Short Paths and Quick Decisions
Opportunities don’t wait, and urgent matters rarely allow delays. Why should they? Modern communication channels enable fast and efficient exchange processes within organizations. The same goes for us: At the holding company level, we are always available for our subsidiaries, ensuring that tasks are quickly and efficiently addressed. This principle is shared across all our companies.
Embracing New Ideas
With the rapid pace of market developments, our companies must become more agile and address the challenges of digitalization in the coming years. We encourage our companies to seize recognized opportunities with “controlled risk,” knowing that not every decision will always be right in hindsight. But that’s entrepreneurship. What matters is that the overall outcome is positive.
Clear Goals and Open Feedback
Our companies' freedom of action is tied to certain conditions. We value transparency, clear agreements, and straightforward feedback. Informal dialogues, quarterly, and annual discussions with our management teams help facilitate this. We prioritize personal conversations over emails, excessive metrics, or polished presentations.
Cooperative Leadership
No one knows the waters better than the captain who navigates them daily. We understand this because our holding company’s leadership has extensive experience in operational management. Therefore, we trust those who lead our companies. We empower them as much as possible and give them significant freedom in day-to-day operations. Instead of directives, we offer support and ideas, building mutual trust, which is especially beneficial during challenging times.
Regular Exchange
Information provides security. That’s why our leadership maintains regular and close exchanges. The division heads continuously discuss short-term developments with the operational management teams. This is followed by our annual digital conference and quarterly meetings between the managing directors and the holding leadership. Planning discussions take place in the fall. The holding company also regularly engages with the respective managing directors on-site.
Bottom-line Accountablity
Our leadership philosophy includes ensuring that our companies develop independently. This comes with the responsibility of managing their own results. Each company must stand on its own financially. Cross-subsidization is not part of our model. Company-wide initiatives are typically optional and often originate from individual group companies. Examples include cybersecurity, digitalization clusters, benchmarks, joint license procurement, or innovation competitions.