Mr. Nürn­berger, you have been living in China for 15 years now. What part of this expe­ri­ence will you draw on for your new role?

15 years shape you a lot, make you more open to other perspec­tives and cultures, and make you adapt­able. Of course, that all helps if you want to do busi­ness in other regions. China is very fast paced. It only took China 15 years to go through the same devel­op­ment that took Germany 50 years. This is some­thing that really fasci­nates me, as is the impor­tance the Chinese place on prior­i­tizing the customer’s needs and their will­ing­ness to try new things.

You speak Mandarin, and are married to a Chinese woman. What role does diver­sity play in a global tech­nology leader’s sales?

Women, men, different gener­a­tions, coun­tries, cultures, areas of respon­si­bility, languages: diver­sity is impor­tant because it brings more input and ideas into the company. I want ebm-papst to become even more inter­na­tional with me.

What, there­fore, is your main focus in sales when dealing with your customers?

We want strategic part­ner­ships, in which we inter­link our customer’s roadmap with ours. We have done this in the past, but in the future, we will need to make this even stronger, and stronger beyond Europe. We are already serving the Asian market from China with specific prod­ucts. We want to expand this glob­ally. Our modular solu­tions will help us to achieve this.

Which chal­lenge is currently occu­pying you most?

Supply is currently the most diffi­cult issue and that is the same for the whole market. In the coming years, customers will also want to be supplied more flex­ibly, quickly and econom­i­cally. To achieve this, we need to remain compet­i­tive with our inno­va­tions as well as through our global foot­print. By relying on local supply chains, we avoid freight costs and are close to our customers.

By relying on local supply chains, we avoid freight costs and are close to our customers.

Inno­va­tion can go in two direc­tions: you can have the best and most energy-effi­cient product, but you can also offer a good-enough product at a good price. We do not make any compro­mises when it comes to quality, but we tailor prod­ucts to the specific market require­ments. Design-to-market and design-to-cost will guide us there.