Order Position

Most of the contractual relationships Bechtle enters for the sale of goods and services are of a short-term nature. The IT e-commerce segment is characterised by the conclusion of pure trading deals with very short order and delivery times, while some project transactions in the IT system house & managed services segment may take up to six months.

Order position in both segments at prior-year level

Against this background, the incoming orders largely correspond to the revenues during a fiscal year. In the reporting period, incoming orders amounted to approximately 1.43 billion euros, about the same value as in the prior year (1.41 billion euros). Organically, the incoming order volume was identical to that of the prior year, though a decline of about 4 per cent was recorded in the fourth quarter. At segment level, too, incoming orders changed only slightly compared to the prior year. The IT system house & managed services segment accounted for 0.95 billion euros (prior year: 0.92 billion euros), and the IT e-commerce segment for 0.48 billion euros (prior year: 0.49 billion euros). Though the order backlog in the IT system house & managed services segment is almost one month, it is only a few days in IT e-commerce. Thus, the order backlog did not undergo any major changes compared to the prior year

The managed services area, which takes over the IT operating responsibility for the customer, is characterised by long-term contractual relationships. However, separate figures are not published for this business area.

Bechtle offers a comprehensive product spectrum that currently comprises about 37,000 IT items. IT products are subject to ongoing price falls. In the past fiscal year, especially the prices of PCs, servers, notebooks, and printers fell by about 13 per cent compared to the prior year, while the incoming order volume was more or less the same as in the prior year. Thus, Bechtle successfully countered the price fall by increasing the quantity sold. Due to the variety of products, a breakdown of incoming orders and of the order backlog by prices and quantities would make little sense. Moreover, the product mix is largely determined by the vendors and the customer demand and is only actively controlled by Bechtle to a very limited extent. In the past year, the company did not process any large orders that were of outstanding importance for the group as a whole.

As of the end of the year, the order backlog was worth approximately 102 million euros, compared to about 100 million euros in the prior year. The increase was mainly caused by the companies acquired in the third quarter. Of the entire order backlog, the IT system house & managed services segment accounted for about 89 million euros (prior year: 82 million euros), and the IT e-commerce segment for about 13 million euros (prior year: 18 million euros).