autoregion international - Ausgabe 1/2021

22 From a delicate seedling to a magnificent plant Interview with Dr Bernd Welzel, Managing Director of SERO GmbH Whether headlights, number plate and mirror lighting or electric seat adjustment, electronics are playing an increas- ingly important role in cars. SERO GmbH’s expertise as a leading supplier of electronic assemblies can also be found in numerous other products such as machines and pumps, tracking systems or WiFi modules. In an interview with Wirtschaftsforum, Managing Director Dr Bernd Welzel reports on what excites him about the reorientation of the company, which until recently was still run as a family business, and why he sees himself as a mediator between two worlds. Dr Welzel, which steps in the company’s his- tory have been particularly important? Dr. Bernd Welzel: First and foremost, of course, was the founding in 1992 by the en- trepreneur Armin Schröder – SERO is the ac- ronym for Schröder Elektronik Rohrbach. In the beginning, the company was purely an electronics testing service provider. In 1998, it moved from Karlsruhe to Rohrbach and started manufacturing. Through three ex- tensions, the original small hall grew into our current company headquarters with an oper- ating area of 10,000 m 2 . Strong growth began with the increasing orientation towards the automotive industry: from 2010 to 2015, we grew by 10 to 15% annually. This was also the beginning of internationalisation. In 2018, the founder sold the company to Deutsche Beteil- igungs AG as the main shareholder, with the management also taking a share. When did you come on board with SERO? Dr. Bernd Welzel: Deutsche Beteiligungs AG brought me in as managing director in May 2019 because I had already beenworking in the automotive industry since 1991 and I am well connected there. The background was that the company needed to be put on a broader footing in terms of customer structure, further revenue growth and internationalisation. This will require additional locations at home and abroad, because we are now at the limit at our headquarters in Rohrbach. Our company has been run as a family business by the founder alone for more than 25 years and now one of my other tasks is to give it a classical manage- ment structure. Will this change be accompanied by a new corporate culture? Dr. Bernd Welzel: Only to a certain extent. I see the family business culture as a very pos- itive thing, especially in the automotive in- dustry, because it’s always about long-term orders and customer relationships. In this respect, I think it is important to harmonise new structures and processes with this cor- porate culture. The goal should be to maintain the character of the family business at the operational level, but to implement a private equity approach at the strategic level. In this respect, I see myself as a mediator between both worlds. Is the current change in the automotive in- dustry also affecting your company? Dr. Bernd Welzel: As an electronics service provider, we support this change. On the one hand, there will always be lighting or electri- cally adjustable seats, for example, regardless of the type of drive. On the other hand, new drive concepts also require new electronic as- semblies, andwe are already active in this area. Overall, the amount of electronics in cars will continue to increase. Which are your key products? Dr. Bernd Welzel: For our largest sector, the automotive industry, we produce assembled printed circuit boards, which are then installed in a headlight or a rear light, for example, or used for heater electronics. For industrial ap- plications, we manufacture, amongst other things, machine control circuit boards, but we also make the boxing and housing for track- ing systems. Also, for heat flow meter which measure consumption on heaters, we assem- ble the circuit boards and manufacture the complete device. We manufacture 30 million circuit boards a year. Our goal is to increase Images: © nilshendrikmueller.de S H A R E Made in Germany: Electronic components and assemblies are shipped from Rohrbach all over the world Managing Director Dr Bernd Welzel