Jenoptik’s recipe: innovation and diversification
Ralf Haller
January 5th, 2009
is a former East German technology firm that seems to be in relatively good shape, according to its chairman who also said that they want to invest into innovations in 2009.
2008 was a profitable year despite acquisitions. And the company wants to grow more in international markets such as China, India and South Korea where they opened offices. Currently its export ratio is 60% which is relatively low, showing that dependency on the German market is still very high.
One of the reasons for its 2008 success is the fact that they restructured already in the past few years selling off units, and also diversified their product lines. E.g. laser systems for the booming solar cell industry have been offered which helps to compensate for the chip industry downturn.
Still, the company announced work reduction in January in some areas. “Kurzarbeit” is a way to reduce production while still keeping the salaries and people in their jobs. This is a common way in Western Europe, where the government pays part of the salaries to the company, at least for a certain amount of time. I don’t think such a protective labour system exists in the US, and for sure not in China or India.
Tags: Jenoptik