You graduated with a degree in electromechanics from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium. Was engineering always your calling in life?
It came about because of a lot of factors. My father was an engineer, and from an early age I was strong in mathematics. I also liked working on motorbikes, programming home computers, and repairing old radios. So it was logical that I would become an engineer.
But you also had an early in interest in business and marketing? That’s not always common with engineers.
I’d always liked reading financial magazines – I still do today. But after I’d studied engineering, I realised that I had little knowledge of economics. I didn’t understand much about finance. So after completing my engineering degree, I then chose to go on and do an economics degree. It worked out well for me. I think it’s important that engineering graduates are more business-ready.
Engineers often deride the functions such as marketing within their companies. You must think that’s a mistake?
Marketing is not gut feeling – it’s based on certain facts. And if you haven’t followed a marketing course, it’s easy to get a wrong perception of it.
The risk, of course, is that you can end up developing a product that nobody really needs or wants to pay for. It’s important that you analyse market needs first and then develop the product. It’s an interaction of ideas. You can go to extreme products with things such as electromagnetic bearings and high-speed motors, but there might only be a small market for them. There has to be demand – it can’t be just technology-driven.
What was your first working role as an engineer?
I worked for three years for a small company in Belgium that did steel construction and cranes. I learnt so much there. In a small company you have to do everything – engineering, sales, finance. I learnt very young, very quickly.
The owner of the company was my boss. He was a very business-oriented person. And he made me realise that you need a lot of drive to run a small business; you need to be prepared to take risks; you have to have guts. It was inspiring – every day he was thinking about how he could make the business better. I learnt that you cannot just sit back – you have to make things happen.
Did your all-round experiences within a small firm make you want to become a business leader within Atlas Copco?
Not initially. I had studied engineering for five years, and I found that I was not using it enough. I moved to Atlas Copco because it was one of the top companies in Belgium doing proper engineering – it was designing core components, through to entire machines, from scratch. It was a fantastic company to go to to do proper engineering.
I was in the portable compressors division, and I was designing a whole range of products, from the smallest through to the most complex, three-stage, oil-free designs. It was also the time that we had started to introduce electronics and remote monitoring capabilities, so it was all happening. That meant there were a lot of software bugs to solve.
I learnt then that whatever testing was done on software, there was always something that would flash up that hadn’t been detected during testing, because it was all new. It was an interesting time, as we had to react quickly to problems.
That role presumably gave you a good technical grounding to prepare you for business roles. You were not an accountant, you were an engineer – it must have been hard for anyone to pull the wool over your eyes?
I don’t want to be arrogant, but think I understand most compressors. That has been useful, because in this business we meet a lot of people who know our products well. They are often plant managers. And when it comes to compressors, they often talk their own language. Newcomers can think ‘what are they talking about?’ There’s also a lot of innovation to deal with. Even now, most of my contact is with engineers.
You’ve had a lengthy career at Atlas Copco working in places such as South Africa, Austria, India and the Balkans. Which have you enjoyed the most?
I don’t have a favourite country, but I have really enjoyed certain roles. In India, I was tasked with setting up a global engineering centre, and that was exciting because it was something new. We were doing real engineering over there, right at the top end. It started from nothing, we had a great team, we did a lot of training, and after one year we won an internal customer care award because we were so customer-oriented. We were so proud about it, we organised a great party with fireworks.
I loved working in India. The people were committed and hard-working – sometimes too hard-working.
Atlas Copco has spent in excess of £1 million on an upgraded engineering workshop and a colourful office redesign incorporating creativity zones for engineers at its Hemel Hempstead plant in Hertfordshire
You became general manager for Atlas Copco Compressors in the UK in 2013. How did that opportunity come about?
I’d been working in our Austrian business for four years. It’s company policy that as a general manager you stay for that amount of time and then you move on. And the UK was my preferred country. It is a larger and more competitive market – everyone is here, all our competitors are here. I knew that I would learn in the role every day here. Things are exciting and challenging. I like it a lot here. People are friendly and open. The weather is terrible, but I knew that anyway.
What were the immediate challenges of running the business?
Austria had been affected by the economic crisis of 2008, as with everywhere else. But it came out of the crisis in 2010 and was quickly back to where it had been before the downturn. It was different here. In 2013, the UK was still only slowly coming back up – the bounce back had only just happened.
Now things are getting better and better. The challenge was to ensure we had a solid company, which we have today, and to introduce incremental changes. Our product range and market share were growing, and we hadn’t perhaps been growing our people as much as our numbers. We are always looking for efficiency and productivity gains, such as through the introduction of a new SAP system that is helping us to process orders faster. There are always improvements to be made.
The challenge is to keep growing. What areas of product expansion can we expect?
Vacuum has become important to us, as seen with the launch of our GHS VSD+, which offers an alternative to traditional, oil-injected vane pumps. We think this is the first big innovation in rough vacuum pumps this century, offering an average of 50% energy savings, silent technology and clean operation.
We have recruited clever people with vacuum experience, from Edwards Group, which we acquired last year, and from others. We have the customer base that is increasingly looking for more energy-efficient products, which we can now offer them. It’s an exciting time. There are a lot of new products still to come, as we see the vacuum business as a bit old-fashioned, a bit conservative. We see a lot of opportunity to make the product more efficient.
Do you find it hard to recruit engineers with the right blend of skills for your business?
It’s a challenge in every country. We have a bit of an advantage in compressors in that we are well known, and people want to come to Atlas Copco. But our business isn’t about pure mechanics any more – it’s also about electronics, software and computer intelligence.
Our engineers need a wider base of skills than maybe 20 years ago. That makes it more difficult to find people. But we are doing a lot ourselves, with active apprentice and graduate programmes. I’m happy with the people I have here.
You’ve spent a lot of money creating a modern office environment at your headquarters in Hemel Hempstead, with bright colours, creative break-out zones, and hot-desking. It doesn’t look like an engineering company. What’s the story there?
I had visited a few companies in Holland that had done this, and I remember when I was coming out of such places thinking ‘that would be a good place to work’. I want people to go away from our offices with that thought. It’s been done for another reason – to make our people feel better and to enjoy their job. It means people have more interaction, and are perhaps a bit more respectful of each others’ roles.
What’s your next move? Here or abroad?
As I say, general managers usually stay around five years inside Atlas Copco, and I have been here two years, so I’m not going anywhere soon. I’m enjoying what I’m doing. But eventually it probably will be another country with Atlas Copco. My wife and children will have a say.