Ziehl-Abegg, the manufacturer of fans and motors, can look back over a good 2014: global sales increased by 9 percent to 423 million euro. Whilst the business in Germany was up slightly on the previous year, the foreign companies generated significant growth, enabling the company to press further ahead with investments of more than 20 million euro in the expansion of the production locations.
"We reaped the fruits of our professional approach to the internationalisation of our business", said CEO Peter Fenkl, as with only a few exceptions the foreign companies posted double figure growth rates. The Russian crisis is clearly having an impact: the companies in the Ukraine and Russia have seen sales fall sharply. "Since this crisis has affected many clients worldwide we have also suffered lost business in other countries", explains Fenkl. The bottom line however is that the very good growth achieved on the international level by Ziehl-Abegg has clearly enabled it to compensate for these falls. The company traditionally does not give out information on profits.
The good growth is also reflected in the size of the workforce. Chief Financial Officer Achim Curd Rägle is pleased: "For the first time we now employ more than 3400 people worldwide." The more personnel a company employs worldwide the greater the need for improved integration and training. "That's why we have reorganised our tried and tested programme of further training to create the Ziehl-Abegg-Academy", said Rägle. Employees throughout the world can use this Academy for booking seminars covering topics such as public speaking, self-management, employee leadership or, for example, inter-cultural expertise.
