ThyssenKrupp Magazin

60 INTERVIEW
above all, who decides what we do. Each employee within our company
has to realize this and act accordingly.
Is this approach part of a new corporate culture at ThyssenKrupp?
Let me point out the decisive difference: in the past, engineers used to
ask first of all what their competence was, and then developed a multitude
of basic materials with numerous characteristics. After that, areas
of application were sought for these materials. Experience shows, however,
that this strategy is less successful than the reverse approach:
First, customer requirements have to be researched and, based on
these findings, existing competencies are combined to develop a specific
solution, at justifiable expense. But I want to stress that our entrepreneurial
activities have to yield a financial result that creates added
value. Our modern production equipment serves above all to generate
profit. Only then will we also be able to create jobs in the long term.
And what about respect for the engineers’ competence?
I’m not questioning their competence. But it is not only the decision
makers within our Group that have to be shaken up. For decades, steel
groups placed far too much emphasis on technology: engineers and
technicians have a very particular mentality, and want to publish the results
of their work with pride. The exchange of information in the relatively
small sector thus knew no limits – everybody knew what everybody
else had developed. We can no longer afford that. We are working
under extremely tough competitive conditions worldwide. It is an art to
remain quiet about real innovation. The most important thing is that we
win customers for our innovative products.
If I understand you correctly, the engineer has to be just as much a
sales agent?
Not necessarily, but I have to be able to expect of engineers that they
never lose sight of the marketability of their innovations. In this regard,
I am guided by traditional entrepreneurial principles. The product-market-profitability-responsibility
relationship focuses on a very small circle
of actors. This circle is rendered anonymous in major corporations. One
person researches, the other produces, yet another sells, and everybody
focuses only on their particular function. Real entrepreneurial interplay
is often lost in the process. This has to change; we have to return
to an understanding of the whole. All those in charge have to think
Technology and basic materials have accompanied Prof. h.c. (CHN) Dr. Ulrich
Middelmann throughout his professional life. Middelmann, 58, who has been
vice chairman of ThyssenKrupp AG and chairman of ThyssenKrupp Steel AG
since 2001, studied mechanical engineering in Darmstadt and economics in
Aachen. He obtained a doctorate from Bochum’s Ruhr University in 1976 and
an honorary professorship from the University of Tonji in Shanghai in
September 2003. In 1977 he moved to Krupp Stahl AG in Bochum and in 1992
became a member of the executive board of Fried. Krupp AG Hoesch-Krupp,
Essen/Dortmund. In the context of the merger of Thyssen AG and Fried. Krupp
AG he was appointed to the executive board of ThyssenKrupp AG in 1999.
TK Magazine | 1 | 2004 |