From the Pitch to the Warehouse
An interview with Erik van Dee – Ecommerce fulfillment solutions champion.
How Professional Football Shaped a Champion Sales Director
Erik, you have a fascinating background that combines professional football with ecommerce fulfillment leadership. Tell us about your journey from the football pitch to becoming Sales Director at Radial Europe.
It’s been quite a journey. I played football up to a semi-professional level in the Dutch Second Division – that’s quite competitive. But what I’m most proud of is this incredible eight-year journey where my friends and I built a club from the third class all the way up to the Second Division. We promoted almost every single year. It was like building something from nothing, which actually has a lot of parallels to what we’re doing at Radial today.
That’s remarkable – taking a team from the bottom tiers to semi-professional level. How does that experience translate to your role in ecommerce fulfillment?
You know, when I was approached to join Radial three years ago, I didn’t know the company at all. It took some convincing, but what attracted me was exactly that parallel – the opportunity to build something up together. Just like in football, I’ve always been drawn to organizations that start at a lower level and then you can grow together as a team.
I like to think of our journey like a rocket with boosters. Sometimes people boost the journey forward, and sometimes boosters fall off – that’s natural. Some people are meant to be part of your growth story, others aren’t. But if you look at Radial’s performance from a year-on-year growth perspective, it’s been quite impressive. We’ve been growing 5x since the first time I heard about Radial Europe.
In football, you played as a defender – the last line of defense. How does that position translate to your approach in sales and customer service?
That’s a great question. As a defender, I was very much focused on team play and leadership. I was always working with the goalkeeper as the “gatekeeper” of our team. In sales and fulfillment, I see myself in a similar role – I’m the last line of defense for our customers’ experience.
Just like in football where you have two types of customers – your internal team and the fans in the stands who want entertaining football – in ecommerce fulfillment, we have this dual focus. We have our B2B customers as our main focus, but then there’s also the end consumer on the second level. Everything we do in terms of value provision has to serve both.
You mentioned the philosophy of Total Football earlier. How do you apply that concept to your sales approach?
Total Football is about everyone contributing to the attack, everyone being able to play multiple positions. In our sales process, it’s similar – we’re all competing with other 3PL companies to win business from brands and retailers, so everyone needs to be able to contribute to the sale.
We try to utilize our unique skill set to the fullest and find customers that align with that skill set. We don’t pursue every single opportunity – just like in Total Football, you play to your strengths while being adaptable. We focus on finding the right customers where our capabilities can really make a difference.
The Dutch national team was the main exponent of Total Football in early 1970s, with Johan Cruyff being a key player for the AFC team Ajax that won the Intercontinental Cup in 1972 and – pictured here – the Netherlands national team before playing Germany at the 1974 World Cup.
Photo by Bert Verhoeff
Speaking of capabilities, you work with Manhattan Active WMS across all Radial sites. How has your team-building experience helped you work with technology partners?
Working with Manhattan has been great, and it really reminds me of building that football club with my friends. Manhattan isn’t just a software vendor – they’re like team members. They support us in design, they’re there for implementation, and they help us scale.
When we implemented Manhattan’s WMS in our automation projects – like the dream team collaboration between Manhattan, Knapp, and Radial in Warsaw – it was just like having the right players in the right positions. Everyone knew their role, everyone supported each other, and the result was something much bigger than what any of us could achieve alone.
You’ve specialized in sportswear brands at Radial. What unique challenges do these brands face that your football background helps you understand?
Sportswear brands have some really specific challenges that I can relate to from my playing days. First, you’re managing wide SKU ranges – just like how football teams need different gear for different conditions and positions. You’ve got shoes, apparel, accessories, all in multiple sizes and colors.
Then there’s the event-driven nature of the business. In football, you have peak performance moments – the big matches. In sportswear, you have spikes around major sporting events like the European Championships or the Olympics. These aren’t your typical November-December peaks – they can happen in summer or completely off-season. Managing those spikes requires the same kind of preparation and team coordination that you need for a big match.
Why Sportswear Brands lose millions in fulfillment
In the high-stakes world of sportswear e-commerce, the path from “add to cart” to “delivered” is fraught with unique challenges that silently drain profits. While brands focus on designing breakthrough products and viral marketing campaigns, their fulfillment operations often struggle with inefficiencies that directly impact the bottom line.
