GEALAN Fenster-Systeme GmbH Geschäftsführer Ivica Maurović im Interview beim Wirtschaftsforum 2020

Good evening and thanks a lot for the invitation.

Yes it is, I think, fate or coincidence. I had been working for GEALAN since 2002. First as a sales representative. In 2004 we founded a subsidiary in Croatia, which I managed quite successfully with my team, and then in 2008 I was offered the role of Managing Director Sales & Marketing for the GEALAN Group. I agreed and today I am here.

Yes, I am a mechanical engineer by training. After I finished my studies, I immediately started in the window industry. The first two years in window production and after four years at a system house, similar to GEALAN: selling profiles and systems. Then, as I said, I started at GEALAN in 2002. In 2005 I completed a master's degree in business administration, so that there is a commercial background, because as a managing director you can't just be an engineer.

2019 was a very important year for GEALAN. We presented our strategic direction. A strategy that we developed in 2018 with our management team is in part also about change management. We worked towards a new vision together with our managers, towards the new values together with the employees in the company and we defined the strategic priorities, which we implemented in 2019, because the strategy is designed for five years. I can say that from a perspective, it was a positive year for us. Unfortunately, we have witnessed a number of insolvencies among our customers in Western Europe. On the other hand, we gained many new customers, but we simply made up for that so that in 2019 we reached the sales level of the previous year 2018. And that was worth it, because every change takes time and we invested the time very well.

At GEALAN we always think in three directions. First comes the design. A window like this is not only there to close a hole in the wall, but also an energy element. Second, a security element and third, a thermal insulation element, i.e. an energy element, so in this context you can innovate a lot. Not only in the area of products, which is an essential part of innovation at GEALAN, but also in technology and materials. In new business models, and we have been doing all this very well for several years now, and in 2019 we have also implemented many projects that are very important for the future of GEALAN.

We used static dry glazing, an adhesive technique, so that you can build larger windows in height and width. We developed our new product GEALAN-KUBUS 2 years ago and presented it at the trade fair, which has a completely different design and the sashes are not visible from the outside. You can only see the pane of glass, which means more light comes into the house. Many other topics, thermal insulation, through foam in the profiles, acrylcolor our USP and many other topics.

Yes, I've already said, but GEALAN has also used 2018/2019 and 2017 for a new direction. When we talk about digital technologies, we are talking about cultural changes, that is the digital transformation. In this context you have to take people with you and when we talk about the new working world, we also talk about agility, improved communication, exchange, interdisciplinary cooperation. And this is very difficult in traditional office worlds, where people separate their offices by walls, because the walls are not only physical but also psychological. If I lock myself into my four walls within a company and do my job, I don't have the chance to communicate with my colleagues much more, and this is the direction in which we are developing our new work environment. We say that people sit together, they exchange ideas, communicate better, are more creative, get new ideas. We have a better chance of ideas being implemented and the ideas don't just come from the technical areas, they can also come from other GEALAN divisions. When we see an intelligent, interesting idea, we work to implement it and market it.

We have made a decision to give up offices, we want to sit together with our employees. You have to say that we didn't develop this new world ourselves in the management. Instead, we have had more than 35 people from different areas in the company, in various workshops, to think about it. What should all this look like? We have finished the concept, we have talked to architects and in this new environment I will sit together with my colleagues, with my employees and already today I have made a decision, I am moving through the departments. I will be in product management for one month, in purchasing for another month. I don't need an office for me because that limits communication and communication is very important. Not only for the management, but also for the employee.

Tanna is, let's say, 25-30 minutes by car, 25 km away from Oberkotzau. That is no problem for us. Many colleagues who spend much of their time in Tanna also work in Oberkotzau. Also a new working world in Tanna. Maybe it's not like innovation and product management, because there are the production, logistics and laminating departments, but there we have also thought about how we can make the working world more beautiful for our employees as part of our strategy, the very important pillar being employees. We have built a new canteen this year. That is very important. But not only in Tanna, but also in Oberkotzau. Tanna is very important for us, because of the 85,000 tons of profiles we produce each year, 50 to 55,000 are produced in Tanna. This is the largest location within the GEALAN Group.

I believe, like all other mid-sized companies, it is a challenge to get good employees. In Tanna, we offer special working-time models, especially when it comes to shift work, there are the so-called 11.5-hour shift models, where people work 10 hours and have 1.5 hours off. Two weekends per month are guaranteed to stay at home and it can also happen that people do not work for 3-4 days in a row. Of course, depending on the division of the shifts, it also happens that they work more. On average they work 3.5 days a week.

Absolutely, I started a digitalisation project at the beginning of 2018. We divided it into different groups. First, digitalisation in production, second important part is communication, digital communication and then we talked about new business models. When we talk about digitalisation, there are mainly the processes, there are basics, for example we introduced SAP as an ERP system in January 2019, which was a very complex project. We have prepared for it for three years. But that's not all, at the beginning of this year in January we also converted one of our subsidiaries to SAP, a rollout project for the entire Group, i.e. all subsidiaries will work with SAP. We are now starting another project, Customer Relationship Management and a new HR software. These are all basics. You have to digitalise the processes so that they are no longer analogue, paperless. We have digitalised our toolmaking division. That's a project that was done last year and now we design on a new platform where the information from tool design to running-in is paperless. But digital communication, Facebook, Youtube, LinkedIn, Xing are also important. And the Building Information Modeling business model plays a major role. That's for myself, if I had to write all this down on a piece of paper, it would be like this list of what we have implemented over the last few years. We are proud of it and it is necessary.

Yes, we have clearly defined our goals in our vision and strategy. We say our vision is, we want to fascinate and inspire people and in the area of strategy we have a clear idea of what our strategic goals are. We want to give our employees a Great Place To Work. Today we talked about the new work environment, canteens and new shift models. We want to continue growing with innovative products. We have set ourselves the goal of generating 275 million in sales by 2022. We want to be recognized as the first or second innovative window system on the market. The fourth theme is efficiency. We want to generate an increase efficiently: through digitalisation, through better quality, environmental responsibility. These are our major strategic goals for the employees, for the innovation area, for sales and finally for the result. I believe the goals are clearly communicated within the company. Everyone knows what can be achieved. You have to have a little bit of luck and perseverance and then I believe we will achieve our goals.