„Together Again!“

Due to the pandemic, Automotive Sales staff at Freudenberg Sealing Technologies (FST) were only able to meet virtually in 2020 and 2021. This year, for the first time, it was possible to assemble global teams at two live events, one in Nashville (USA) and the other in Marburg (Germany), to meet in-person again.

Sales employees had to wait 1,078 days for FST’s annual sales meeting to once again be held as a live event in Europe. The figure was 1, 168 days for the Americas. The coronavirus pandemic had made business travel and in-person meetings impossible. With a large portion of travel restrictions and related measures lifted, it was finally possible to host real-life exchanges among employees again. Employees from Europe, Korea and India were able to meet in early May in ­Marburg ­(Germany). Those in North, South and ­Central ­America met in Nashville (USA) in mid-May. Employees in China had to pass this time due to a lockdown in large swaths of the country.

The events had an appropriate slogan: “Together again!” There was no virtual option. It was entirely an in-person event, giving people who joined the global team over the last three years the chance to meet their ­colleagues personally for the first time.

A Changed World

At the start of the meeting, Matt Chapman, President, Automotive Sales, looked back at the developments during the past few years. He pointed out how the world and its key markets had changed over this period: a pandemic, a shift to remote work, a scarcity of resources visible on supermarket shelves and at the level of raw materials, rapid tests and masks, the end of the handshake, a freighter stuck crosswise in the Suez Canal, the chip crisis, environmental disasters in different regions of the world, changes on the political level, the war in the Ukraine, and a former comedian who suddenly rose to global fame.
These were drastic changes for the entire auto industry as well as for the Automotive Sales team. Due to the pandemic-related lockdowns, chip shortages and a paradigm shift to battery-electric vehicles, sales plunged at times.

In May 2019, before the pandemic, experts were still predicting strong growth in the internal combustion segment. In fact, the market registered a drastic decline due to these factors. Meanwhile, the production totals for battery electric vehicles rose sharply. Chapman pointed out how FST is handling all these changes.

Claus Möhlenkamp, FST’s Chief Executive Officer, appeared at the Marburg event, informing attendees about plans and the objectives achieved so far in the current strategy period. He then fielded a wide range of questions from the team on strategies, products, alignments and more.

Short video messages from other FST executives were broadcast to the sales teams. Along with representatives of various divisions and Freudenberg companies, they included Chief Financial Officer ­Ludger ­Neuwinger-Heimes; Dr. Ted Duclos, who had served as Chief Technology Officer until June; and Dr. Matthias Sckuhr, Chief Operating Officer. They paid tribute to everything the teams had accomplished during the pandemic.

Image: Sales staff from North, Central and South America gathered in Nashville (USA) for the American sales meeting.

Successful Price ­Negotiations

The actual sales mission – namely winning new customer projects, identifying products to meet customers’ needs, working with development and the Lead Centers on projects that solve customers’ headaches – gradually turned into a battle against production line stoppages and material shortages. The collection of outstanding payments became part of the daily business routine. Some customers were no longer settling their accounts. The sales staff achieved some great successes during price negotiations. Dramatic increases in energy and raw material prices were taking their toll, but it was – and is still – possible to pass them on to customers.

There were also changes affecting FST’s product groups: In the automotive business, 65 percent of the inquiries now involve components for electric vehicles. In 2019, their share was a meager 20 percent.

Then the participants had their say. They reported on their personal feelings and experiences over the past two years. The feedback was wide-ranging. Those who had small children at home and not much room for their own office often longed for a return to an office environment. But others enjoyed the benefits of remote work and described how they were able to maintain good connections with their customers despite their distance from them.

Chapman sensitized the team to an important fact: The market potential for FST’s innovations will likely be 4 billion euros starting in 2028 – and that amount is due to rise. He said it is essential to serve conventional markets while gaining greater market share in the new powertrain technologies. Much like a flywheel, a large amount force and energy is required at the outset to get the business rolling, he said. But if it gains momentum then, it takes much less effort to speed it up later. The situation is similar for FST: a special dynamic develops at a certain point.

The notion of developing new products and then persuading customers to buy them is outmoded, according to sales experts. “Of course, even as we continue to sell our successful products like the Simmerring®, Plug and Seals, gaskets and O-rings, we need to reverse the process and develop a detailed understanding of what the customer really needs. What seems to be the problem? What added value can our products provide the ­customer? And then we have to develop ­specific solutions,” said Carsten Hartmann, Vice President, Automotive Sales.

Various workshops were devoted to products that were highlighted at the event – and the ways to sell them. In the workshops, key account managers described how to determine a customer’s needs and how FST can address them to develop new segments. The myriad questions in the individual workshops show the staff’s tremendous interest in the new fields.

As in every other year, Automotive Sales employees were honored with awards for special job performance in different categories.

NA = North America | EU = Europe | BR = Brazil | IN = India