Podcast „Alles neu Aus dem Maschinenraum“ | Folge #34: Pia und Günter Albers von ELA Container

Thank you very much.

The balance to keep in the family is honestly not so difficult currently. I only entered last October and as IT lead, and because I entered as IT lead, you actually get the perfect insight in my eyes that you can only get because we are currently in the process as a company to transform our entire IT landscape and thus also the end-to-end processes of the company. Through that, I get a super insight into the entire company and can discuss these topics directly with the management, my father, my aunt, and am thus in IT lead, yes, but can also immediately discuss the topics that are relevant for the future, where I naturally want to co-create, directly with them. Yes, and actually, we also have an error culture in our company. That means, one is allowed to make mistakes, so we give a long leash, right? So, that means, we want our employees to make decisions. So in that sense, we have a very easy company culture and one doesn't get in each other's way. The big points are discussed and then it's just done.

It felt very good for me. So, it was naturally not a decision one makes from one day to the next, but we have in the family a very, so to speak, structured process also, that we annually in the next generation exchange and think about. Long-term, one can generally imagine entering the family company. And through that one has worked on this process jointly in the next generation, it was also clear to me if I, so to speak, elsewhere, I hit my horns, as we always say, right, the horns off, I want to see how it goes further and then for me, I thought, okay, management consulting, yes, that was now 4 years, how does it continue? And then it was for me relatively quickly clear that before I build a network in another company and take content with me, I want to rather invest this time in the family company and give there and accordingly, yes, for me then yet very trivial and a few more things came together and exactly.

Yes, I can start first, then we can naturally pass the ball to each other. Fundamentally, for us, the both managing directors, my father and my aunt Günther and Lisel, are managing directors and thus naturally push many topics forward directly, and then these topics are again coordinated with the shareholders at the right places, and we as the next generation, but not yet active in management, are also involved in these topics. So, even if I am e.g. not a shareholder, I go into the topics, go into the meetings, to build my competence further. And so we have, to put it briefly, taken many structural measures, many meetings where we say we want to pick up everyone communicatively to place the right topics at the right points and discuss together. But of course the goal is management, right?

Exactly. So good question, but honestly not. I have very much, and I think I can also explain where it comes from, because I have a lot of creative freedom. So my father is, so to speak, my direct supervisor, because he from the management manages the IT area, and accordingly, when I come with ideas and they are well-founded and say, these are my arguments, then I have a free hand there, and accordingly, there is actually no question.

Exactly. So as you have already described, also actually, so IT and digitalization, we separate it but naturally keep it under one roof a bit together. I personally, so to speak, am now for the IT lead started. But we also have our so-called incubator, Five Ahead, where we want to advance fast solutions, digital topics, where we also create digital products, as you just said, Tobias, where we naturally further digitalize our container, make it smarter and accordingly we have both. And there is an exciting question from the audience from Ren, how does one best manage in the area of digitalization to bring the young guns together with the old hands? Do you have that topic?

So currently, the core topic being created there is the smartness of the container. So our container can currently be said to be still relatively stupid, right, and there you can naturally do a lot in the sense of IoT, Smart Home we all know by now. And there are very, very many possibilities. The colleagues have approached very structured, first looked, okay, what does the market actually want, right? But perhaps also topics that the market maybe doesn't even know yet. Put everything in a pot and really great topics have now come out of it, where we attach to the container to make it smarter. And that is really the core that is currently running there and that we now first bring to the street, and after that there is naturally again an evaluation, what are the next topics. There is naturally still much more running, but that is, so to speak, if we want to focus on one core topic currently, I think the most exciting first.

Already. So that is actually this lighthouse project. So it is a huge project, so where we say, okay, we have attributes one to five that are supposed to go on this container now to make it de facto smart. And that is simply this huge project and that is then also the lighthouse project. We plan to transfer this project for the first time from the incubator to the mother at the end of the year. That is naturally now also a super exciting process for us where we then learn, okay, how do you hand over these fast boats that you have created now to the mother and how do you manage that the mother is not overwhelmed, because we are all somehow then again or everyone is captured in their operational business and yes, long story short, that is the lighthouse project.

Well, we have to ask the other colleagues that question. But fundamentally, we have a very structured approach where everyone has to justify why they want to hire a specific person, why they need a certain budget and for what. We're currently in the investment planning phase for the coming years, and the process is identical to what everyone else goes through. But the question doesn't really arise for us, because if you listen to Reinold Würth, he says IT, future, IT, IT, IT. And then nothing happens for a long time, and then IT again. If a company doesn't put IT in the foreground, I believe they've lost. I think it's self-evident that every company has to go full throttle on this. So I don't have any problems with budgets, nor do I get them more easily. Anyone else in my position would get exactly these budgets.

