#73 Gottfried Brunbauer über New Work, digitale Transformation und die Stärken von LiSEC

Thank you very much, the pleasure is mine.

Good question. Usually there are various things that will come up during the day that occupy my thoughts in the morning. But fundamentally, of course, there are also topics around general company development. As you mentioned, we're currently expanding the site, investing in various things, and today also ensuring that those investments go in the right direction and ultimately bring the benefits we expect.

Glass fascinates me because of the interesting properties of the material. Glass is very multifaceted. Glass is an amorphous material that, due to its special properties, doesn't develop a crystalline structure like metal — otherwise it would be opaque and would have entirely different properties. And this amorphous structure gives glass many special properties that enable a wide range of applications.

The most striking trends are, on the one hand, sustainability and energy efficiency. Glass surfaces in buildings are the areas where the most energy is lost. So there's a strong trend toward improving insulation values and using ever-higher-quality glass elements, which is naturally also important for machine builders. The second major trend is automation. The whole world is complaining about labor shortages and skilled worker shortages, so our customers are strongly focused on automating processes, reducing manual work, and also reducing dependence on labor.

Mostly by processing the emails that have come in overnight.

On one hand, the company and its position in the industry. The market for flat glass processing machines worldwide is very manageable — we're talking about 1.5 to 2 billion euros in market volume per year. For a company of this size to reach its goals, it's necessary to do business worldwide, with contact with customers across all cultures and technical facets. At the same time, given the size of the industry, companies are still relatively small compared to other international corporations. LiSEC, with about 1,400 employees, is a larger mid-sized enterprise. That means you know the structure of the company, are involved in many processes, oversee the company, and personally know many people. This mix of a manageable company that operates internationally and serves the entire global market is a very exciting combination. Naturally, combined with technology — as an engineer, my heart beats faster when I see the products.

I don't ask of others anything I wouldn't do myself. Today's leaders need a high degree of social competence and certainly also a high degree of resilience.

Family, sports, astronomy.

As you mentioned, the company was founded in 1961 by a single individual — the founder, who was a very charismatic and technically very skilled person, and also a very good businessman. He led the company until 2009, and during that time the company had a very continuous development, focused on this one person. He developed it into the leading company in the industry. Then in 2009, the owner and company founder passed away, and that marked the beginning of a very intensive transformation phase. As happens in many companies founded and built by a single person, it was about transitioning from an owner-led company strongly oriented around one individual to a professionally managed company. That was by no means an easy phase for the company — building organizational structures, process structures, and creating the foundation to run the company according to more objective criteria. When it's your own money and your own assets, you can really decide entrepreneurially from the gut. In a professionally managed company, that's no longer possible in the same way. It was a difficult period for the company, I'd say it probably took eight to ten years. LiSEC evolved during that time into a modern industrial enterprise, and it was then possible to find a new identity and a new market position. In recent years, much has been achieved in that regard. Today, LiSEC is still leading in the industry, perhaps even in a stronger position than a few years ago, but now based on a completely different company structure.

First, it's important to preserve certain values that have always been in the company and in the people, and that are important to employees. On the other hand, you still need to find a new identity because the owner as the central reference person for the organization is simply no longer there. It was a balancing act. We achieved this by starting a few years ago, together in the leadership team, to sketch out a picture of what the central values are that guide our organization. We also had an intensive dialogue with customers to see how the outside world perceives the company — where it sees strengths, and where it sees room for improvement. This led to what we internally call a brand core, which describes how we wish the company to be seen — what characteristics we would want attributed to us — but which are simultaneously guiding principles for the organization's development and everything we do in daily business. My business partner and I communicate these central values of the brand core at least four times a year directly to the team, and it has become a very intensive guide for employees. This is, for us, the new identity we've found — in our position in the industry, in how we conduct our business, and in our daily actions.

The central characteristics are reliability, competence, and innovation.

