Director Dan Schmitz has fundamentally reorganised the legal structure of the business. With the agreement of the shareholders, the new directors have been operating the businesses arising out of the current company since the beginning of January 2018.

 “Change is ever-present for us,” says Dan Schmitz. “In essence, it’s something we experience every day. All that is different is the scale on which we are creating something new. We have taken a major step forward by restructuring business operations at Schmitz-Werke,” he stresses, “because we want to set the company up properly for the future.”

Three legally separate companies

 Three legally separate companies have been created from the textiles and solar protection business divisions, along with administration and infrastructure. Production of awnings and marketing of the markilux brand have been operating since 1 January 2018 as markilux GmbH + Co. KG. Michael Gerling and Klaus Wuchner were appointed directors. The former “textiles profit centre”, with the brands swela, drapilux and the new brand mobiltex, has become Schmitz Textiles GmbH + Co. KG, with Stefan Ruholl as CEO. Schmitz-Werke GmbH + Co. KG itself is operating as the holding company; the company is the overall administrative centre and owner of the group of companies, and thus of all the property holdings as well. Dan Schmitz, who has taken over as Managing Director, explains: “The job of the holding company includes forming broader national and international relationships in the textile and solar protection sector.” In addition to foreign distributorships in the current business divisions, Schmitz-Werke already has shareholdings outside Germany.

Faster and more flexible

Schmitz is convinced that operations will benefit from a new structure appropriate to modern business. “For the last five years we have been working on rejuvenating and streamlining our textiles division,” he explains. “Our mobiltex brand – which is still quite new, having been formed in 2017 – has also enabled us to develop a new customer base in the automotive industry. In addition, we have been working hard to improve awareness of our swela, drapilux and markilux brands. And we’ve been successful there,” he adds.

 The two business fields, textiles and solar protection, have evolved differently, says Schmitz. “Our textile brands serve both national and international markets, with high-tech fabrics and materials with specific functions,” he explains. The marketing and sales division concentrates on its role as a ‘Made in Germany’ supplier to industry and specialist retailers, as well as hospitals, care homes, hotels and shipbuilding. “It’s different in the field of solar protection. Here we have a mature range of products that goes out direct to the end customer via specialist retailers.”

 Another point that Schmitz says also points to a fundamental change within the company is the rapidly advancing pace of technical development. “As the shareholder who is managing the business, I see it as my job to ensure that the ball always stays in play,” he continues. “In other words, that we as a team keep working together, with an eye to the future.”