An innovation driver

Could you briefly explain who Buhler is?

Calvin Grieder. Most people are not aware of how many times a day they encounter products to which Buhler has contributed. Buns in the morning? The ink on the newspaper? Perhaps a few noodles for lunch? The refreshing beer after work?  That chocolate bar? Yes, a bit of Buhler is in all of these things - for Buhler is a technology group and global market leader in Grain- Feed- and Food-Processing, but also Advanced Materials Processing.  When Adolf Bühler set up an iron foundry in Uzwil in 1860, he is unlikely to have imagined in his wildest dreams that his venture would ultimately produce a global corporation with 7500 employees in more than 140 countries who generate annual revenue of about 1.8 billion Swiss francs.

Why is Buhler recognised as an innovation driver?

CG. Every year, we spend more than CHF 80 million on research, which is enormously important. But we must get away from the idea that innovation is created solely in research laboratories. The motto of Buhler's anniversary year is: "150 Years of Buhler - Innovations for a Better World". To be able to follow this motto also in the future and to find new and better solutions for the future, we launched a competition among our employees worldwide to generate new business ideas. Last year a total of 140 teams submitted their ideas. Four teams have gone through the final, vying for first place. This year again over 120 ideas were submitted. Innovation can occur in every job everywhere around the world. In this connection, the issue of job rotation is very important to me. Exchanging ideas and experiences among different cultures and work styles is a must today.

How has Buhler been preparing itself to better serve its existing customer base while providing solutions to new regions and markets?

CG. Very quickly we developed our service organisations with more than 1000 people on the road everyday in the different markets. Buhler as also reacted early to the need of offering local adapted solutions, especially for the emerging countries. We have built new plants and expertise in China, in India, in South America and in South Africa to engineer and produce solutions adapted to the local needs and requirements.

Thirdly, we have understood that performance cannot come at any costs. Buhler must be efficient to compete in the market. We have therefore set up efficiency programmes, which we have driven now for many years and therefore have strengthened our competitiveness and profitability year by year.

We understand that Asia will remain a hot turf and we will have to speed up in order to remain strong in these markets. This I am saying even after Buhler has localised its organisations over the last 100 years and started to produce in China 25 years ago.

Buhler will never stand still and developments will go on. Especially after the economic crisis, we expect that the world will be different than it was before. We therefore have strengthened our capabilities to innovate and come up with new solutions for the future markets and customer needs. 

How will the world be different in the future and what will be Buhler's contribution?

CG. Today the world is facing enormous challenges. The expected growth in global population in conjunction with increasing urbanisation and the related changes in dietary habits are steadily raising demand for grain to cover the needs for meat and dairy products. At the same time, crop growing areas are limited or are even tending to decrease due to the change in climate and the utilisation of valuable crop acreage for other purposes. Besides that, we should not forget that a quarter of all harvest gets lost, rotten or damaged on the way to processing. In this environment, Buhler can make an important contribution in the areas of food, raw materials, energy, and the environment and will indeed assume this responsibility. This will also secure the organisation's business future - in the sense of controlled organic and acquisition-based growth and the carefully nurtured corporate culture, which is so decisive for its success.

Biography

Calvin Grieder graduated in process engineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich. After graduation he worked in a number of management positions in companies engaged in the fields of control engineering, automation and plant construction to establish and expand their international businesses. Grieder joined the Buhler Group as CEO in 2001.