I'm always a bit cautious with statements on this topic. When you join a new company, you observe and try to understand what's happening. There are things you want to promote or that you believe are still correct, and there are also things where you get the impression they're not moving in the right direction. But of course, those were shaped by someone else, and it's always difficult to judge what others have done because there are no absolute standards. But to answer your question: my assessment was that due to the developments in previous years, a too-complex structure had evolved that made decision-making processes slow, non-transparent, and difficult, and that had thereby lost a certain degree of customer focus, which is extremely important in machinery and plant engineering. We manufacture machines with which our customers earn their money when the machines run smoothly today. So customer focus and focus on the quality and reliability of our products and services are the central point. The most significant changes were therefore simplification of structures, consolidating areas, integrating functions, and significantly reducing the leadership team to make the organization leaner, more transparent, and more agile. That was a central theme. Further points were: in our business, there are occasionally weaknesses in products, and there are always customer projects that don't go entirely according to plan. It's important to give these things the necessary focus today. We placed emphasis on quickly and sustainably eliminating known product weaknesses and developing a different approach to customer projects — when something doesn't go according to plan, not trying to sweep it under the rug, but simply addressing it and saying, 'Something didn't go optimally, we acknowledge it and put it right so the path is clear for the future.' Looking at order development, revenue development, and the company's economic performance, as well as customer feedback, I would say — in all modesty — not everything was wrong.

It started with Corona in March 2020, which then seamlessly merged into the global supply chain issues in 2021, accompanied by the whole topic of labor availability. We came through these problems very well. It didn't trigger additional changes — we were right in the middle of the transformation process I described when Corona hit. It perhaps accelerated certain things we would have planned anyway, but it didn't trigger additional substantial changes. Corona was difficult, especially in the investment goods sector. What companies first do when prospects are uncertain is keep cash in the company and don't invest — our customers did the same. Order intake collapsed massively in a short time, and it was very uncertain how things would proceed. Unlike other companies, we decided very early on to implement massive cost reduction measures because it was unclear how severe the economic downturn would be and how long it would last. We also released staff. As a result, despite the massive downturn, we still achieved a slightly positive result in 2020 and didn't interrupt the continuous transformation. By the end of 2020, the industry began to recover. 2021 was still not back to pre-Corona levels but significantly better. Then the supply chain issues came. We developed a very clear strategy for dealing with them, which guided us through that phase better than some competitors and better than some machinery companies in other industries. This allowed us to pick up significant speed again. 2022 was a very good year — not back to normal, but thanks to our strategy regarding supply chain issues, we managed 2022 very well.

The strengths weren't just formed now. They lie in two areas. The one is culture and self-image, which we've partly discussed. Even though the company has undergone transformation over the decades and there were difficult phases, what remains deeply embedded is a certain family feeling — even though it's no longer a classic family company. Many knew the founder personally, and that shapes the culture. It's been preserved and passed on through generations, leading to strong team spirit, strong sense of solidarity, strong mutual support, and the attitude that when things don't go according to plan, everyone stands shoulder to shoulder to tackle and solve the problem. The other aspect is the substantive positioning of the company. LiSEC, together with its competitors in Germany, began industrializing flat glass processing in the 1960s. Before that, these kinds of technical solutions and products didn't exist. So LiSEC has built a very strong position in the industry. The most notable aspects are that LiSEC is the only company in the industry offering the complete product and service portfolio for flat glass processing — we call it a 'one-stop shop.' From logistics to shipping of finished products, including software, everything from a single source. Because of this portfolio, we're the player in the industry that can build glass processing operations from scratch, with the experience and portfolio to cover planning through commissioning and operation. And what's certainly an essential point: we're the only company in the industry that itself operates glass processing — we have operational expertise and understand our customers' business because we operate under competitive conditions.

I wouldn't necessarily say it's a new method. How often we'll do it in the future or how we'll do it remains to be seen — we're experimenting. Traditional employee surveys are classically deficit-oriented — you ask employees where there's room for improvement. When you ask about deficits, you get deficits reported, which creates expectations to resolve and eliminate them — something that isn't always quickly achievable. On the other hand, it's well-known wisdom that real talent and excellence are created by strengthening strengths and compensating for weaknesses. So the idea was — and this isn't a method we invented; there are tried-and-tested approaches on the market — to survey employees and develop a shared picture through a survey: what are our strengths as an organization, and how can we become even stronger and more excellent by developing certain strengths? The simple approach was: instead of asking where employees see potential for improvement, ask where they see the strengths of the organization, the company, the employer brand, their own role, and their own competence profile, and then see how we can deliberately develop those strengths. This doesn't mean completely ignoring weaknesses, but consciously directing attention to strengths as well.

