IEN: Mr Fischer, roughly speaking, your company’s product portfolio is subdivided into three sectors: heat sinks, connectors and case technology. How is your total revenue subdivided among those sectors?
Fischer: With about 40 percent, heat sinks mark the most important product segment. I think that one can argue that within this branch, we are the market leader in Europe, at least as far as the product variety is concerned. Connectors and case technology each account for 30 percent of our total revenue.
IEN: Is there a product segment that is doing particulary well at the moment?
Fischer: Our innovations in the case technology sector, especially those among the high class design cases, have been very well received by the market and opened a whole new customer potential for us.
IEN: Which industries are the primary users of your products?
Fischer: Due to the great variety of our product portfolio, we are present in almost any industrial branch: medical technology, transportation industry, test and measurement, and many more.
IEN: Your export rate ranges between 30 to 35 percent. This means that the domestic sales are very important to you. Does this mean that the economic upswing, that is mainly driven by international sales to the so-called BRIC states (Brazil, Russia, India, China), reaches you in a retarded pace?
Fischer: We supply a lot of well-known German OEMs that sell their products worldwide. This means that one can’t really draw a clear line between export and import. Nonetheless, the German industry is performing quite well, compared to the rest of Europe. So, a 35 percent export rate isn’t that bad after all.
IEN: Which features would you emphasize as the main strengths of Fischer Elektronik?
Fischer: Clearly the ability to supply customer-specific solutions in small and medium quantities in high quality and at reasonable prices.
IEN: Apart from customer orientation, environmental protection is an important aspect for your company. You even formulated some basic principles regarding this subject matter. How are those principles are put into action?
Fischer: We’ve been certified many years ago by TÜV Rheinland according to ISO 14001, which bases its principles on the constant monitoring for the protection of environment. Most recently we cover our company’s current by generating electric power by the use of solar panels.
IEN: Mr. Fischer, thank you very much for the interview.
Facts & Figures
Headquarters: Lüdenscheid, Germany
Number of Employees: around 400
Turnover 2010: more than 42 Million Euros
Main Product Lines: Heat sinks and products for semiconductor cooling, connectors, brackets, optoelectronics, 19” and case technology, surface refinement
