Understand what customers’ need and translate it into actions

There are many things I love about this company. Despite having grown immensely when it comes to both our employees and our products, I feel that we have always been able to stick to what defines MANN+HUMMEL to me – our core values: focus, innovation, leadership, trust, empowerment and results. These values also play an important role in my personal life and make me identify strongly with MANN+HUMMEL. I even printed out a copy of our filter values and stapled it to my son´s door. Same applies to my team: Everything we do, how we interact with colleagues, suppliers and customers is based on strong values.

I am and always have been a strong proponent of diversity. To me, how people see things, their different opinions and the experiences these opinions are based on a clear success factor. Because they make us see things from a different, a wider perspective and because these perspectives give us a clearer picture of where our business is heading. And even more important: On what our clients need from us to make their products more successful.

Actually, what our customers need and value doesn´t differ that much, no matter where you go: We share a long-term business relationship with most of our clients because they trust us, because we are there when they need us and because we listen in an empathetic way and seek to understand their needs. Especially the latter is becoming increasingly important. When I say listening, I am referring to the kind of listening that includes really understanding what the customer is meaning and being able to translate this meaning into action quickly by aligning our activities. Translate it into new solutions that increase the value of our customers’ product. And more concretely: Into solutions that make them sell their products better.

Sure. What mattered most when I started driving was what kind of a car you had; how it looked, the horsepower and torque it provided, the sounds it made and the fun it provided in shared transportation experience with friends and family. Nowadays cars aren´t mere status symbols anymore. Both producing and buying a car is a responsibility towards the environment and the generations to follow. As automotive suppliers this responsibility is passed on to us. This is why we are continuously working on new solutions to lessen the environmental impact vehicles have, by using what we know best: filtration. One very good example is our brake dust particle filter.

Road traffic in cities is one of the main causes of fine dust pollution created by humans. A fact, which has not been widely known up to now, is that a large part of these particles is generated during braking: Every time vehicles brake, there is wear on the brake disc and pads, which creates fine dust. Up to 90 percent of this dust consists of fine particles, which can have a negative effect on the health of people.

This is why we developed our passive brake dust particle filter that is fitted to the brake caliper and retains the particle emissions directly at the brake. Thanks to this new product, we are able to help reduce fine dust pollution. This value is passed on to our customers, making their product more attractive to consumers concerned by the possible environmental damage their vehicle is causing. We therefore achieve a business advantage for MANN+HUMMEL and our customers.

Absolutely not. What I do think is, the speed in a move to alternative propulsion systems including full electrification and fuel cells have gained importance within the last years. However, what we also witness is a high demand for hybrid cars. Hybrids require products for combustion engines, which enables us to use our core competencies in filtration, plastic processing, acoustics and simulation to innovate our core products and combine them with newly developed products for battery electric and fuel cell vehicles.

Especially when it comes to the latter, we can add value thanks to our systems competence and our understanding of the entire air induction path of fuel cell systems. In order to address the changing business environment, we established a dedicated e-mobility team. Besides products for e-mobility applications we identified other opportunities for growth like investing in new locations to have the right footprint for our customers or expanding our cabin air filter business in the railway segment.