“Normality is the exception”
Cue supplier management: Do you deal with suppliers differently in these times?
Absolutely not. We have long been concentrating on our core competences, and we need reliable partners along the entire value-added chain. For this reason, we continue to support individual suppliers if they get into a critical situation that is not of their own doing. There are individual cases in which we unbureaucratically secured liquidity for longstanding partners. In the long run, that pays dividends for our partnership network. Intensification in sales and closeness to the customer are considered by the media to be supreme disciplines in the crisis. Let us put this nonsense to bed once and for all. If you have only just realised how important the customer is, then you have already lost. We are not doing anything differently today than we did one year ago or three years ago – we are just doing it with a more lasting intensity and closer to the pulse of the markets.
Competition for the best talents is ongoing. What exactly is ebm-papst doing to recruit qualified staff?
Despite a general recruitment freeze, we took all trainees and BA students on board in 2009. At the end of the day, we know what dedicated workers we are getting there. We are also maintaining our many different commitments. Endowed chairs, university commitments or initiatives such as “Youth research” and the “Knowledge Factory” – together with other companies, we are laying the foundations here for qualification and technical enthusiasm. In this way, strategic talent management creates a competitive edge in times of growth.
Do you dare make a forecast? When do you expect to see growth again?
I think we are experiencing a return to the organic growth we talked about earlier. That means it will take two or three years until we get back to the level of 2008. However, optimism will be on the agenda again from the turn of the year 2009/10.
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