There weren't really any big surprises. It mainly sharpened the picture of where the perceived or suspected strengths lie. The image was very clearly sharpened. It also showed that in such a transformation phase, there are naturally different phases and priorities over time. Fundamentally, it always goes from coarse to fine — at LiSEC too. First, structural things: organization, processes, creating certain guiding images. We already mentioned the Stärkenkompass, and that also includes leadership principles and strategy. Then it goes more and more into the fine details, really extending to the personal level of individual employees. The Stärkenkompass did show that employees see very pronounced strengths at a global level, but there's still some way to go in translating that down to the individual level. So that wasn't a surprise — it was actually a confirmation of where we feel we stand. It very clearly showed in the feedback that there's a consistent view between employees and the leadership team regarding the state of transformation and what still needs to be done.

This is fundamentally a new topic for the company, but that applies to many other companies as well. What lies behind digital transformation? No matter which area of life we look at — and this applies especially to industrial processes and products — data is generated. Machines provide condition data, process data. Software processes that data, and you can use it for many purposes. In the past, this was very differently viewed — often simply reactively: the data was there, and when a problem occurred, we looked at the data to find the cause. But you can do much more with data. You can actively use data to generate more customer benefit — making processes run more efficiently, machines more available, product quality better or more stable. You can also use data for preventive or predictive action — condition-based and predictive maintenance — to see where potential problems are brewing and react before they even occur. Again, in the interest of customer benefit: better machine availability, elimination of unplanned downtime, up to optimizing our own business operations. Digital transformation for us primarily means structuring data better, completing it, and above all, using it proactively — in the interest of customer benefit but also in the development of our business model, potentially complementing it with entirely new businesses.

Since the topic is fundamentally not new, various functions within the house were already engaged with it. We have our own IT department, and since we not only develop machines but also software, we have product management for both machines and software. We have a large engineering team for developing these things. Digital transformation requires integrating these activities as well as possible. The approach was to integrate all resources dealing with the topic and driving these changes into one team and one function — that became the Future Farm. It manages the overall process around digital transformation and deals with three core topics. The first is transformation itself — digital transformation often requires a different approach than classical mechanical engineering, because development cycles are much shorter, volatility in changes is higher, and customer expectations and requirements are completely different from those for a machine with a fixed function. Developing this agility and this changed approach in our thinking and processes is what lies behind the 'transform.' The second topic, as I mentioned earlier, is looking at how we can develop our business model based on digital information — what additional aspects there could be, or what we could do completely new that has nothing to do with our current business model. There are exciting approaches there. The third theme is: we still live today and in the near future from our existing products and service program, and this program — especially our software — must be continuously further developed. The environment evolves quickly, so the third focus is to manage our entire software development: continuously improve our existing products, adapt to the state of the art, add new functions, and drive that forward relentlessly.

For me, there are two aspects. Digital transformation influences the working world — our working world, our employees' working world. Using the possibilities that digital transformation offers to shape the working world in line with the expectations not just of younger employees, but generally of employees. When you hear current surveys, especially among under-20s or 20-to-30-year-olds, work-life balance and reconciling private and professional life is a central topic. Digitalization plays a central role there because it enables entirely different forms of work — independent of location and time. The other aspect, which I already mentioned: classical mechanical engineering and plant engineering will increasingly develop toward smarter solutions. Machines will still perform certain physical processes, but the success of the business model will depend much more on what customer benefit the solutions generate — and that will be determined to a much higher degree by whether things are planned accordingly, efficiently controlled, available, and whether the output in terms of quality and quantity is optimal. That's not possible without digitalization. So it's a central theme to use these technological possibilities and further develop the business model accordingly, and to be shaping the industry rather than standing in second place.

We asked ourselves that question. As I mentioned, our working world is changing — away from everyone having their own workplace, coming there at 8 a.m. and working until 4 p.m., more or less executing pre-planned tasks. The working world has become much more dynamic and volatile. The topics of cooperation, collaboration, networking — all of that is becoming much more important in terms of speed and responding quickly to changed requirements. So we asked ourselves: how do we best design the functionality of this building? We formed external and internal teams and examined how the working world works in detail — who works closely with whom, what is the content of that collaboration. This gave us certain activity modules. An activity module can be focused, concentrated work. It can be creative design work. It can be working together on a topic. It can also be exploring solutions together. We then looked at how frequently these activities occur, and for each activity module, corresponding space modules were designed. Ultimately, the question was: how many of each space module do we need, and how do we arrange them? That then gave us the concept for the interior design. There are now defined space modules arranged according to the frequency of interactions. We don't want to limit this to just the new Engineering Center — we want to roll it out across our entire office landscape.

