{"id":8170,"date":"2023-09-01T11:40:00","date_gmt":"2023-09-01T09:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sw.fst.com\/magazine\/?p=8170"},"modified":"2023-09-15T15:48:25","modified_gmt":"2023-09-15T13:48:25","slug":"an-abundance-of-opportunities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sw.fst.com\/magazine\/en\/2023\/09\/an-abundance-of-opportunities\/","title":{"rendered":"An Abundance of Opportunities"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Incubators help newborns entering life. In business, the term \u00addescribes organizations that support startups at an early stage. But at Freudenberg Sealing Technologies (FST), incubators are teams that nurture new technologies and specific innovative products until they are ready for the market. Five of them are closely tied to the auto industry\u2019s shift to new drive systems. It is Automotive Sales\u2019 team task to develop the innovations to breakthroughs with the customer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The products are cell caps, thermal barriers, wave guide antennas, battery envelopes and busbars. What they have in common: They are all expected to be key pillars of FST\u2019s automotive business in the future, which is why FST formed special teams, called incubators, to zero in on their development, the processes for their industrialization, and their later commercialization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor us in sales, new products of this kind pose special challenges,\u201d said Dennis Gunst, who is responsible for (tier) suppliers as Vice President, Automotive Sales. For one thing, customers do not associate \u201cseal maker\u201d FST with these classes of products. For another, they are complex and require explanation. At the same time, the sales team first has to build up a wealth of experience with them. In addition, new customers and rivals abound in the emerging fields of electric mobility and autonomous driving. Finally, there are often new departments and contact persons to deal with, even at existing customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gunst summed up the challenge: \u201cWe are going to be selling fewer and fewer classic elastomer seals. In Automotive Sales, we are gearing up for new products and customers who don\u2019t know us yet. We don\u2019t know them either at this point. The work involves much more effort than in the past,\u201d he said. At \u00adAutomotive Sales meetings this year in Barcelona and San Diego, the sales organization\u2019s approach to the changing environment ranked high on the agenda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Dennis Gunst
Vice President at Automotive Sales<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Offering More Added Value<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The material and process expertise that FST has developed over decades is giving it an edge to exploit with new customers. So does the reliability and high quality associated with it. The added value of FST\u2019s innovations is another sales argument that can work with customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One example from the company\u2019s incubators: FST battery envelopes not only encase cell chemicals inside the vehicle battery\u2019s housing. They also make it possible for the battery manufacturer to fill the cells with electrolytes more quickly than in the past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMany other great topics\u201d are emerging outside the incubators as well, Gunst said. \u201cWe only have to expand our horizons and go down the path together inside the FST organization.\u201d
\u201cTogether we grow\u201d is a fitting slogan for the current campaign at Automotive Sales. It explicitly promotes close cooperation and \u00adinformation-sharing with incubator teams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, there are opportunities for growth beyond powertrains. Air suspension is increasingly becoming the standard in vehicles, and it requires classic sealing expertise. The increased electrification and radar technology needed for autonomous driving is adding to the demand for electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding. In this area, FST has different solutions up its sleeve that substitute plastic for metal.<\/p>\n

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Incubators help newborns entering life. In business, the term \u00addescribes organizations that support startups at an early stage. But at Freudenberg Sealing Technologies (FST), incubators are teams that nurture new…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7939,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[125,78],"tags":[585],"powerkit_post_featured":[],"class_list":["post-8170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-customers","category-weinheim-en","tag-edition-04_2023-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sw.fst.com\/magazine\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sw.fst.com\/magazine\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sw.fst.com\/magazine\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sw.fst.com\/magazine\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sw.fst.com\/magazine\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8170"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sw.fst.com\/magazine\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8170\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8185,"href":"https:\/\/sw.fst.com\/magazine\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8170\/revisions\/8185"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sw.fst.com\/magazine\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sw.fst.com\/magazine\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sw.fst.com\/magazine\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sw.fst.com\/magazine\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8170"},{"taxonomy":"powerkit_post_featured","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sw.fst.com\/magazine\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/powerkit_post_featured?post=8170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}