Exactly. Until now, our production was assembling components according to what the customer wanted. So a container facility was essentially like Porsche Leipzig — they received the body panels, assembled everything, and had a finished car. That's how you should picture our production so far — modification, if you will. Due to the high number of containers we need annually, we went deeper into manufacturing. We acquired a new hall, 280 meters long, 90 meters wide, on 180,000 square meters of land near Haren, Münster, where our headquarters is. We're currently building a fully automated production line where a frame comes off every 18 minutes. Depending on demand, we can run two or three shifts. So we've gone deeper into manufacturing and also acquired a company where we now produce our own windows.

Our location is Haren am Münster. I mean, that's easy to explain. Everyone knows the Meyer Werft, where the cruise ships are built. Everyone probably also knows Schloss Dankern in Haren — as a child you've certainly been there. It's the largest covered leisure park in Germany. And then, last but not least, SV Meppen — they played in the second Bundesliga.

Exactly. So my father 50 years ago — we celebrated our 50th anniversary last year, the company was founded in 1972 — had an ELA logo designed, and it was the letters ELA with two F's pointing left and right. We said, 'Hey, we have to overhaul this.' That was exactly 10 years ago. We recognized we needed to build a brand. So 10 years ago, we got a completely new corporate identity. That was a tough discussion within the family — should we do it or not — because you couldn't just modify it, you had to completely change the appearance. We decided to do it. The family came to agreement, father slept on it one night and said 'Let's go.' Among us siblings it was a longer discussion, but they came around too and said okay, let's do this together. So 10 years ago: new corporate identity, built a brand. That was incredibly important not just for recruiting young people, but also for building an entirely new customer portfolio. Suddenly we were interesting for large companies like a Tesla in Amsterdam, for companies from Kronach-Neustadt an der Aisch, for well-known companies worldwide who wanted to be supplied by us. A small company from the countryside now serving the world — it was a very exciting experience. And I think that answers the question. What I can add is that we do a lot at our location for our colleagues. For example, a company restaurant will be opening soon, with the networking idea in mind. We also open up in terms of working models and workplaces. We have a colleague from HR who said she wanted to move back to Hamburg, her home. We said we don't want to lose you, so let's do this — you stay with ELA but can work from Hamburg. We engage with all these topics daily — flexible working, tandem work — because for the next generation, including me, this is very important. And honestly, what wins people over most is our relaxed company culture. We don't need to introduce some new corporate culture like Siemens — ours has always been relaxed. We all use 'du,' this open-door culture. We have health days that my brother introduced, a health institute where we take care of employees and their families when someone is ill. All of this spreads. We're a family business, very expansive, internationally active, financially strong, with a business model that has a future. Young people want perspective when they join a company, and that perspective exists much more in a growing company than in one that stagnates or goes backwards. They're very well prepared for job interviews today.

Yes, exactly.

Good question. Let me think for a moment. We actually — I should say this first — generally tend to agree. And when I bring up topics where I say I'd like to do it this way, and I back it up with arguments, then he sleeps on it for a night — the apple doesn't fall far from the tree — and says yes, we can do that. So what comes to mind right now: the next generation is perhaps a bit more communicative, or rather, we want to work things through more thoroughly. We like to sit down, write out the starting situation, look at what the goal should be, and so on. These are topics I pursue, but I wouldn't say my father doesn't want to do them — they're just topics that perhaps come from the next generation.

Exactly. 48 hours is great because you don't forget about it. While everyone is still fired up, you discuss it and arrive at a solution. But what I also wanted to say about transformation — you can see we're serious about it, and we're not that far off in terms of mindset. I was in San Francisco and brought back a bumblebee for Pier. It now stands in front of the IT building — it represents transformation. That was a great gift.

My second recommendation: I personally recommend 'Emotional Intelligence' by Daniel Goleman. It's a very good book, and I thought about what would be most useful. It's a topic everyone here has probably thought a lot about, but I find this book very well written with practical examples that illustrate where you might need to pay more attention — or not.

Yes, I can start. As we say, you keep learning until all your fingers are the same length. So nothing is more constant than change. We have to reinvent ourselves every day. I wouldn't necessarily pick out one topic — if ten screws are loose, you should try to tighten all ten. That's my credo.

That's relatively clear for me, and it's also what I think my generation stands for — I just turned 30 last week. I've put it on my agenda that the company should become a data-driven enterprise, where we make data-driven decisions together. Alongside that, topics like diversity and sustainability, which we've heard a lot about today — I also covered diversity in my studies. So in short: a data-driven company with the values that are very important to our generation, while never forgetting where we come from, the first and second generation, keeping those topics in view as well.

[Applause]