In 2006, during the climbing industry annual conference in the United States, a hitherto unknown company from Eastern Europe set up a small stand in the corner of the showroom. Very few people were stopping by, looking with disbelief at the employees, who, in addition to their coarse accent, were quite noticeable in their formal suits, in stark contrast to the casual but professional look of their American peers.
One of the few visitors who stopped at their booth was Jeff Pederson. Disappointed of the numerous meetings held with other wall manufacturers who sent him away, claiming that his idea could not be implemented given the currently available production technologies. Walltopia, a company which at the time was not producing such a facility as described by Jeff either, accepted the challenge to produce a wall - replica of the Utah canyons, considered emblematic by the American climbing community.
The Steep Climb
to the Top
The Bulgarian company, global leader in the production of artificial climbing walls, managed to optimize its costs by over 20% using the
Auxionize platform
Optimize This
When Auxionize started operating, Walltopia managed to optimize an average of over 20% of its operating costs for materials and external services, and to date the company procures almost everything through the platform.
The biggest auction that Walltopia has organized through the Auxionize platform was for the selection of a contractor for the rough construction of their corporate building.
One of the most self-explanatory examples that Penchev gave, was the one regarding their hosting costs. After holding an auction on the platform, they managed to achieve a price that was five times lower than the one they were paying at the time. The explanation for such a drastic difference in the cost of the service is both simple and striking: "Actually, nobody wanted to cheat us. It is simple - in these five years, during which no one wanted an offer renewal, hosting prices had plummeted. In total, this cost was negligible, but the same was happening to hundreds of types of materials and services that our company uses - cone bolts, washers, transistors.”
In addition to the basic materials used in the production processes, such as steel, wood and industrial chemicals, by using the Auxionize platform Walltopia contracts even the banking and legal services is needs.
To a large extent, it is the hard work of the Walltopia team that contributes significantly to the rise of climbing as a sport on a global scale, among both adults and children. Even during the pandemic, the growth in the number of climbers on all continents and the demand for better halls resulted in the design and opening of a huge number of new locations. Another fact indicative of the rise of the sport climbing is its inclusion in the Olympic disciplines in Tokyo 2021.
Special project for
Idea and realization
Time Costs Money
Milena Zaharieva – the head of the Procurement Department at Walltopia, considers the Auxionize platform as a working tool for optimizing time and increasing her team’s efficiency.
"In the past, in order to buy a certain type of material, we had to send dozens of emails to contacts from our supplier database and after receiving their offers, we had to combine and compare them. Now this is automatically done by the platform," said Zaharieva, noting that Auxionize also allows her to easily monitor the work of her team.
The database that the Auxionize system archives and is available at any time is also of great benefit to her department. Thus they can monitor the movements in prices, clearly see if a supplier is trying to raise prices artificially, as well as to make a precise cost-analysis by product categories.
"We always look for a direct connection with large-scale manufacturers whenever possible, and invite them to submit a bid in the platform. Sometimes Auxionize has given us the opportunity to find new suppliers which we had not asked for a quote, and they suddenly surprised us quite pleasantly" said Milena Zaharieva. She believes that one of the advantages of the system is the option to rate suppliers, thus allowing you to find out whether a company that you have not worked with so far, can be considered reliable.
Currently her department consists of 4 people, and according to her, if they did not use the platform, they would need at least twice as many to cover the volume of work at hand.
Ship-e-Motion EOOD, a subsidiary of one of the largest and longest-standing companies in the transport sector in Bulgaria - Unimasters Logistics, is an example of an active participant, offering logistics services on the Auxionize platform. It was established in 2019, and its subject of activity is very similar to that of the parent company. However, it offers services mainly through the digital portal Ship-e-Motion.com developed by them. The idea behind its development is to give their customers a self-service option – to easily obtain quotes, book transportation, track shipments, upload and download documents.
Walltopia
Written by Yana Boudurova
Photos by Yane Golev
Sport Climbing to the Olympus Peaks
Ivaylo considers a real achievement in the company operations in the last two years the fact that despite the global crisis in the supply chain caused by the pandemic, the company has not been imposed any default for delays in the implementation of any of the hundreds of projects it worked on.
"One of the specifics of our business is that we supply materials from around the world, then all elements are designed and manufactured in Bulgaria, and from here we transport them to various parts of the world along with our installation teams. In the midst of the pandemic we constantly had an installation team positioned, or a container blocked, somewhere around the globe", said Penchev and added that Covid-19 can be a very contagious excuse not to do your job.
