Home Our colleagues Interview with Adolf Walth (May 2008)

Interview with Adolf Walth (May 2008)

As a medium-sized company it is impossible to be everywhere, particularly since we operate in a capital-intensive industry, so financial resources have to be carefully targeted. For that reason, we are increasing our focus on expanding our core markets as well as the availability of our core products. In this way, we are creating the conditions for a successful future.

Mr. Walth, what does the new organisational structure mean for Sales?
We have strengthened our sales operation by assigning Group-wide decision making authority to the extended management team. We are currently investing a lot of effort in building air separation plants in our core regions. This will create an independent product supply and ensure our future growth. Supply shortages will be a thing of the past once the current projects have been completed. In Europe, we now operate ten air separation plants for the production of technical gases. A further eleven plants will come on stream in the next two to three years. This will double our capacity! In line with this development, we are building up new sales structures and are planning a whole series of measures.

What are these measures?
For a start, we would like to use the next few years to build up our staff capacity in a targeted way. We are planning to strengthen our collaboration with universities and institutes in every field and industrial sector. We would like to attract trainees, interns, and undergraduate and postgraduate students who are carrying out research into gas-relevant topics, conducting market studies or lecturing on this subject. Throughout Europe, we want to attract graduates who will commit themselves to the company and the Messer brand, in order to develop new research topics and new ideas for every sector, as well as to disseminate this knowledge.

You mentioned research – what role will the patenting of research results play in the future?
As a family company, we cannot make massive investments. Instead, we have to differentiate ourselves from our large competitors through the quality of our work. In 2007, we applied for patents for 17 processes. That is more patents per employee than the former Messer Griesheim GmbH achieved. We are happy with this trend, however we want to continue to grow more quickly in terms of patents than turnover. Protecting knowledge will become even more important in the future as there will be far-reaching industrial changes in the area of energy generation. I expect worldwide demand for industrial gases to increase sharply in the coming years. We will not be able to play a part in the construction of every production facility; however, as a company, Messer can contribute its know-how in the use of gases and through new technologies position itself in this changing market through new technologies.

To what extent are you being supported in this by partnerships, for example with your customers?
Successful alliances with our customers and partners are analysed for their potential for international expansion. I am talking, for example, about our cooperation with the French firm Olivo, with whom we developed the very successful Siber System for food transport refrigeration. But the collaboration of our Polish colleagues with Trumpf in the area of laser gases is also interesting. These alliances are intended to help us market our products and technologies. We are also planning to make relevant changes to our key account management: we are proactively engaging with our customers, analysing which of our technologies will make our customers more successful. All our internal sales tools are being revised centrally and are being made available to our sales staff as a standard work for industrial gases which will serve as an optimum source of information and basis for their work.

Are you also planning to market your products by electronic means – using the Internet?
Yes, e-business is generally slightly more awkward in the industrial gases sector than in many other sectors. In several countries, we have had very good experiences with electronic portals for years in connection with specific topics and tasks. We are learning from our good examples and are planning to invest in a functional web shop. At the same time, we are going to develop our Internet presence in order to provide an attractive and extensive source of information. We are going to sell a lot more molecules in the future, via all channels.

Finally, what do you think the future holds for the industrial gases market?
In internal working groups, we are intensively studying economic trends in the industry and their significance for the Messer Group. This is a continuous process, but we already know that the fi eld of medical gases is an important strategic element in terms of consolidating our future market position. For example, home care has become very important in Western Europe in recent years, and this will soon also be the case in Central and Eastern Europe. The supply of medical gases – such as oxygen for respiration – has definite advantages for us: the growth in this sector is very promising and it is nowhere near as capital intensive as the industrial gases sector. But wherever the trends may lead, we will carefully coordinate all our activities as a new Sales Team together with our colleagues from the national subsidiaries. In this way our success should be assured.