Fit for the next round

Dear readers, 2009 will not only be remembered as a year of crisis, it is also the Darwin bicentenary. The great naturalist would have been 200 years old in February. In the light of his theory of evolution, one thing becomes apparent: It is still not size that ensures the continued existence of a species, of a company or of a whole industry. It is its ability to change and adapt. Those that embrace change fastest and implement change best will emerge strongest from the current crisis. “Exploit the crisis” is the motto with which we appeal to our customers and partners to pull together on our common path of innovation. We are convinced that the foundations must be laid today so that we are fit for the next round of evolution tomorrow. And innovation is the opportunity for us to haul ourselves out of the quagmire of the crisis and to reach this stage of evolution. This is more than just whistling in the dark, something that is demonstrated not just by the huge amount of positive feedback from our customers, but also by hard facts. We are noticing that orders which had previously been stopped are now being called off after all, that new projects are being fed into our development department and that follow-up orders are being placed.

And when the markets come back to life, the demand for innovative, energy-efficient solutions will grow in a wide variety of industrial sectors. We and our customers are well prepared for this. Not least thanks to EC technology. In all output classes, this is among the best that is available on the market, and even today it hugely undercuts the limits of the IE3 energy classification due to come into force in 2015. The next stage of evolution can come: We are ready.

Thomas Borst
Managing Director Sales Group Management