Interview with Klaus Dürhkop, President of Mondial Assistance

Mondial Assistance was founded thirty years ago and had a turnover of 1.1 billion euros in 2004. Klaus Dürhkop, the group’s new president, talks about his career and the challenges which he intends to take up at the head of the company.

Commerce International: You were appointed head of Mondial Assistance at the beginning of the year. What has your career path been?

Klaus Dürhkop: “I was born in Hamburg, the largest port in Germany. It’s a city where you either go to work in the family business or move away. I picked the second option. After graduating in marine insurance law, I dealt with industrial risk at the Allianz insurance company. I left for Brazil soon after that. My career then led me to Spain, the head office in Munich next, and then Brussels where I was involved in setting up representation to the European Union.”

What have you gained from your international career so far?

K.D.: “Working in different countries provides you, above all, with the ability to adapt, and a kind of resourcefulness and flexibility which both really are essential in today’s economic world. When you are in another country, you have to acquire different reaction capabilities. You can’t hide behind a routine.”

The calling of Mondial Assistance is to be an international, perhaps even a worldwide, group. What are your first impressions?

K.D.: “As soon as I was appointed, I decided to go round the subsidiaries because I wanted to get to know the people I would be working with. Our network is present in 25 countries and I visited 18 of them. I was in Istanbul yesterday, and then Lisbon before returning to Paris last night. What struck me was the entrepreneurial spirit that exists in the company. The people are active and innovative. The teams are very international.”

With all that travelling, do you find yourself in the same situation as your customers?

K.D.: “Not the same as people on holiday. I mainly see airports, motorways and offices. When I was appointed, I wanted to get to know the people we work with, and especially to listen to them. My job is to listen to our colleagues, to find out what they want, what their expectations are. I visited one of our operations centres. They have a very tough job which requires many qualities. People who call us are generally in difficult situations. The tone of the first word they hear matters and I was impressed by the expertise of our teams.”

What are the strong points of your services?

K.D.: “We have three strategic business lines: motoring, travel and, for the past few years, health. Almost all our products are marketed B to B. We develop services which are then sold by financial or insurance companies. Individuals make up a very small proportion of our customer base. Our aim, in a very competitive environment, is to provide our professional service providers with the means to differentiate themselves, by delivering added value.”

What matters to the final customer is quality. What is your policy in this respect?

K.D.: “This is our number one concern. Our control teams are constantly analysing and improving processes. Take, for example, roadside assistance: a European intervention must take place within 14 to 20 minutes. To achieve this, we work with 400,000 service providers worldwide and we demand a high level of quality. The volume of interventions we provide is so high that we can get the level of quality we want. And finally, quality is achieved through human resources. The true wealth of our company comes from all those staff members who know their jobs inside out.”

The holiday period is approaching. How do you get ready for the activity peak?

K.D.: “Our business is very seasonal, but we have learned to handle the situation over time. We work with experienced seasonal staff, students who come back every summer. This is a way of ensuring a good level of service. As I said before, working abroad develops one’s ability to adapt. Mondial Assistance is an international company which brings together people who can adapt, both to unforeseen circumstances and to peaks of activity.”