30 October 2009

CEO Comment: Our business beyond the crisis!

Eelco van Heel, CEO of the Rockwool Group comments on the Rockwool business in the light of the global financial situation (editorial from Rockwool Newsletter October 2009).

Eelco van Heel,
CEO of the Rockwool Group.

More and more, recurring lights seem to appear at the end of the tunnel of the economic crisis. Primarily reflected in increases in various industry and consumer confidence indexes. Even though a similar confidence improvement in the construction industry might yet be far away, the time seems ripe to accept the present (depressed) level of activity as being the new starting point from which to plan ahead for better times to come.

This planning was actually already started in the Group in April this year when Group management initiated the development of a change process which will bring the company and its employees much closer to its markets and customers. At the same time we are taking stock of our present strategy and will work out adjustments and adaptations. We involved 130 of the Group’s top managers in the process by inviting them to participate in one of the five 24 hour sessions which were held in Dusseldorf during August and September. The feed back from the participants has been very positive. During the period October 6th-8th the Group meeting was held in Vienna bringing the companies’ managing directors together with Group management. We concentrated fully on driving the change and strategy process further; the unanimous feed back from the participants was that we made major progress – even more than we in our wildest dreams had anticipated! Group meeting participants will extraordinarily convene in November and January 2010 in order to push ahead with the process. At the latest at the ordinary Group meeting in April 2010 do we anticipate to be ready for a Group wise roll out – change process as well as strategy adjustment. I hope to be able to give a full update in the next editorial!

An important element of success in business (and elsewhere) is “to walk the talk”. The organisational change announced on the 25th of September is part of this. Bo Rygaard was appointed senior vice president Group Business Development with the task to spearhead the Group’s initiatives to come much closer to its markets and customers. Group Technology as one big department was abandoned and its different activities relocated to other parts of the organisation. The number of divisions has been brought down to 3 making it possible to reduce the number of Group management members to 7. We all have to be more efficient as we need to do more with less (human) resources.

Starting the change process and adjusting our strategy does not mean we take our eyes off the ball of daily operations. We continue our drive to gain market share whilst others are weak and to focus on cash generation in order to withstand possible further market deteriorations and to be prepared for acquisitions. We will continue to drive our fixed cost level down and concentrate heavily on improving the production efficiency of our factories.

A big thanks to all our Rockwool Group employees for the dedication with which you are supporting the consequences of the present crisis as well as your contribution to make it possible to come out of this crisis healthier, slimmer and more ready to roar than ever before!