At the beginning of 2024, Wolfgang Grupp vacated the management position at his textile company Trigema in Burladingen, Swabia. But he still sits at his desk every day and gets involved – always neatly dressed in a suit, always with a tie and always with a pocket square.
“My children insisted that I sit here the same way and that I keep the desk. Now and then I’m glad that everything doesn’t weigh on me. “Sometimes I leave early,” says the father of the family, who is still responsible for production scheduling in the company. “I can’t complain about my health, but you notice that you can’t walk down the stairs as quickly anymore,” says the 82-year-old.
Smooth transition to generational change
The sole managing director and owner handed over management to his daughter Bonita and his son Wolfgang Grupp junior. Wolfgang Grupp junior became a personally liable partner and managing director on January 1, 2024. Bonita Grupp became a member of the management at the same time. Her mother, Elisabeth Grupp, is also a partner in the company but is not part of the management.
Because the children had been working in the company for years, it was a smooth transition, says Wolfgang Grupp senior. “Of course we had to find each other in our team and set up certain structures. We meet once a week and discuss important things. We are happy that our father is still at our side with advice and support,” says Bonita, who has been a member of the Zollernalb district council for the CDU since the fall.
Wolfgang Grupp junior explains the division of tasks: “My sister takes care of human resources, e-commerce and marketing. My mother is responsible for the test business. I am responsible for the B2B area, sales, logistics and IT.”
Trigema is becoming more modern
Not much has changed at Trigema, says Elisabeth Grupp. Intermediate collections are new. “We decided that we would put smaller collections in between throughout the year.” According to Bonita Grupp, the interim collections, which also work with larger, graphic patterns, for example, can be presented even better on social media. An internal team is responsible for publishing on the Instagram platform. “We don’t want to be too fashionable either. Because our aim is that our products can be worn for a long time.”
Around 40 percent of sales of 113 million euros are sold through the test stores, 40 percent through the online shop and 20 percent through direct customers. 80,000 parts are produced per week.
Bonita Grupp says about her motivation for going into politics: “We have two production plants here in the district alone. The majority of our employees live here. We want the region to remain attractive for personnel in the long term and for our region to maintain the strength it has.”
According to Wolfgang Grupp junior, politics should urgently reduce more bureaucracy and become faster and more flexible. “We have a labor shortage and it’s not just at Trigema. We are urgently looking for skilled workers. It would be good, for example, to find a system to offer tax breaks to older employees who want to work for a year or two longer. Firstly, this does not put a strain on the pension fund, and secondly, it is productive for the economy.” Overtime should also be given tax breaks, says the 33-year-old.
The Trigema House
The former owner of the textile company Trigema became known through television commercials. Initially, a real chimpanzee wearing a shirt, tie and red glasses advertised T- and sweatshirts from the manufacturer of sports and leisure clothing. Advertising monkey Charly then came back in an animated 3D version and can be seen this year as an “AI fashion influencer”.
The textile entrepreneur Wolfgang Grupp was born on April 4, 1942 in Burladingen. In 1969 he took over the heavily indebted company founded by his grandfather in 1919. Grupp led Trigema out of the red and turned the company into Germany’s largest T-shirt and tennis clothing manufacturer. At Trigema there was neither short-time work nor layoffs due to a lack of work. The children of all employees were always guaranteed a training position or job in the “company family” after they left school.
When cheaper production costs were attractive in Asia in the 1970s, the large companies relocated their production. However, the conservative group insisted on only producing in Germany. Grupp first supplied the department store and mail order kings, then the self-service wholesalers and then the discounters. He decided in 1984 – after the discounters also wanted to buy even cheaper – to take over the retail business into his own hands. Trigema then opened its first daily business in the Allgäu. (dpa)