What’s the most important lesson from football that you apply to customer relationships?
Customer centricity, absolutely. In football, you’re always thinking about entertaining the fans while also serving your teammates. You can’t just “park the bus” and play defensive football – that’s not what people want to see.
In fulfillment, it’s the same principle. We can’t just focus on the operational efficiency and forget that there’s an end consumer who wants an amazing experience. When I was a defender, I always wanted zero goals against me, but I knew the opponents would get their chances. The key is making sure that when they do, you’re prepared and you bounce back stronger.
That’s exactly how we approach customer challenges at Radial. Problems will happen – supply chain disruptions, peak volume spikes, complex product requirements – but it’s how you respond as a team that determines whether you win or lose.
Can you share a specific example of how you’ve helped a brand transition to the next level, similar to how you built up your football club?
Absolutely. One of our most recent success stories is SuitSuit, which we implemented at our Dutch site in Groningen. They came to us from a fairly standard contract logistics company – they were ready for the next phase and wanted to take the next steps, particularly for cross-border expansion.
Experience AMR-s in action: Dematic ‘Customer Day’ in Groningen
Radial Europe invited Dematic, one of the world’s leading providers of automation and software solutions for warehouses and distribution centres, to host an exclusive event at Radial’s state-of-the-art facility located in Groningen, Netherlands. Scheduled for mid-April, this event offers an opportunity for attendees to delve into the benefits of automation and software powering Radial’s advanced warehouse operations.
What they really needed was a 3PL partner who was more familiar with the ecommerce landscape and direct-to-consumer business. They wanted to elevate their supply chain to the next level. We implemented them with a quite flexible manual solution – this was important because of their product characteristics and the diverse shapes of luggage and travel accessories.
But the key was providing them with the tools to scale their business internationally more rapidly and with better infrastructure. It’s exactly like what we did with our football club – taking an organization that had the potential but needed the right support system and operational excellence to reach the next level. SuitSuit was ready to grow, they just needed the right partner with the right capabilities to make it happen efficiently.
You’ll be speaking at Deliver Amsterdam on June 4th. What will you be discussing, and who will be joining you on stage?
I’m really excited about Deliver Europe 2025, in Amsterdam from the 4th to the 5th of June – it’s going to be a great opportunity to discuss “An Ever-changing Retail: How To Stay Nimble?” alongside Alin Pop, our Head of IT Solutions at Radial.
We’ll be diving deep into how retailers and brands can maintain agility in today’s fast-paced commerce environment. The presentation will focus on the challenges we’ve been discussing – the need for speed, flexibility, and flawless execution in fulfillment operations. We’ll share insights from our partnership with Manhattan Active WMS and how technology enables us to stay nimble while scaling operations.
Alin and I make a great team for this presentation because we can cover both the strategic sales perspective and the technical implementation side. It’s that Total Football approach again – having the right players in the right positions to deliver a comprehensive view of how fulfillment operations can stay adaptable in an ever-changing retail landscape.
Erik in Graz, Austria, at the KNAPP Fashion & Retail 2024 event with Matteo Petruzzellis from Radial Marketing, representing Radial Europe as part of the successful collaboration at the Warsaw, Poland, fulfillment center.
Radial and Knapp implemented an A-frame solution for doTERRA to support them in their fast-growing European direct selling business.
Any final thoughts on how your football experience continues to shape your leadership at Radial?
The biggest thing is never losing sight of the fact that both football and fulfillment are team sports. Whether you’re building up from the third class to the Second Division, or growing a 3PL from 20 million to 100+ million in revenue, success comes from people working together toward a common goal.
At Radial, with Manhattan as our technology backbone and our incredible operations teams across Europe, we’re playing at the highest level. But just like in football, you can never stop improving, never stop supporting your teammates, and never lose focus on delivering an experience that makes your customers – both B2B and end consumers – want to keep coming back.
That’s what championship teams do, and that’s what we’re building at Radial.
Erik van Dee is Sales Director at Radial Europe, part of the bpostgroup’s 3PL Europe division. When he’s not helping brands scale their ecommerce operations, he can still be found on the football pitch, though these days it’s more about staying fit than climbing league tables. You can hear him speak at Deliver Amsterdam on June 4th, 2025.
