Michael Müller, Managing Director of J. Wagner GmbH and Head of the Industrial Solutions Division within the Wagner Group.

• Business areas: Surface technology for wet paint and powder coating
• Target groups: General industry
• Employees: 1,700 worldwide
• Annual sales: n/a 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, processing of existing orders)?

Throughout the WAGNER Group, the pandemic had a negative impact on the industrial components business, especially in Europe, while Asia experienced a faster economic upturn. In contrast, we actually recorded large increases in sales in the home/craft and industrial plant business. We continued to successfully implement our fundamental strategy, as demonstrated by our extremely good business performance during the crisis. Our Economics Minister, Peter Altmaier, did a very good job in crisis management, something that is all too often lost or, worse still, talked out of all proportion.

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

The year 2020 was of course challenging and unexpected for us. We were confirmed by the good business development that we are on the right track with our strategic orientation.

• How did Corona affect your industry and how did the pandemic impact trends and developments that had prevailed up to that point, for example in the technology sector? To what extent did the Corona year cause gridlock, or where might it even have sparked a new dynamic?

The lockdown in Europe has of course also led to a temporary standstill in our industry. Some of our customers were unable to produce for months due to supply or material bottlenecks. Not all systems were installed at the customers' sites as planned. From my point of view, it has not sparked any momentum in the coating industry to date. Of course, the topic of digitalization is playing an increasingly important role. We already focused on this before the crisis and have been able to drive a lot of things forward this year.

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

The new RCEP free trade agreement gives an additional competitive advantage to the Asian economic area, which has coped much better with the pandemic so far. This will dramatically strengthen the economic supremacy of China and Southeast Asia and will also have an impact on surface technology due to increasing competitive pressure from these regions.

• Which sales markets are particularly interesting for you at the moment? Which international sales markets do you intend to focus on even more strongly in the future?

Asia has become even more important for us, also due to the new RCEP free trade agreement. In Europe, we will continue to expand our market position in sales and service. Specifically, we are doing this by opening a new branch in Vienna to better serve Austria and Eastern Europe, and in Spain for the Iberian Peninsula.

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

Fortunately, we are currently less affected by a shortage of skilled workers. WAGNER is still - especially now in the crisis - an attractive company with future prospects, and we have also been able to recruit some highly qualified employees. In surface technology in general, we take a critical view of the shortage of skilled workers and would like to do our part to make coating technology as intuitive as possible.

• What role did the topics of optimization, resource efficiency and digitalization (Industry 4.0, BigData, Predictive Maintenance) play in 2020? How do you assess the priority for the next few years and has this assessment changed as a result of the pandemic?

Digitalization has played a central role at WAGNER even before 2020 and we will continue to give the topic a high priority. Our strength in the revenue development of the WAGNER Group is based primarily on our achievements to date in the digital area. We are optimally positioned structurally to successfully master the future challenges in the industry.

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

In general, we share the view of the VDMA that the economy will not reach the level of 2019 again until 2022. We want to expand sales and service even further and thus intensify our proximity to customers.

• What priorities and development goals are on the agenda for your company in 2021? What are your expectations for the coming year?

We will push ahead with further developments in all basic technologies. In addition, as a technology leader, we regularly implement technological innovations. We not only offer our customers innovative individual components, but also support them in constantly increasing the productivity of the entire plant. In the future, it will be a matter of supplying a coherent overall package with optimized process costs that meets increasing customer requirements for availability and quality.

• In which areas are you planning changes and/or investments?

In addition to digitization, we will continue to invest more in production, development, sales and service.