Remco – Sales Manager

As the sales department, we offer our customers the best advice. We do this with three sales representatives and a back-office team from our office with a brand-new showroom in Barneveld. We advise customers who are starting with a campsite or glampsite, we keep our existing customers up to date on the latest developments, and we help campsites and holiday parks expand their (glamping) accommodation facilities. Our department knows no boundaries, as we work closely with our sales colleagues abroad.

2022 was a year of growth for us. The market picked up considerably after 2021, so we had our hands full with completing orders and deliveries. It was also a year of growth and development with our new quotation system, a configuration system with which we can make quotations more efficiently and eliminate the chances of making mistakes. Thanks to our back-office support, we have been able to focus more on customer contact and sales and the personal touch we value so much as a business. This year wasn’t without its bumps along the way. We were faced with many challenges because of uncertainties in the supply chain. This meant that we were sometimes late informing customers, and a few projects experienced slight delays. This resulted in a stop on all new orders in April, going against everything our commercially minded sales department stood for. Thankfully, we also learned a lot from these challenges to better anticipate them in the future.

Last but not least, 2022 was a year of change with a new office and showroom, where we can better convey the glamping experience to our customers. As a department, every order and every satisfied customer gives us tremendous positive energy. We always like to take a moment to celebrate these successes as a team. One fine example of this is our end-of-year barbecue. That’s when the entire team, including our construction teams, come together to reflect on the season. And this year, we can again be proud of what we have achieved, despite the many challenges. Because that’s where our strength lies: together, we get the job done! And that is the spirit as we head into 2023: putting our best foot forward, advising our customers to the best of our ability, and developing a network of satisfied customers!

Peter – Logistics Manager

The logistics department is responsible for purchasing, receiving, storing and delivering our goods. Our team ensures that the right products with the right specs end up in our warehouse on time. We then send these products as a complete shipment to the customer. We combine individual products, made exclusively for Outstanding, into complete tent packages.

2022 was an exceptional year! The year initially started with challenges in the availability of raw materials (as Remco has already mentioned) and the huge demand for our products on the market. This required a lot of flexibility from everyone within the organisation, especially logistics! In the second part of 2022, we turned this to our advantage. We ensured that we were less dependent on our suppliers and increased access to our unique products. We have been given more room to manoeuvre in terms of logistics with our new expanded warehouse storage facilities. We will continue to work on this in 2023. In addition to increasing our warehouse space, we have also implemented new warehouse management software so we can pick our orders more quickly and effectively. Thanks to this structured ordering process, we can improve our deliveries! The logistics high point of the year was organising a large customer order in Germany:  100 tents for Serengeti Park. With proper preparation and a solid consultation structure, we at Outstanding were able to turn this large project into a huge success. Next stop: 2023!

Pauline – Purchasing

The purchasing department has made great strides this past year! We have mapped out a comprehensive forecast with which we can place our product orders more strategically with several suppliers. The shortage of materials in the market forced us to look for new suppliers and reduce our reliance on our current suppliers so that we can service our end customers in the best possible way and ensure complete and on-time deliveries. Lots of improvements, in other words! But we have certainly faced challenges thanks to the uncertain market environment. The timber market was in chaos, and delays with our suppliers brought plenty of uncertainty to our business. Thankfully, most things have settled down a bit now!

One of the high points for my department is that, in addition to our reliable existing suppliers, we have connected with many new suppliers. This was necessary given the market shortages. As a result, we had better access to the various materials in the second half of 2022. For example, we have found two additional new product locations for our brushed pinewood furniture. And we have discovered additional production sites for the fabric of our inner tents. I could name a few more: a new supplier for screws and an additional supplier for the cushions and the tent fittings. In 2023, we will continue expanding our supplier network to be more independent. We will also increase our flexibility on a purchasing level with proper forecasting, budgeting and lead time management. I am looking forward to it!

Jaap – Assembly

As an assembly planner, I am the first point of contact for our construction teams and technical drafting technicians. In the past year, we had our own in-house construction team and an additional six teams of contractors who set up the tents on our behalf. Most of our builders are teams that have been working for us for years and have become a part of the Outstanding team. Thanks to their contribution, we can now implement improvements that will increase efficiency.

2022 was a challenging year, as we have already explained before. Supply problems will inevitably have plenty of consequences for scheduling and the construction teams. Nonetheless, we were able to assemble and complete many great projects. And we have learned a lot in doing so! Over the past few months, we have worked very hard to get rid of our backlog of drawings so we can start the new season better prepared and well-equipped across the board. My high point of 2022 was therefore not really a particular moment or a project, but just seeing and experiencing how a team of people work together towards the same goal. Everyone knew that a lot of things weren’t going as planned, but together we found the best solutions and worked hard to get everything sorted in the end!

I am looking forward to 2023 as a result. We have some great projects scheduled, and we continue to give the full 100% to satisfy the customers. So we can pat ourselves on the back afterwards for what we have achieved and then move on to build on the steps we have already made so we can become even better at what we do!

We hope you enjoyed reading about what goes on behind the scenes in our business. Every department has had its own successes and challenges. Still, they are all connected, and it is the great teamwork between the different departments that leads to the best results for our customers! That is something we will always continue to strive to do.

Therefore, we would like to thank you for your trust in us this past year! We look forward to a fantastic new glamping year.