Mr. Jamal, over the past 30 years you have been involved in building up the German branch of National Instruments, right up to becoming head of global marketing. Then you left the company. What were your reasons for taking this step?

Prof. Rahman Jamal: The two main reasons are: Firstly, I wanted to return to Paderborn - the city that welcomed my family so warmly when I came to Germany from Burma at the age of 10. And secondly, the departure of company founder Dr. James Truchard - whose vision I had signed up to at the time - also gave me the opportunity to realign my own professional situation.

Can the experience you gained in a globally active, international company also be transferred to the German automation scene?

The automation industry has had an incredibly successful time: think back to the 1990s: some of the small medium-sized companies from back then have become internationally operating giants. These companies can certainly be compared with NI; many are in the same situation today as NI was when Dr. Truchard handed over the management of the company.

What have you observed in this respect?

The management structure of medium-sized companies can be divided into three scenarios:

1. the company founder is still actively at the helm and drives both the technological vision and the operational business.
2. the company founder has one foot out of the active business and is only active on the supervisory board.
3. the baton has been handed over to a successor from within the company or brought in from outside.

What are the consequences of this?

Scenario 1 is probably still the variant with the highest probability of success. Even though it harbors the risk that the visionary will develop into a preservationist and disregard important trends based on the experience of success.

Scenario 2: If it is not clear from the outset that the succession will be carried out by a family member, the company may have to endure a power struggle between succession candidates. The company goes through a very vague phase; the company founder no longer controls everything, the successors may not act very transparently. Customers may experience uncertainty.

Scenario 3: This is often a field of experimentation in which the new, different characters try to make their mark: Branding is changed, new marketing guidelines are issued, etc. - the original technological vision can be completely lost from focus. This is probably the most dangerous scenario for the long-term success of the company and the loyalty of its customers.

What advice would you give companies?

They should not rely on their 30 years of success and believe that they can now replace the original vision-driven enthusiasm for technology with modern management theories in terms of increasing efficiency and scaling. A full oil tanker will continue to move forward for a long time without propulsion - short-term experiments will not cause it to sway - but it will not be able to maintain the necessary 'technological' speed without a further powerful push.