German and Iranian companies match

Many business leaders are watching closely Iran political developments that have direct effects on its economic environment. Among them are many medium- sized businesses. The important role of such companies in Iran and Germany makes it well probable for both countries to build strong connections at this level. Thomas Schöpe, CEO of Reitz Umwelttechnikin Kassel, explains such possibilities.

Schoepe

M.K.: Before moving to a family-owned company and become managing director of their medium-sized branch company, you were working at a big, DAX-company for 22 years. What were your motivations to change?

THOMAS SCHÖPE: I had different reasons. Family-owned businesses and medium-sized companies are highly important in Germany; one could say they form the backbone of the German economy. They are providing 70 percent of the employed workforce in the country. They are highly flexible and reactive to market changes, have a high potential of excellently educated staff which is generally raised through apprenticeships they are offering to grow their next generation workforce.

There are many challenging tasks to do in a smaller company; As a CEO, now I have much more liberty and decision power to develop the company and create new business opportunities. In a big company, especially a stock company there is tremendous bureaucracy and a major portion of time and enthusiasm is eaten up by reporting and budget-busting paperwork. That partially explains why I decided to change.

In your previous position, you were very much involved in international business. Were you selling to Iran as well?

We had lots of business with Iran before the sanctions. Iranian power plants and petrochemical industries were mainly our clients.

Now that Iran is opening again, many business leaders are waiting to see when the sanctions will be removed to restart their business there. What are your main concerns to resume your activities in Iran?

We are closely watching the political developments and are positive to see Iran politically and economically back to normal in a foreseeable period of time. As soon as the sanctions are lifted, we will resume our Iran business. We just hope that our business partners of the past are still there and did not forget about us.

How do you evaluate German-Iranian partnership?

Iranian and German companies and the people
in the companies match very well and our experience confirms this. It is because in Germany, family-owned and medium-sized companies play a very important role in the economy. This is similar in Iran. At this level of business, you will be successful if you have good relationship with your partners, face to face and personal contacts. Iranians and Germans have shown that they can be very good friends and partners in business and this will be the key to work efficiently together.

Which industries form your target market?

In general, whenever you need to move air or gas, you need a fan. Power plants, chemical and petrochemical industries, the air-filtering industry for air-cleaning which is applied in many clean room applications like pharmaceutical and automobile industries, are examples of this. As well as those industries where they need to remove dust or oil from mechanical equipment. In- deed there is a wide range of industries where our products are used.

When the market is big, then you should have many competitors as well. Are they mainly German or foreign companies?

Competition makes the business dynamic. In Germany we have at least ten serious competitors. To remain in the market, we constantly monitor our competitors and keep our eyes open on their new products, new methods of development and where they produce.

For example, we have competitors who do not manufacture in Germany at all. Instead they have partners in the low-cost European countries. This causes their production expenses to be lower however not without disadvantages for them also.

Apart from the low-cost European countries, there is a worldwide competitor for many industries: China.What are your strategies to compete with them?

As long as you are working in a high cost labor country, you have to compete with all those low cost countries, whether they are in Europe, in China or in India. On one hand we try to be ‘smarter’: we have the technology to produce 330 million varieties of fans! This is the range of the combinations we can produce. Owning the ‘technology’ we have developed over the last 60 years, is the key. Our competitors might be able to copy one specific product by reverse-engineering, but they do not have the technology to produce all those combinations.

Moreover, our focus is not only the product itself. We always meet our costumer’s deadline and provide the highest level of service and spare parts after- ward. We have about 15 highly skilled engineers whom we send to every part of the world for installation or fixing the components. These are other means to compete with the low cost companies.

Be the first to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.


*