can sell it, not how much people will pay for it
ALDI’s average turnover per item is 43m USD per year, Wal-Mart’s is 3m. This results in completely different strategies and cost structures.
Schopenhauer even thought that “any future problems imaginable can be overcome by means of asceticism”
Asceticism in the sense of doing-without is, we believe, the most important core characteristic of ALDI
The biggest present which may be accepted is a calendar
The best service is the kind which is not felt to be out of the ordinary but which is simply done.
Customer returns is the final test of how genuine a company’s customer service really is, judged by how correctly and sensitively implemented it is on a case by case Basis
ALDI was and remains the sole discounter who firmly maintains this sales strategy without falling for the temptation of uptrading and putting finer qualities in their shelves
Organization should be designed in a simple way and easy to understand, featuring flat hierarchies and simple business procedures. This results in positive cost structures and low co-ordination expenditure, and requires only a minimum of necessary communication between the members of the organization.
Teams which are only authorized to make good recommendations do not exist at ALDI.
Each ALDI company can have one or two sales managers. Sales managers supervise four to six district managers. Each district manager is responsible for 7 to 10 stores.
Clear goals and rules creates an atmosphere in which what must be said, can be said openly by any employees
The targets set at ALDI are extraordinarily simple. The only concern is lowest costs, i.e. best performance and productivity in all areas, lowest possible sales prices and best quality.
Decentralization enables methods, experiences and results to be compared and creates the freedom to make decisions for or against based in these comparisons
ABB has 200,000 employees who work in 1000 individual companies which are classified, in turn, by profit center.
Each new ALDI entity is complete in itself, including separate bookkeeping, balance sheet and all the functions found in the parent company. In 2011 in Germany alone, they have 66 regional companies, each operates fully independently
Companies which are in principle already decentralized can maintain and boost their competitiveness by giving more authority to their local employees who are in direct contact with customers.
Creativity requires little knowledge, no data and a bit of ignorance
The retrained information arrangements at ALDI are also reflected in the fact that employees are only informed about what is immediately related to their own work.
All companies should design their organizations so that individual cases, individual items, individual customers, individual production processes, individual employees are treated as important.
The eight basic principles of successful companies identified eight years ago can actually be concentrated into one, decentralization and autonomy
The customer will favor those companies and distributors who adhere to a clear mission, establish a recognizable identity and demonstrate credible competence
ALDI limits advertising to 0.3% of sales.