Dr. Martin Welp, Managing Director of Dörken Coatings GmbH & Co. KG.

• Business areas: High-performance corrosion protection, dispersions and coatings for components, pigment pastes, tinting systems.
• Target groups: Automotive, agricultural, construction, railroad industries, renewable energies, painting trade, specialized trade and end consumers.
• Employees: n.a.
• Annual sales: n. A.

• In which areas and to what extent has the pandemic affected your company?
  1. What strategies have you pursued or worked out - what would you do differently with today's state of knowledge?
  2. How do you evaluate the measures taken by the government, including aid programs for business?
  3. How was business activity affected (for example, communication between companies, handling of existing orders)?

Doerken Coatings has two strong pillars. First, we serve the painting trade with our Lucite, Cws Wertlack and Delta brands. After years of sideways movement, the industry has been able to record significant increases in sales and turnover here.

Secondly, we are active in the automotive market with our DELTA-PROTEKT micro corrosion protection systems. Here, there were months with sales slumps of over 50% in some cases. Since the pandemic reached Europe, we have focused on supply capability. In the first quarter, this meant extra shifts, additional warehouses and special transports.

While production and laboratories continued to work relatively normally, we moved the offices to the home office very quickly and without any problems. The long duration of this condition, however, demands a high degree of discipline and motivation from the organization.

I will leave the assessment of our federal government's performance to others.

• What is your summary for fiscal 2020, what were your expectations at the end of 2019?

At the end of 2019, we had the expectation that the automotive industry had bottomed out and that production figures in the automotive industry would rise again. We did not expect the kind of crisis that the company is experiencing this year.

Dörken Coatings was created in 2020 from three different Dörken business units, which are active in very many different markets. In total, we have benefited directly from this broad positioning. We were only able to compensate for the high demand from the painting trade in Germany, and to some extent also in Europe, with capacities from the significant slump in the automotive market. Our global positioning also led to a smoothing of the corona effects. While in the first quarter we still experienced a demand boom in the industrial business in Europe driven by hoarding purchases, business in Asia had almost come to a standstill. This reversed in thesecond and third quarters. Overall, with the best efforts of a newly formed team, we achieved a very satisfactory result.

• How has Corona affected your industry, and how has the pandemic affected trends and developments that were prevalent up to that point, for example in the technology sector? To what extent did the Corona year trigger stagnation, or where might it even have sparked a new dynamic?

In 2020, we have used the time that was lost due to cancelled trade fairs, conferences and, unfortunately, customer events to prepare ourselves in particular for the challenges of digital market cultivation. Cooperation with market companions and retailers is a key issue for us in order to meet the increasing demands of customers for fast, simple, transparent advice and delivery. We will play an active role in shaping this and are focusing on cooperation within the industry. Together, we still have the opportunity to position ourselves vis-à-vis the large online providers and to transfer the added value of our structures into the digital age. Together with other industry representatives, we have recently founded a start-up - Farbfox GmbH & Co KG, a market platform for the painting trade.

• To what extent do developments on the international political stage - such as pandemic-related restrictions, import duties, trade restrictions or political instability - influence your forecasts?
  1. What role does the US presidential election play?
  2. What role will the Brexit play?

Nationalization trends will continue. We are preparing for ever greater complexity in the area of approvals and transports.

• How is the shortage of skilled workers/labor market developing?

As expected, the labor market has changed as a result of the pandemic. On the one hand, employees from companies with a poor business outlook are on the lookout, but on the other hand, many managers are currently risk averse and unwilling to change. In 2020, we were able to strengthen our team in many areas through new hires.

• How do you assess further economic development, for 2021 and the following years? What strategies are you pursuing in this regard, where do you see your company and the industry in three years' time?

We do not expect the paint business to be able to match the successes of 2020. In the automotive sector, we expect a swing back to 20 19 volumes in the first half of the year, but disproportionate growth from the second half.

Investments: in the year of the pandemic, we approved the largest investment program in Dörken's history for the paints and coatings division. This covers many different areas production, logistics, but also the establishment of a global tag center for coating technology.