Bengt Schmidt Experienced. Dedicated. Result-driven.
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Philosophy
As a highly experienced international manager, I focus on customers, industries, markets and processes, but above all on opportunities, which I analyze and evaluate in detail. Based on this, I develop goals and strategies, as well as pragmatic and solution-oriented concepts, which I quickly implement with conviction and assertiveness. With my business acumen and cost awareness in the transformation of concepts, the outcome is positive financial results. Exactly this approach has proven itself and I have consistently succeeded at all stages.
Ideas & Vision
Ideas are the beginning of any success. But without vision, no ideas are born.
I see ideas as a chance to create something new, to change something, to make something better. With a clear goal, the compass of ideas will show you the best path. Brainstorming in a team and with confidants, thinking anew, working out what is feasible and implementing it pragmatically and consistently – this is motivating; it’s what makes me tick. And it’s a necessary component of business life, otherwise you’ll find yourself looking at the clock too often.
Production
The success of production depends on attention to detail.
This is the only way to ensure quality mechanical engineering that’s reliable for customers. Today, digital processes are the basis for an efficient "supply chain". However, moving away from the analog past is a major challenge, as change always requires energy. Leaving the "comfort zone" and dealing with innovations and improvements creates the quality that a machine needs today to reliably do its job for the customer.
Service
If you think you've achieved your goal, you're falling behind!
Customer commitment doesn’t end with the sale. On the contrary. There’s a reason that the first machine is sold by the sales department, all others by the service department. Should the machine ever stop and thus cost the customer money instead of earning him money, the customer must be helped quickly, without bulky bureaucracy. Everything else can wait and be solved when "money is being earned" again. I live this principle.
Development
Sustainable development: a guarantee for innovation.
"Vision drives Innovation. Innovation drives Value. Value drives Success." Vision drives technical progress and keeps producing great innovations. The innovations that create value are those that are useful to the customer. With values, the customer can earn money and be successful. A company has to be successful to be able to afford its visions! This is how I start.
Sales
Tackling challenges with passion and personal commitment.
Listening and understanding the needs of my customers: This is the basis for offering the best possible service package. Today, it’s important to understand that the best isn’t necessarily the most expensive. Rather, the task is to efficiently find the most reliable and cost-effective solution. After all, I want my customers to earn money with their machines. This is exactly the maxim of a customer-oriented business.
Management
A great vision must be so great that employees can just about touch it.
Good management is reflected in a lively and respectful corporate culture that values employees and customers. This is the basis for exceptional performance and success.
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Vision
Building up my own company was and is my goal. I am on fire for this. My vision persists: "To make plastics production digital and electric with a unique business model." I am building this on a greenfield site and for this I have sought – and found – a strong strategic partner.
Unique
Business model
There are many great business models in mechanical engineering. In my professional career, I have experienced almost all of them, and I have helped to support, shape and develop many of them. I always found the active support of M&A projects in cooperation with internationally experienced managers and investors to be enriching. I was able to inspire a financially strong and future-oriented partner for my vision: to set up a unique business model for the plastics industry. A business model that is based on 2 pillars: a distributor with its own machine development and its own mechanical engineering and the whole thing on greenfield land without an analog past!
Digital
Industry 4.0
The transformation from analog to digital has always excited me. During my studies, I dedicated myself to computer-aided measurement technology. In my private life, too, I am constantly digitizing myself and exploring the sheer endless possibilities of digitalization. Our business world is lagging behind here – mechanical engineering, in particular, is stuck in the analog world in many processes despite numerous good Industry 4.0 approaches. I would like to grease this wheel with my company and increase the speed of transformation. My goal is for my company to be 100-percent digitized, wherever it makes sense and is necessary. Customer contact will certainly be digitally supported and, where necessary, prepared. Nevertheless, personal exchange will remain analog and direct for me. Because this and the "gut feeling" cannot be digitized – and that's a good thing!
Electric
Up-to-date
Numerous automobile manufacturers are increasingly convincing international customers with high-performance electric vehicle models. This excites me, especially since most of the OEMs were among my customers for many years and I was therefore always close to the development and production of new cars. When we talk about high performance in plastics production, we also have to talk about electric machines, especially if we think and act in a future-oriented and sustainable way. That's why, in a few years, my company will have its own manufacturing facility that produces the highest-performance machine on the market for a specific application.
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Those who’ve accompanied me
Numerous people have accompanied and encouraged me along the way. Valuable personal relationships have been formed and it has been a pleasure to work with and alongside many wonderful people. It makes me happy when they appreciate me and my work.
Markus Bohl
"Building a modern, digital company requires a vision and exposure to new technologies as well as new ways of thinking and approaching things. Implementation requires a high level of self-drive and self-confidence, but especially perseverance and persuasiveness. Bengt Schmidt brings all of this with him - I have often experienced this first-hand. He has always thought and acted as an entrepreneur. I am therefore certain that he will be successful as a company founder!"
Dr. Dietmar Straub
"If you want to be successful in mechanical engineering, you have to inspire and convince people. A trusting personal relationship must be established with customers in particular to ensure the best possible results for them. In good times, but also in bad. That's exactly how I know Bengt Schmidt, whose commitment, stability and assertiveness have always been a valuable and reliable support for me, especially during the financial crisis of 2008/9."
Veronika Vitzthum
"To be successful in sports, nothing works without determination, discipline and diligence and a clear goal. That's how I experienced Bengt Schmidt, not only skiing on the mountain, but also as a passionate sailor. With his motivation, he would certainly have made a good competitive athlete. He definitely combines the right sporting values to certainly be successful in his professional life. And with these values he will also succeed in building up his company, I am convinced of that".
