It is our vision to lay the foundation for a united world through catalyzing global trade which connects nations, generates prosperity and avoids conflicts through building economic interdependencies.
Every day, we align our business activities with our mission and the five principles that support our vision of equal prosperity amongst nations. The genuine translation of our principles into day-to-day practices is constantly felt by all our clients, fellows and partners. Click through the elements of our philosophy model to learn more about how we do business.
RESULTS
By being results-driven we continuously review, evaluate and improve our entrepreneurial activities to influence the following two factors in the best possible way: Quality and Cost.
Client Focus
We strive to meet our clients' expectations without fault, learn from our mistakes, as well as to appreciate critical comments as the valuable feedback we need for continuous improvement.
Product Consultancy
We accompany the technical specification process in pace with our individual clients and provide reference samples as a matter of course. We deliver reliable results that meet or even exceed our clients' specifications.
Equal Pricing
We calculate our pricing bottom-up according to the minimum principle and hence refrain from any kind of price negotiations. Our one-digit profit margin limit, as well as our pricing scheme, are equally applied to all sizes of companies.
Efficiency
Trimming efficiency unto perfection is one of our vowed principles. We strive to keep administrative processes as lean as possible and thus reduce the time required by our customers to a minimum. We keep it simple, straight forward and focus on the result.
Availability
We avoid the costly standby time of customer service staff. Our resources are focused on concrete demand and provide qualitative, reliable and comprehensive responses within 24 hours.
Ownership
We create ownership with every supply chain inquiry by assigning an individual supply chain engineer per inquiry who is remunerated on a performance-related basis.
IT Structure
Our IT structure leverages innovative cloud technology that enables failover safety and efficient scalability, whilst maintaining military grade security and encryption standards.
Integrity
Equality, sustainability and partnership are the fundamental values that guide our actions when dealing with our clients, fellows and partners.
Equality
Our remuneration system is based on total equality and compensates our fellows and partners in time and as per agreement. All our fellows earn an equal amount from the orders processed within their teams, while our executives work pro bono.
Sustainability
We make all effort to avoid staff fluctuations as much as possible by focusing on staff retention to ensure continuous process quality. A favorable work-life balance is unmistakably rooted in all our work contracts.
Partnership
Business partnerships are not about having dinners and saying nice things, but about serious commitment, sharing risks, trust and joint ventures. We prefer sustainable client relationships over short-term one-off profit opportunities.
AGILITY
Within the framework of our globalized economy it has become key for lean buy to react to market changes in a flexible way in order to retain the most efficient and results-driven services for our clients.
Virtual Organization
We are opposed to wasting capital on fix costs such as office space, company cars and related utility costs but rather order meeting places from virtual office providers as the need arises or employ video conferencing whenever possible.
Partner Network
The continuous extending, reviewing and adapting of our partner network by means of scouting and auditing ensures we can dynamically select from a superior portfolio of contract manufacturers and logistics providers who evidently manage to assimilate the latest technology into their value streams.
Order Consolidation
Intelligent production and logistics consolidation leverages savings on both freight capacity utilization and economies of scale at the assembly line level. This is especially felt on occasions when adding small orders to larger ones to the same destination country and, in doing so, only marginal transport costs being incurred.
PROFESSIONALITY
At lean buy we draw on professional expertise to constantly deliver market-disrupting prices and high-quality products as the standard result.
Operational Expertise
We recruit exclusively operational top performers. All our fellows are or were formerly employed in key operations positions by world-leading manufacturers or logistics service providers.
Direct Purchasing
We circumvent intermediaries and avoid online trade platforms. Instead we rely on our local ambassadors and work in cohesion with local international chambers of commerce to cooperate with the most trustworthy partners in the respective primary markets.
Secured Transactions
Despite securing our digital platform through state-of-the-art encryption technology, we secure all our commercial transactions by risk-mitigating documents, such as non-disclosure and quality assurance agreements or letters of credit.
Working as a development worker in central Thailand in my early twenties led me to discover the inequality of opportunities and preconditions on earth. Spending my time with the deprived children there sparked a flame in my heart which has ultimately directed me down a lifelong path of providing equal opportunities to the less fortunate.
Eight years later lean buy was founded, with the intention of making a difference to the generic purpose of companies. Unlike the majority of commercial companies, lean buy is not about maximizing shareholder value, but about the sustainable funding of a children’s village that provides free access to adequate nutrition and proper education.
Hence, lean buy is not just a commercial endeavor, but a matter of the heart for which I feel a great debt of gratitude towards all our clients, fellows and partners who support us in our mission of enabling every human being, regardless of race, sex, nationality, ethnicity, language, religion or social standing, to become the creator of their own fortune.
Philipp Stephan
CEO lean buy e2e GmbH
Discover tangible real-life examples reflecting our principles in the daily business
Office Buildings
We do not maintain company buildings.
We do not maintain company buildings.
Nevertheless, we would be pleased to meet you at one of the 3,000 office locations which are made available by our shared office partner as a call-off contingent in 120 countries and which can be used by lean buy at short notice.
Travel Policy
We travel economically and ecologically conscious.
At lean buy, we rely on ecological and cost-efficient means of transport such as car sharing as well as local and long-distance public transport whenever possible. In this way, we keep CO2 emissions low and simultaneously save travel costs.
Meeting Culture
Time is money – your money.
We understand there are issues that are better discussed face to face. For ordinary day-to-day issues, we however prefer secure and modern video conferencing technology that allows us to discuss issues in a time-efficient manner and at a fraction of the cost of a traditional meeting.
IT Infrastructure
Demand-based, scalable and secure infrastructure
We rely on state-of-the-art, scalable and secure high-availability infrastructure from the cloud without compromising the confidentiality and security of your data. All data is stored DSGVO-compliant and securely encrypted in the German data centers of our partners.
Negotiations
With us there is no second round of negotiations
We see no added value in haggling and thus quote once with our transparent best price, considering our single digit margin limit (max. 9.9%). In the unforeseen event of higher order-related profit, our system will automatically issue a credit note to balance the difference.
Work-Life Balance
We keep staff fluctuations low
Thanks to modern working equipment, our employees work independently of location and time within the framework of a trust-based working time regulation, from anywhere and at any time. We evaluate the performance of our colleagues in a result-oriented manner, thus ensuring a work-life balance.