"We are immune to this and our partners highly appreciate it. Business is a marathon: there can always be a sprinter who will lead the race for a while, but the real winners are those who find the strength to keep going when it gets real hard.", said Penchev.
Business as a
Long-Distance Marathon
Champion Run with Auxionize
And yet, how is such a complex logistic task solved, given the context of global supply chain difficulties, in particular? Ivaylo Penchev reveals that their greatest asset is the Auxionize platform - a project that was initiated while searching for a solution to manage Walltopia's relations with suppliers in 2014 and evolved into a complete B2B market in early April this year.
"Our company uses more than 5 000 items, over 90% of which are ordered through the system. It is absolutely impossible to research suppliers and hold regular price negotiations with each of them," added the manager and said that before working with Auxionize, he was personally involved in many of the negotiations with their key suppliers.
"From today's standpoint, based on our cost analysis, I see myself as a weak negotiator, although five years ago I through I was quite good. I realize that at that point I did my best as a manager by personally negotiating our key supplies, but numbers reveal that this has often turned against the interests of our business."
Another interesting fact is that the company manages to achieve all of that without having a designated logistics department, by simply working entirely through the Auxionize platform, where it finds the optimal solutions to its transport needs.
"Transport is a classic example of a spot market, meaning that you can negotiate price here and now. You never know which carrier has an empty truck and is looking for cargo to transport on its way back. One of Auxionize's most valuable features is that it raises the awareness of all market participants and this is quite valuable when negotiating transport services, where the market situation is extremely dynamic," explained the entrepreneur.
Who are "Ship-e-motion" EOOD
The fastest installation
In 2016, a team from Walltopia built 700 square meters of climbing walls for the World Championship in Paris for the record-breaking 72 hours. By comparison, a facility of such scale usually takes about 25-30 days to build.
The largest climbing hall,
designed and built at once
With its 6 377 square meters of plywood panels, the Kletterzentrum Innsbruck is the largest climbing hall in the world that has been designed and built to this size. The design of the facility took about 8 months, during which the coach of the Austrian national team and manager of the hall kept constant communications with Waltopia’s architect.
The highest indoor climbing wall
The 42.16 meter- high Clymb in Abu Dhabi, UAE, is the highest indoor climbing wall, which was even included in the Guinness Book of World Records. In 2006, the highest climbing wall was only 30 meters high, housed in an old water tower in Leipzig, and was also constructed by Walltopia. The hall is called Kletterturm and is still operational.
The highest climbing wall in the world
The 80-meter-high CopenHill in Copenhagen, Denmark, is the highest climbing wall in the world. It is mounted on the futuristic facade of a power plant and a waste recycling center. In addition to a climbing wall, the site also offers a ski slope and a promenade.
Ship-e-Motion EOOD, for example, is one of their main maritime transport service providers. According to Ivan Kolev, the company’s Commercial Director, they win a great percentage of the auctions at Auxionize. "We only submit bids when we know we can offer competitive terms. Maritime transport is our main strength and we participate mainly in such procedures," he explained, adding that price is rarely the only driver, and usually the combination of factors such as transit time and a real opportunity to organize a shipment is most important. An additional bonus that Kolev notes is that when he makes a bid, even if it does not win the auction, he gets a clear view of his position as compared to his competitors and of the areas allowing cost optimization, thus achieving optimization of his final price and the conditions for his customers.
Walltopia Records
"It is not important that the wall is the highest one if it is a destroyer of value. I like working with private, demanding and pushing investors, and what we create develops and generates value," Penchev summed up, adding that they never aimed at setting records, while the greatest satisfaction came when their customers would return to Walltopia.
To date, fifteen years after completing its first project in the US, Walltopia has already built six climbing halls for Pederson's company and is a co-shareholder in it. Furthermore, the Bulgarian company tops the list of the largest suppliers of artificial climbing walls and active entertainment facilities in the US, keeping the leading position for 8 consecutive years, and its name traditionally stands behind numerous industry-leading products and many of the largest, tallest, most complex and seemingly impossible to develop projects at various locations around the globe. In addition to the largest chains of sport climbing halls, its customers including companies such as Ferrari, Dreamworks and National Geographic. A wall manufactured at their Letnitsa factory, is also installed at the headquarters of the technology giant Google.
Over the years, the Walltopia family has expanded to include more than 10 companies in a group, employing 600 professionals from various sectors and industries.
However, Ivaylo Penchev – one of the company founders, believes that projects that are described with superlatives are not the most important ones. He finds that the most valuable projects are those that create real added value for investors and for the people using them.