New saga of success begins
Saurer is back with greater focus and strength and is headed by a team which is all set to bring back the glory of the Saurer brand.
This could well qualify for an interesting brand story in the future. Saurer, the 160-year-old Swiss textile brand, which was acquired in 2007 by the Oerlikon Group, is now reborn as Saurer, thanks to the Jinsheng Group which has now acquired the natural fiber business from Oerlikon.
The brand Saurer is now back with ‘dot’ next to it which signifies, “we deliver what we promise – full stop”, says Mr. Daniel Lippuner, the newly-appointed CEO of Saurer AG, who, along with his team, headed the entire transition process from Oerlikon to Saurer. Mr. Heinrich Fischer, who was previously the CEO of Saurer before the takeover by Oerlikon, is back at the helm as the Chairman of the new Saurer AG.
The agreement to sell the natural fiber business was signed between Oerlikon and the Jinsheng Group on December 3, 2012, which was the second day at India-ITME 2012. It was quite sensational news within the textile industry. Both the parties agreed on a nine-month time-frame for the transition. It has to be mentioned here that the team at Oerlikon, the Jinsheng Group and the new management team have worked closely to make this happen within just seven months.
“We are very excited, the entire team and all the employees at Saurer. I am personally very excited about the opportunity given to me to handle this important transition from Oerlikon to Saurer. It was very close team work among the various parties involved, and the result is we have been able to achieve what we set out for much before the stipulated time”.
This opens yet another chapter in the history of the Saurer Group. The new Saurer consolidates leading textile brands for both machinery – Schlafhorst, Zinser, Allma, Volkmann, Jinsheng and Saurer Embroidery – and components such as Accotex, Daytex, Fibrevision, Heberlein, Temco und Texparts.
The new Saurer Group is one of the world’s largest textile machinery and component manufacturers, with sales around 1 billion Swiss francs and 3,800 employees. The group has nine locations in Germany, two in Switzerland and six in Asia, close to the main textile markets of the world. All employees have remained with the group and celebrated passionately the start of the new Saurer era.
Management team
Mr. Heinrich Fischer of Switzerland, former CEO of the Saurer Group, is heading the new Saurer as the Chairman of the Board. Further notable personalities who will join the Board are Mr. Hans-Georg Härter, former CEO of ZF, Mr. Rudolf Huber, former CFO of Geberit and Mr. Guido Spix, CTO of Multivac. Next to Mr. Xueping Pan, the main investor, and Jesse Guan, CEO of the machinery business unit of Jinsheng Group, the Board will be extended by two to three Chinese personalities. Mr. Daniel Lippuner, Swiss citizen and former CEO of Oerlikon Textile Components, has been appointed CEO of the Saurer Group.
“We are proud to continue the long and successful story of Saurer. The brands within the Saurer Group stand for innovation and highest product quality in the global market”, says Mr. Pan with a hint of pride in his voice. As the long-term co-operation partner of the Saurer Group and owner of several textile businesses, he has extensive knowledge of the textile industry.
Mr. Pan sees himself as a strategic investor, and his view is to further strengthen the market position for the sustainable future of the group. “We will increase our investments in R&D in Germany and Switzerland. This know-how is the base for our technology leadership today and we intend to stay ahead”, he adds.
The Jinsheng Group has a long history of jointly working with the Saurer Group for manufacturing blowrooms, carding and roving frames mainly for the Chinese market. This entity will also now be part of the new Saurer Group and will continue to cater to the requirements of the Chinese market.
Saurer will be managed from two locations: operationally from the headquarters in Wattwil, Switzerland, and financially from the second headquarters in Shanghai in China. The group will have a strong decentralised organization, allowing decisions to be made close to the customer with minimal implementation time. The five business units are the backbone of the Saurer Group.
Indian operations
In India, a new legal entity has been established, Saurer Textile Solutions Private Ltd., with its headquarters in Mumbai. The company has also established a new fully-equipped service facility in Ahmedabad for Schlafhorst and Zinser machines.
Mr. Lippuner says: “Currently, India contributes 25% of our total global business. We are very well represented for most of our productlines in the Indian market and have a leading marketshare. We plan to grow the business further for which we will be making further investments as we see Indian market will significantly gain in importance in the next 3 to 5 years. We believe that the India’s world marketshare in natural fibre textiles will be higher than what it is today”.
Commenting on future investments, Mr. Lippuner observed that the company is working on a three-year plan on new product development and capacity expansion. Saurer has planned capital and research & development investments of around $220 million over the next three years. “We will increase investments in our major product lines like Winders, Open-end, Ring spinning, Twisting, Embroidery and our various components. We have detailed innovation plans, and the process has already begun. We will further expand on our R&D capacity by adding more people to churn out more innovations in a shorter time span. The future will see even more innovations than today”, he added.
Despite the transition from Oerlikon to Saurer, it’s been business as usual for the company across all major markets. In fact, Saurer is targeting a double-digit growth in business in 2013 compared to 2012. “We are well on track to achieve this growth driven by the positive trends in India, Pakistan, Turkey, Indonesia, Vietnam and other emerging markets. Even in China, which suffers from high raw material prices and high labour costs, we have had great success, particularly with the Zinser Ring spinning, Volkmann Twisting and Saurer Embroidery machines”, Mr. Lippuner disclosed.
Most of the Saurer employees have decades of experience in the textile machinery industry. They work hard and passionately to further strengthen the position of Saurer as a leading textile machinery manufacturer, trying to exceed the expectations of the customers with excellent service and innovative products. Therefore, Saurer chose the tagline “we live textile” next to its brand.
Finally on how customers have received the change, Mr. Lippuner said: “So far so good. It is my personal quest to lift our customers’ satisfaction with Saurer’s perceived performance. We have launched a program named Customer Satisfaction aiming to optimize our delivery and service performance, reduce the repair and complaint cycle time as well as increase the product quality. The entire organization is focused on this program. I constantly visit customers all over the world to obtain instant feedback about perceived improvements, and also to hear complaints which lead to new improvement activities. Besides this customer focus, innovative products and our people are two further strong pillars in our strategy. We will bring out more innovation that benefits customers and their bottom line and also take care of our employees. If we do these few things right, we will be successful”.