Westaflex Group use

1. Web 2.0: New Opportunities for Companies
Internet Strategy as a Competitive Factor
Web 2.0 and its interactive capabilities are growing
in significance and are particularly relevant for medi-
um-sized companies. Internet applications can pro-
duce perceptible competitive advantages when used
as solutions for marketing, corporate communication
or knowledge management. Westaflex GmbH, loc-
ated in the Westphalian city of Gütersloh, shows
particular commitment in this regard.
Gütersloh, Germany. Anyone who enters the name
Jan Westerbarkey in the Internet search engines
Google or Yahoo will see countless entries about a
person who can be found in the widest variety of
places online. This man twitters, blogs, chats, pod-
casts, is on Xing, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube
and many other Web 2.0 platforms. Furthermore, he
is extraordinarily active in the open source com-
munity, which is all about free software – in short,
we are talking about a full-blooded netizen.
That, however, is just one of the sides to Jan West-
erbarkey. In real life, he is the managing director of
Westaflex GmbH, headquarted in Gütersloh. The
company was founded over 75 years ago by Ferdin-
and Westerbarkey, who was inspired with a new
business idea by a patent that was new at the time.
With his brothers Leonhard and Lorenz working with
him as technical consultants, he used that patent as
the basis for developing technically sophisticated,

2. flexible pipes that could be marketed and used in
numerous applications. Even today, this remains the
core business of the company, which expanded to
become a holding in the 90s and founded two further
companies in Salzwedel, Germany.
Westaflex systems are used in applications such as
automotive production, train technology (ICE ventila-
tion), for the air supply and ventilation of living
spaces, exhaust technology and water treatment, to
name but a few. The company places particular em-
phasis on sustainable, environmentally compatible
processes and products, which are exclusively avail-
able from authorised wholesalers (exhaust techno-
logy and building services) or through two-stage dis-
tribution (vehicle production, project business). “We
provide good air and clean water. With use products
made from aluminium, stainless steel and plastic to
create living space” says Westerbarkey, citing the
company’s slogan.
Now, what does this business have to do with Web
2.0? Westerbarkey is certain there is a connection
there, and market studies have also proven it: “Web
2.0 and open source software are not short-term
hype, but rather are among the most important
trends for the upcoming years.” This is why medium-
sized companies should significantly increase their
usage of these new World Wide Web mechanisms
and turn their great potential for the future it into a
component of their business model.
According to Professor Manfred Leisenberg of the
FHM in Bielefeld, a university of applied sciences

3. specialising in small and medium-sized companies,
“Web 2.0 can help medium-sized companies to use
a highly valuable company culture as a competitive
advantage by connecting customers and employees
via the Internet and generating enthusiasm.” Even
now, companies like Westaflex GmbH are increas-
ing their use of weblogs, wikis or videocasts as solu-
tions in marketing, corporate communication or
knowledge management. Furthermore, market pion-
eers are also using Web 2.0 for improved product
development, automated trend research, meaningful
market analyses and more efficient marketing.
“In contrast to the traditional Web 1.0”, says the aca-
demic from Bielefeld, “the new ‘collaborative Web’
means that technical measures alone, such as
search engine optimisation, cannot influence the
popularity and presence of companies, products or
services. Moreover, even today Web 2.0 users are
already producing more marketing information than
the companies themselves.” Leisenberg says that
these new challenges have to be addressed, which
can, for example, be done by integrating “social me-
dia optimisation” into a medium-sized company’s
Web 2.0 implementation strategy.
Westerbarkey, too, stands confident: “We believe
that the days of monologue on the Web have ulti-
mately given way to dialogue, which, on the other
hand, means that we have to react correspondingly.”
For more than five years now, the ca. 350 employ-
ees in Gütersloh have been encouraged to become
familiar with and understand the Internet’s capabilit-

4. ies. “Communication on the Internet”, says Wester-
barkey, ”has its own laws; the customers and users
of our products exchange information, and com-
plaints go public. One doesn’t have to find
everything good, but one does have to have an opin-
ion about it.” Employees should also actively parti-
cipate in this exchange of information. Whoever so
wishes, for example, will receive premium member-
ship on Xing, a network for companies, for free.
For many industry managers, this may still be un-
imaginable. Online activities in which employees
represent their own company on the Internet con-
sume time, be it blogging, twittering or using social
networks. One often-sounded argument is that there
is no time for leisure during working hours. Wester-
barkey, too, admits that this kind of online culture is-
n’t for everybody, but rather has to be a good match
for the respective company. One stipulation is that
there be an open corporate culture in which employ-
ees have plenty of room to make their own de-
cisions.
However: it is not easy for creativity to come on de-
mand, says Westerbarkey. That’s why some of the
contributions made to Web opinions are made in a
calmer setting, outside of working hours. Nonethe-
less, the tasks of a brand manufacturer also include
monitoring the opinions communicated over the In-
ternet, such as those expressed in blogs or forums.
Those kinds of contributions are indeed made during
working hours. Above all, the principle of voluntary
participation is important. The company director em-

5. phasises “that over all the years in this process, we
have yet to fall on our face”. Rather, communication
with customers as a whole has progressed posit-
ively. There have, although, been changes made in
internal communication as well. There are more or
less no more mails being sent internally. With “West-
atwitt”, the Twitter principle has been applied to de-
velop a service in which nearly all internal commu-
nication runs in a manner that is quicker and less
complicated.
For Westerbarkey, having a uniform electronic solu-
tion for order processing is a component of customer
communication. To this end, the entrepreneur is a
proponent of electronic data interchange (or EDI).
For Westerbarkey, the myOpenFactory standard
offered by RWTG Aaachen University is a simple
way to make profitable savings in order processing,
particularly for medium-sized companies. He is
greatly committed to promoting this open source
software, as he believes that interchanging PDF or
Excel files has long since been an aspect of “the
Stone Age”. Automated updating of all relevant data
means that manual employee entry is no longer
needed – this saves time and hinders transfer er-
rors. As an advocate of electronic order processing,
Westerbarkey is convinced that EDI is lucrative for
smaller order volumes as well – both for one’s own
company as well as for customers.
With all of this online activity, is there time left over
for the actual entrepreneurial duties? That, too, says
Westerbarkey, is all a question of organisation. He

6. says he spends no more than half an hour a day
with Web 2.0 tools. After all, he doesn’t have to do it
all himself. He says it is at its most authentic “when
the team does it”.
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Contact
Westa-Holding
Jan Westerbarkey
Tel: 05241 – 4010
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