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Values
What I value and what’s important to me.
I keep my promises. My employees know that, of course, but especially my customers and business partners. I am always available to them and they always know they can count on me. Accordingly, I am the one who wants to work out the best solution, the one that achieves the best results. Because I don't just want to be a reliable partner, I want to remain one for the future.
I help whenever and wherever it’s necessary. Even if it’s not self-evident from my height: I meet my interlocutors on the level. In my dealings with employees, customers and business partners, I value mutual respect, commitment and appreciation. And I like to take a leap of faith. Because one thing is important to me: a trusting collaboration that lasts. "Trust reduces complexity."
I speak my mind. I distinguish the fact from fiction, am essentially open, direct and transparent. My employees can rely on that, but especially my customers and business partners. I stand by what has been agreed upon, with or without a contract. Authentically and with integrity. Because as the saying goes: honesty is the best policy.
I know what I’m capable of, what I want, and how to achieve it. Accordingly, I like to take responsibility. After all, my more than 30 years of professional experience have taught me how to tackle things so that they succeed: with hard work, perseverance, discipline, but also the ability to take criticism and the willingness to take risks. And when mistakes happen? Then it's a matter of getting up, learning from it, and doing better. With conviction and motivation.
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Personal
I like to do what I do and I’m passionate about it. I draw the necessary strength from my family. They’re behind me – and they come first for me.
Despite all my progressive thinking and my enthusiasm for digitization, I am very much aware of tradition. Born, raised and now settled in Munich, I like to enjoy the benefits of Bavarian culture – and so you’ll regularly see me in traditional costume. I share this lifestyle with my wife, with whom I have two great children. Traditionally happy, but also modern and cosmopolitan. The experience I gained abroad, especially in the USA and China, both privately and professionally, as well as through exchange with people of other cultures, has inspired me as much as sustaining conversations with my friends.
Oh yes, did I mention that I've been driving exclusively all-electric since 2017 and that we're continuing to digitize in our private lives?
Professional positions
PlastiVation Machinery GmbH (München) – CEO (www.PlastiVation.com)
Quantum Partners - Industry Advisor Maschinenbau (https://www.quantum-partners.de/de/team/)
10/2018 - 4/2021
KraussMaffei Extrusion GmbH (Hannover) - Vice President Global Sales Extrusion
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Restructuring of the sales organization based on "business units" into a functional organization by establishing product management, expert sales and regional sales as well as implementing omni-channel sales.
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Consolidation of sales units in the course of the plant relocation from Munich to Hanover.
10/2017 - 9/2018
Shanghai KraussMaffei Machinery Co., Ltd (Shanghai/Haiyan) - Vice President Plastic Extrusion
- Conceive of strategies and implement the corresponding action plans to significantly expand the extrusion business in China.
- Development, product placement and localization strategy for all plastic processing extrusion machinery.
- Design and implement an initiative to increase service sales and develop and establish a demand-driven spare parts warehouse.
- Establish a customer-focused technical laboratory and expand process engineering to ensure we can best present the desired technologies to customers and optimize them according to requirements.
6/2016 - 9/2017
KraussMaffei Group (München) - Executive Director Process Technologies Equipment
- Support and coordination of internationalization activities within ChemChina Group (machinery and equipment manufacturing).
- Support and consulting in the post-merger integration process.
- Business development, especially of international sales as well as after-sales activities of the assigned companies.
6/1999 - 5/2016
KraussMaffei Technologies GmbH (Spritzgießtechnik - München) - Executive Director
- Responsible for Sales Area: Greater China (Hong Kong, Taiwan) (10/2014 - 5/2016)
- Business Unit Manager Automotive (7/2012 - 5/2016)
- Business Unit Manager Logistic Packaging (7/2012 - 7/2014)
- Responsible for the sales area: Germany (7/2010 - 5/2016)
- Procuration (KraussMaffei Technologies GmbH & KraussMaffei Extrusion GmbH) (10/2007)
- Responsible for the sales area: Russia and CIS respectively (6/2007 - 6/2013)
- Responsible for the sales area: North America, South Korea (6/2007 - 5/2016)
- Responsible for sales processes and variant management (CRM/CAMOS) (6/2006 - 6/2014)
- Director Key Account Management (10/2002 - 5/2016)
- Project Engineer at KraussMaffei (UK) Limited in Warrington-UK (10/2001 - 9/2002)
- Project Engineer at KraussMaffei Technologies GmbH in Munich, Germany (6/1999 - 9/2001)
3/1998 - 5/1999
Deckel Maho Geretsried GmbH (Geretsried near Munich) -Head of assembly of horizontal and vertical milling centers
7/1996 - 12/1997
IBL Löttechnik GmbH (Königsbrunn near Augsburg) - production manager and sales coordinator
5/1993 - 6/1996
CeWe Color AG & Co. (Germering near Munich) - Production Manager
1988 - 1993
Mechanical engineering studies, Coburg University of Applied Sciences
Focus: Production engineering; Degree: Diplom-Ingenieur (FH) (Engineer)
Graduate thesis:
"Development of a hydraulic shaker, design, commissioning, applications", University of Applied Sciences Coburg
1983 - 1987
Apprenticeship as toolmaker in Munich Franz Xaver Meiller vehicle and machine factory - GmbH & Co KG AG
Contact
I look forward to your feedback. If I have piqued your interest, let's talk.
+49 173 594 84 06
bengt.schmidt@bengtschmidt.de