The working world is changing — that's just how it is. People's expectations are also changing. Unlike my generation — and not just today's generation, but the generations before as well — grew up with these technologies. Communicating and handling things via PC or smartphone is the most natural thing in the world. So the expectation is that the working world reflects that, and that you're not forced to do things in a certain place when you could do them more simply and efficiently elsewhere. This expectation is there, and this change is happening. As we mentioned, given the competition for talent, it's important for every company to offer working world conditions that are attractive for employees, especially for young people. These things are part of it. But it's also about using the possibilities in the interest of the company — making work more flexible, promoting networking. It's simply essential to engage with this topic.

As I mentioned, software development is a very central topic for us — not just for machine control. We also offer industry solutions for glass processing software, from order entry through production planning and production control. So software is already today a central topic, and possibly even more so for future business fields. But that requires people who can develop programs and software. And the labor market in this area is quite bare. There are various training paths in Austria, all following a defined educational path — primary school, middle school, possibly secondary school, then technical college or university, and then you have a degree. But there are many people who have the potential and competence to develop software but who, for various reasons, haven't followed this formal educational path — can't or don't want to. What fascinated us about the Model 42 approach is that it fundamentally gives all people the opportunity, regardless of formal prerequisites or certain school levels, to take this training path. We don't see it as a replacement but as a complement to existing training opportunities. There's a pool of students there who are extremely ambitious and motivated because they've decided under challenging conditions to do this themselves. We expect this to create an additional pool of potential future employees who are well-trained, highly motivated, and available to help us continue developing our business as we intend. Due to the very strong practical focus of this training, especially in the later stages, there's already a strong connection to the involved companies, and we expect that some — hopefully many — students will find the work interesting and end up in our software development.

Looking back at the Stärkenkompass mentally, central points were: a strong brand — LiSEC is the competence center for machines and solutions in flat glass processing. That's a point that makes employees proud. High customer and solution orientation. Very strong internal cohesion of the company, combined with flexible hours that employees value very much. And what I described before — the possibility to be truly active worldwide, traveling to customers around the globe, getting to know not only LiSEC's working world but also the customer world very well, and having a varied, content-rich, intellectually stimulating role.

We find them by being present on all kinds of channels and trying to make contact. It starts with classic search, presence on job boards, on social media. What's also very important is word of mouth — we have a program where employees refer employees. We motivate our team to contact interesting candidates from their personal circle. There's a whole range: we're at career fairs, we're regularly at schools, we host open house days, we're in close contact with the students at 42. There are a multitude of activities to get in touch with people. Fortunately, many decide to come to us. And then, to retain employees, it's important to have the right culture in the house — an inclusive culture, a culture of trust, and also what I mentioned before: a working world that's attractive, offers flexibility, and provides content-rich and stimulating roles. It's a whole bouquet of topics to remain attractive as an employer long-term.

Education. And it's important — the initiative of the companies themselves. It's no use complaining about the situation and not contributing much yourself. We do this in two ways. Apart from participating in initiatives like 42 Vienna or the Future Academy in the Mostviertel, which also deals with education and further training, we intensively train apprentices in-house — not just in the traditional sense of metalworking and mechanical engineering. We also train mechatronics technicians, glass processing technologists, and more recently coders. So we now have coding as an apprenticeship occupation where we train software developers ourselves in-house. The second is to offer attractive further development opportunities for ambitious employees who want to develop further and expand their competencies within the company. And in this way, despite very high personnel demand in recent years, we've managed to always cover it quite well.

That LiSEC is still — or even to a greater extent — the industry leader and the competence center for flat glass processing, not just in terms of machines but also software solutions and smart solutions. And that LiSEC is well-positioned for international competition, which certainly won't decrease but will intensify. Well-prepared for competition against manufacturers from emerging markets through best-in-class performance, best-in-class products, and best-in-class services.

AI is a term that's on everyone's lips nowadays. The human brain is shaped to very quickly interpret new situations based on experience and react accordingly. Unfortunately, it sometimes happens — fortunately very rarely — that humans perhaps don't quite react correctly. On the other hand, the information processing capacity of the human brain is limited. That's why intensive work is being done on giving machines capabilities to support people in processing a large number of information in a short time, and to interpret situations while making as few errors as possible.

Thank you very much for the interesting conversation and for the kind wishes.