Af­ter ar­ri­ving in the com­pa­ny, Mr Bu­chert li­kes to grab a cup of cof­fee. He then goes on to plan­ning the day and hand­ling the first emails. That is what our CEO’s morning rou­ti­ne looks like. In ge­ne­ral, the­re is no such thing as a nor­mal working day< howe­ver, Mr Bu­chert tri­es to keep his Mon­days and Fri­days free in or­der to con­fer with his di­rect re­ports. This is very im­portant to him so that he can keep ab­re­ast of things. On the other week­days, he is usual­ly away on busi­ness at dif­fe­rent lo­ca­ti­ons, eit­her vi­si­t­ing custo­mers or par­ti­ci­pa­ting in con­fe­ren­ces. This does not lea­ve him with very much free time, so that he es­pe­ci­al­ly looks for­ward to a well-de­ser­ved break on the wee­kend with his fa­mi­ly and fri­ends.  Whe­ther he goes to work ear­ly or late in the day, Mr Bu­chert pre­fers lea­ving la­ter. Na­tu­ral­ly, this is be­cau­se un­fi­nis­hed and un­sche­du­led tasks ari­se all the time. The good busi­ness per­for­mance as well as the many ex­ci­ting pro­jec­ts cur­r­ent­ly un­der­way at TA pro­vi­de lots of mo­ti­va­ti­on. Even though, achie­ving the workli­fe ba­lan­ce that is much dis­cus­sed of­ten gets short-shifted. It is here, howe­ver, whe­re he thinks he needs to make im­pro­ve­ments.

Es­pe­ci­al­ly in the case of ne­ga­ti­ve feed­back from custo­mers or em­ployees, it is im­portant to re­main calm and sleep on the in­for­ma­ti­on be­fo­re you re­act too emo­tio­nal­ly. That is how he tri­es to keep stress un­der con­trol. On the one hand, it is a big bur­den to have to tra­vel at least three days a week, but it is also ex­tre­me­ly mo­ti­vat­ing. Above all, it sti­mu­la­tes him to make con­stant im­pro­ve­ments, be it in our so­lu­ti­ons, pro­ces­ses or ser­vices. Mo­reo­ver, with today’s me­ans of com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on, it is easy to keep in touch with the of­fice or fa­mi­ly. His fa­vou­rite way to tra­vel is by pla­ne or car. Now, Mr Bu­chert is par­ti­cu­lar­ly in­te­rested and in­vol­ved in the di­gi­ta­li­sa­ti­on of the glo­bal au­to­mo­ti­ve af­ter­mar­ket. It is im­portant to ana­ly­se the pos­si­ble con­se­quen­ces for TA and draw the cor­rect con­clu­si­ons, so that we can be as suc­cess­ful in 2020 as we are to­day.

Mr Bu­chert be­gan his pro­fes­sio­nal ca­re­er at Bosch as a ‘Mar­ke­ting & Sa­les Trai­nee’. Af­ter this po­si­ti­on, he took over the ma­nage­ment of sa­les for ‘white la­bel goods’ (dish­wa­s­hers, ref­ri­gera­tors, etc.) in the Be­ne­lux re­gi­on. In 1995, he took re­spon­si­bi­li­ty for the pro­duct ma­nage­ment of com­mer­ci­al goods (spark plugs, fil­ters, wi­pers) in the au­to­mo­ti­ve af­ter­mar­ket sec­tor. From 1996 on, he was re­spon­si­ble for sa­les in Eas­tern and Wes­tern Eu­ro­pe. In 2001, he was gi­ven the op­por­tu­ni­ty to take on a com­ple­te­ly new task: the ma­nage­ment of Tec­Com. The fol­lo­wing cri­te­ria were of si­gni­fi­cant im­por­t­an­ce for him in ta­king this de­cisi­on: the de­ve­lop­ment of a start-up, com­ple­te en­tre­pre­neu­ri­al re­spon­si­bi­li­ty, and the busi­ness seg­ment of e‑commerce, which was a com­ple­te­ly new mar­ket seg­ment at the time.

Mr Bu­chert vi­sits a lo­ca­ti­on every week and tri­es as much as pos­si­ble to es­tab­lish di­rect con­tact with em­ployees. Whe­ther in the can­te­en, which he re­gu­lar­ly vi­sits, or in the CIT (Con­ti­nuous Im­pro­ve­ment Team), he also tri­es to un­der­stand the ever­y­day pro­blems of his em­ployees.

He has 11 em­ployees who re­port to him di­rec­t­ly. He re­li­es on their ta­king a high de­gree of self-in­itia­ti­ve and in­di­vi­du­al re­spon­si­bi­li­ty when it co­mes to ma­nage­ment. In other words, he has a ra­ther ‘de­mo­cra­tic and in­ter­ac­tive’ style of lea­dership. One of his most im­portant du­ties is to set the right prio­ri­ties and crea­te sui­ta­ble con­di­ti­ons for the teams to ac­com­plish their tasks. Not exac­t­ly easy, be­cau­se the TA team al­ways (!) has more ide­as and pro­jec­ts than it has mo­ney or re­sour­ces avail­ab­le.

In the Trai­nee News­let­ter team, we are very proud that Mr Bu­chert re­gu­lar­ly reads our news­let­ter to get a bet­ter over­view of the TecAlliance trai­nee programme’s strengths and weak­nes­ses. The good ex­pe­ri­en­ces with trai­nees are one rea­son why the trai­nee pro­gram­me is being fur­ther ex­pan­ded. In his opi­ni­on, the trai­nee pro­gram­me should be in­ter­na­tio­na­li­sed so that me­a­ning­ful ex­chan­ge with trai­nees from other coun­tries can take place. Mr Bu­chert can even ima­gi­ne ha­ving a trai­nee ac­com­pany­ing him one day. Un­for­tu­n­a­te­ly, no trai­nee or stu­dent is cur­r­ent­ly em­ploy­ed in Mr Buchert’s de­part­ment. We would like to thank Mr Bu­chert for pro­vi­ding us – the Trai­nee News­let­ter team – with in­sights into his pro­fes­sio­nal world and hope that you could also get to know him a litt­le bet­ter.