From butter churns to smart appliances: Miele adapts to the world’s changing needs
THE STORY of Miele began in farms and continues today in the world’s best homes, travelling from the end of the 19th century to the present day on a wave of home appliances always looking forward to modernity.
The company was started in 1899 by Carl Miele and Reinhard Zinkann in Germany, their first product being a butter churn. The spinning mechanism inside the butter churn inspired the pair to make a washing machine.
“They were looking at their moms, and their aunts, and their surroundings, where they were struggling washing by hand,” Athmane Lakhlifi, Miele’s director for Export Sales told BusinessWorld.
This was in 1904, and one of the Europe’s first washing machines was born.
The company developed its first dishwashers and vacuum cleaners in the 1920s. Today the company focuses on kitchen appliances. “[This has] already been the driving force of Miele to anticipate customers’ needs and creating products [which] customers will not even know that they will need them,” he said.
The company began making a name for itself on the world stage after the Second World War, in the 1950s, but by then it had already established markets in Germany’s neighboring European countries.
“The amazing thing was not like as you know today, where you tackle immediately export[s], and other markets... it was more of solving problems in their neighborhoods,” Mr. Lakhlifi said.
The company survived two world wars, several changes in government, and financial crises by relying on its people. “Miele has never ever laid off employees because of crises. They have tried during the crises to produce something with the employees that they have,” he said, citing problems in sourcing raw materials as metal, for example, which were used for the war effort. “That’s why you will find in our museum a lot of funny products which don’t have anything to do with home appliances.” These include bicycles and wooden wagons.
To this day, the company is still family owned and operated by descendants of Carl Miele and Reinhard Zinkann. “The main success factor for what we do is that we are still family owned and family run,” said Mr. Lakhlifi.
“The shareholding company, they have made it clear that they don’t want to sell the company to the stock market,” he added. “We are really driven by values which is hardly found in a stock market.” The company has five directors, one each from the founding families, and another unrelated three to make decisions easier.
WALL-MOUNTED APPLIANCES
Mr. Lakhlifi took BusinessWorld around its new demo kitchen at Focus Global’s five-floor, 5,000 sqm. furniture showrooms at Twentyfour Seven Mckinley in Bonifacio Global City on April 27. He showed off a wall-mounted coffee machine by Miele that makes cappucinos, espressos, lattes, and other drinks that would normally need a barista to make. The wall-mounted coffee-machine, along with its other wall-mounted machines like steam, conduction, and combination ovens are the culmination of Miele long market research that condensed customer needs into a number of trends. “As a leader in the field of home appliances,” he said proudly, “you have to anticipate the customer’s needs.”
These trends include urbanization, smaller households, smaller living spaces, an accelerated way of life, a more informed customer, an aging population, and healthier lifestyles. These trends, for example, have influenced Miele to make ovens that have pre-programmed recipes. Mr. Lakhlifi touched a few buttons on an oven, and pressed an icon labelled “Meat.” The oven then gave a choice of beef, pork, or chicken, and arriving at the option for steaks, Mr. Lakhlifi showed how the oven can control the meat’s doneness, both on the outside and inside. “We have in our factories, kitchens where chefs, they do nothing else... but develop recipes and program them into the appliances,” he said. The mostly wall-mounted appliances display both strategy and aesthetics, as Mr. Lakhlifi says, “[Free-standing] appliances sometimes [ have] a feeling of disorder, which you already have outside... the design has to become simple.”
Some of the appliances are engineered to last approximately 20 years, and the company keeps spare parts for a unit up to 20 years after the line is discontinued. “It’s not very special if you have a customer who’s calling for service for an appliance which is 50 years old,” he said.
As its innovations in the past will attest, the company has an eye for the future, with Mr. Lakhlifi citing technology present in Germany for power-saving. Smart grid appliances get information from power suppliers when power rates would be low, and the machine will only start when “the price is at its lowest.” Other developments — not yet in place but are being studied — include downloading recipes and programming them into the ovens and appliances after a good meal in a restaurant. In test markets in the US, some appliances are already synced to smart phones, and are programmed to diagnose problems within the machine through its connection with the owner’s devices.
‘I HAVE MADE IT’
Kitchens in the Philippines are more the domain of cooks and maids and not the home owners.
Mr. Lakhlifi said, “This is not only in the Philippines,” noting that around the world, people of a certain income level have “people who help them.”
“When it comes to living and lifestyle, you will always have a wet kitchen where the maids — they cook and do the dirty stuff. But the trend is that the kitchen is becoming more and more the living room, where it’s not really for heavy-duty cooking; it’s for celebrating the cooking process... because of this, the kitchen itself — and the kitchen appliances become a part of showing off that ‘I have made it’.”
One of the company’s most wellknown customers was innovator and Apple founder Steve Jobs, who would rave about the company’s washing machines. “We don’t really like promoting ourselves by saying names. But we know that our customers are those who are really successful... who are extremely busy, and they work hard... and they would enjoy life.
“In our company, the star is really the consumer.”
Miele was brought to the Philippines by Focus Global, Inc., and its products are available in its showrooms in Bonifacio Global City and Makati City. —