Passing the Baton with the "Focus on the Future"
After 20 years involvement in the management of the company, Jutta Leib is retiring from WAFIOS Umformtechnik GmbH. A successor for the commercial management of the company, Andreas Pawelzig, has been successfully found and has assumed his duties with effect from the 1st of July, 2021.
After almost 30 years in the WAFIOS Group, 20 of them as Managing Director, a new phase of life is beginning, not only for Jutta Leib, but also for WAFIOS Umformtechnik GmbH, or WUG in short. To mark the start and hand over of the baton, Andreas Pawelzig received a Swabian dictionary from his predecessor; certainly helpful for keeping regular communication with the parent company in Reutlingen lively.
The new Joint Managing Director has many years of experience, amongst other things as a commercial manager in medium-sized mechanical engineering companies, and is therefore very familiar with the challenging environment in which WAFIOS Umformtechnik GmbH operates. "The technological know-how and the international orientation are great strengths of WUG. Aligning the processes with this and constantly developing them further will be my focus in the coming weeks and months," says Andreas Pawelzig, summarizing his first impressions.
Focus is an important keyword here, because WAFIOS Umformtechnik GmbH is currently consistently realigning its strategy under the guiding principle of "Focus on the Future". The objective is to further develop the already successfully implemented 3-pillar strategy consisting of the business areas of innovative new machines, service-oriented after-sales, and high-quality thread rolling dies. "The focus is always on customer benefits," agree Andreas Pawelzig and his Joint Managing Director colleague, Jens Gutsche, who continues to be responsible for Sales and Technology.
Digitalization will be a key focus of the new CFO. "Industry 4.0 also requires continuous further development of processes in the commercial area in order to support the value-creating faculties in the best possible way," as Andreas Pawelzig describes the task. In recent months, the Corona pandemic has not only been a major challenge, but also a driver of the transition to digital formats, for example with regard to virtual machine demonstrations and commissioning or through the use of modern video conferencing systems for internal and external communication.
After a challenging 2020 dominated by COVID-19 and its associated uncertainties, Jutta Leib is pleased to be able to hand over to her successor a well-positioned company with full order books. Together with Jens Gutsche and the well-coordinated WUG team, Andreas Pawelzig is also looking forward to being able to focus on the future and to actively shaping the strategic reorientation.