PART 1:
DW-TV: And I am joined now by Harald Schedl, Managing Partner of consulting firm Simon-Kucher and Partners, and you also work with many small and medium sized companies. You consult them, give them advice. What would be your advice for an innovative company like RENA?
Harald Schedl: At the moment, continue innovation, of course, and expand internationally. Lots of their business is in the solar industry, and this is becoming increasingly an international and global business, so they are already quite international for their size but they have to increase their presence in the world.
DW-TV: That means they would have to do what other big groups have done already, like Siemens, outsource production to countries like China? Because the big thing about RENA so far has been that they could stay in Germany in a small little region.
Harald Schedl: I would not recommend them to outsource their production to China at the moment. They are in the machinery industry, and the machinery industry has always been a global business, so you can export machinery from Germany to any country in the world. What is very important is to keep your core competence near to the production, so research and development and production is, I'm sure, one of the success factors of RENA.
DW-TV: Okay. That's their secret of success, and of course they do have enough skilled workers. How do they manage to keep them there, in that small village in the Black Forest?
Harald Schedl: One of the key principles is the company's growing. So the people that work for RENA increasingly have opportunities to grow as well personally. So they can, for example, travel abroad as sales people and also get new experiences in the sales shop. And that's very important that a growing company can offer interesting jobs to people.
DW-TV: And how is it possible that a company like RENA hasn't been affected by the global financial crisis?
Harald Schedl: They have been affected in the last year. Now they're back on the upswing, and what they have done in the last year is to reduce fixed costs as much as possible in order to come through a crisis that affected every company in the world.
DW-TV: Harald Schedl, thank you for the moment.
PART 2
DW-TV: Georg Oelschlegel, by the way, received the 200,000 euro loan from his bank, so he can invest in his franchise.
Harald Schedl, an expert on small and mid-sized companies, joins us again. What do you make of this rather difficult situation for mid-sized companies, getting a loan?
Harald Schedl: Indeed it has been increasingly harder for small and mid-sized companies to obtain a loan, and that is one of the reasons why people like Mr Langen are successful in the market. But in general, the hurdles to get a new loan are higher and they will remain higher. So companies have to demonstrate that they have a viable business model that is good and sustainable.
DW-TV: Okay, you say that the hurdles are high, because a recent survey actually shows that every second small and medium sized company accuses banks of demanding excess safety guarantees for loans, of toughening disclosure requirements and raising interest. All of that doesn't make it particularly easy to get a loan. Is it the same problem for big companies, or does this really only affect small and medium sized companies?
Harald Schedl: In the crisis of 2009 it also largely affected the bigger companies. But this has changed again. A lot of these companies have been able to get new loans for their investments in the further competition and internationalisation of their business model. So in 2010 I would say that has been much easier for them to get the funds they needed.
DW-TV: Okay, but what about those companies that still find it difficult? I mean we've heard so often that small and medium-sized companies are the backbone of the German economy. So what alternatives are there for them to get hold of the money they need?
Harald Schedl: Well, public financing is one interesting source, and, of course, private financing. There are increasingly family companies, or families, family offices that are financing small and medium sized companies in their future growth, and this is a very interesting new source that we have not seen in the last years.
DW-TV: Harald Schedl, thank you very much.
(Interview: Monika Jones)
