A turning point at VW
.
You can certainly still hear the bang from Wolfsburg last Friday evening:
VW
CEO
Herbert Diess
resigns,
Porsche
boss
Oliver Blume
takes over.
This ends an era.
But what is coming?
One of the myths that accompany such changes of office is the perception that the old boss screwed up “everything” and that the new one will now fix it.
Of course it's not like that.
Blume will correct some things, but also continue some things that the always controversial Diess has set in motion in the past four years, otherwise a giant corporation like VW cannot be controlled at all.
There are definitely enough construction sites.
Our colleague Christoph Seyerlein has compiled the most important ones.
Blume has to clean up the software chaos caused by its predecessor, which is paralyzing the entire model development.
He needs to boost sales on international markets and improve internal communication.
And as in ancient drama, the pitfalls for the new hero are laid out from the very beginning of his career: Blume will also retain his position at Porsche.
So he will hold the top position in two of the most important German corporations in parallel and part-time - and will also take Porsche public.
A task in XXXL format awaits the man, the "most difficult job in Germany", sums up management professor
Wolfgang Jenewein
in an interview.
He rounds off the picture of the turning point in Wolfsburg with a final look at the Diess era.
He went "many courageous paths", but he wasn't the integrative type.
The personnel change is therefore also a "culture change."
The business news of the day:
Sentiment in industry: the
gas crisis, delivery problems and high inflation mean that German entrepreneurs are becoming increasingly pessimistic about the future.
At 88.6 points, the current business climate index from the Munich Ifo Institute is the lowest since the Corona summer of 2020. Economic participants fear a recession, which experts such as
Ifo
boss
Clemens Fuest
have been warning of for some time.
In many places, the current problems are already threatening the substance: 16 percent of German industrial companies are already being forced to reduce their production in view of rising energy costs.
The Association of German Chambers of Industry and Commerce announced this today.
Ground strike at Lufthansa
: Passengers at German airports must expect flight cancellations and delays on Wednesday of this week.
The Verdi
union has called on
Lufthansa
ground staff
to go on a warning strike.
Verdi wants to build up pressure for the ongoing collective bargaining: The union is demanding 9.5 percent more wages for its 20,000 ground employees.
What else kept us busy:
Theater of disillusionment in Munich:
When
Rainer Beaujean took office as CEO of
ProSiebenSat.1
in 2020
, he was considered a great hope.
The media group from Unterföhring had had years of horror under its predecessor
Max Conze
, and the team was frustrated.
Things aren't getting any better with Beaujean, however, as our colleague Jonas Rest has found out.
The former CFO simply has no knack for the digital investments in the group.
Especially at
Flaconi
there is an apocalyptic mood.
Top executives are fleeing, the online beauty startup is in danger of imploding.
The figures for the entire Nucom Group, in which the startup investments are bundled, are also bad.
Beaujean is slowly finding himself in need of an explanation: "The digital fiasco of the ProSiebenSat.1 boss".
My recommendation for the evening:
Ways out of inflation:
The rapid depreciation of money and the fear of a recession are putting a lot of pressure on company bosses these days.
How to arm yourself strategically?
We want to give several answers to this in the next few days.
A text from the
Harvard Business Manager makes the start today.
The team of authors from well-known US business schools has given some thought to important course setting that companies can use to take countermeasures in the long term.
Because, according to the experts, inflation will remain.
An all-round check is now one of the entrepreneurial duties: How susceptible is the value chain to shocks?
What about the capital structure?
Is it possible to keep employees on board?
You can find the extensive analysis by the management consultants here.
Kind regards, your Eva Buchhorn