Worldwide active for 10 years

In the small town of Ilsfeld, there is a steadily growing company that is also becoming more and more visible internationally: In May 2020 SWT Services GmbH & Co. KG celebrated its 10th anniversary. As the only service provider worldwide for flexo printing, clamping and balancing technology, it serves a highly differentiated niche and can already look back on foreign assignments in over 30 countries. We talk to one of the three managing directors, Mr. Jörg Ehrenfeld.

Mr. Ehrenfeld, the step into self-employment is often not easy and involves many risks. What made you decide 10 years ago to accept this challenge together with your two business partners?

Due to our many years of activity in these areas, we recognised a large gap in the market relatively quickly. Concepts and ideas which we had presented to our former employer in order to establish the service business more quickly and successfully were unfortunately not taken seriously. As a result, we had to make a decision, which ultimately led to the founding of the company. Despite the global economic crisis of 2008/09, we took up the challenge. To this day, there is no company in the world that combines such expertise in these three business areas. This is what makes SWT Services so unique.

Why is it so beneficial to combine the three business areas flexo printing, clamping and balancing technology?

The combination of the three business areas offers numerous synergy effects due to some overlaps. It is an enormous advantage for customers that we can view and analyse their system holistically from several perspectives simultaneously. Our extensive expertise enables us to gain a comprehensive understanding of the interrelationships and interaction of the individual components. And the customer receives cross-manufacturer solutions for different requirements from a single contact person.

What was the biggest obstacle for you?

The biggest obstacle was the start of 2010, when it became clear that not all that glitters is gold. As a start-up company that started from scratch, we needed support from financial service providers. Here it became clear that despite a mature business plan immediately after the global economic crisis at the end of 2008/09, a company did not have an easy time in practice. Colorful brochures from financial service providers sound good in theory, but things look different in practice. We took a high risk, also with regard to private liability, but in the end it more than paid off. The loans taken out at that time could be paid back quickly.

The number of employees has more than doubled since the foundation, the annual sales is in the seven-digit range and your technicians travel almost all over the world. Would you have expected your current success back then?

To be honest, we had hoped that it would go in this direction. The fact that the sales could then be continuously increased from year to year is of course more than encouraging. Of course, such success can only be achieved with a strong team. We are very happy that we have great employees who identify 100% with SWT. This is what makes the real success of any company.

Good employees are one thing – the right motivation and leadership is another. How did you grow into the role of a managing director?

We – and by this I also mean my two co-partners – had an excellent education at our former employer with 1200 employees at that time and more than 3,000 today worldwide. Over many years – I had almost 20 years of service with the company before we left – I was able to gain and learn a lot of experience in various areas. Without this knowledge from back then, it would certainly not have been so easy. What is still missing, you learn from day to day. Also good advisors such as tax advisors, lawyers, etc. are extremely important to fulfil this role. After all, you are responsible for the whole company. In our case we can distribute the whole thing on 3 shoulders.

What did you expect to be different before the foundation?

That the foundation would be easier, simpler and less bureaucratic. In the end, everything worked out, but I didn’t expect it to be so difficult and enormously bureaucratic. Some working days became very long.

What was a very special experience in the last 10 years that you remember?

It was a very special experience to be your own master every day, to be able to make decisions quickly and to implement them in the shortest possible time. To learn from the resulting success or even failure. To be able to shape things yourself. Despite all initial prophecies of doom, SWT is still in its 10th year and will probably continue to exist far beyond that. Many people did not think we were capable of this. All the more we are proud of what we have achieved so far.

In the last 10 years your company has continuously developed. How do you keep an overview?

In order to be able to offer all our services to our long-standing customers and partners in a structured and, above all, organized manner at a high level of quality, we switched to digitalization at the end of 2017 and invested heavily in a new SAP IT system. This is now paying off more and more. How important it is to have a top IT system with today’s data volumes can be seen every day.

From what I’ve heard, there are still a lot of plans for the future. Can you tell us more about that?

At the end of 2013, we were able to acquire a plot of land not far from our current building, giving us 2,110 square metres of space to build offices and production facilities. When we will start depends on further economic developments. 

Furthermore, we have a development project in cooperation with a university, which is supported by the German government. We hope that this will result in a groundbreaking new development by mid 2021.

In addition to our already existing cooperations, we are planning further long-term cooperations with well-known machine and component manufacturers.

From today’s point of view, what advice can you give to potential founders of new businesses?

What is important is a well thought-out and mature business plan, a very good tax advisor, a local financial service provider, the will not to give up immediately if things don’t go the way you think, but above all a team that identifies with the company and burns for the company and perseverance. The rest comes naturally.