Podcast „Alles neu...? Aus dem Maschinenraum“

For many entrepreneurial families, faith is a private matter. For mother and daughter Simone Weinmann-Mang and Isabelle Himbert of Arno Arnold, it is a living corporate culture: the pastor at the groundbreaking ceremony, the carolers in the factory halls, a prayer before difficult decisions. Translated into everyday business life, this means for the two of them: “Employees are not just numbers to us; we always see the people behind them.”

The history of Arno Arnold begins in the 19th century with the bandoneon, the instrument that traveled the world with the tango. In the 1930s, its production gave rise to a new line of business: protective covers for machines, designed using the same folding principle as the instrument’s bellows. In the 1970s, the company finally made the transition from music to machinery. Today, Arno Arnold is a hidden champion from Hesse, more than 160 years old and led by the sixth generation of the family, Isabelle Himbert and her husband.

Today, the family-owned business must hold its own in a global market where the rules of competition are being redefined. Isabelle Himbert discusses the establishment of the China facility in the midst of the pandemic, the fast pace of Asian markets, and the commitment to maintaining Germany’s strength as a manufacturing hub. “We actually went to China because we wanted to be close to our customers,” she says. Looking at Germany, she also warns against false self-assurance: “Here in Germany, we still have the arrogance of ‘Made in Germany.’”

Simone Weinmann-Mang and Isabelle Himbert discuss how a generational transition can be managed without – literally –“taking the wheel” and why it can be difficult to leave the family business behind at the dinner table in the podcast “Alles neu..? Aus dem Maschinenraum” with Tobias Rappers and Katja Michel.

How can the origin and future of Mittelstand companies be courageously united? What are the challenges facing family businesses and what experiences do they gather in digital transformation? These questions are answered by “Alles neu...? Aus dem Maschinenraum“, the interview podcast for German Mittelstand*. Once a month, Tobias Rappers, Managing Director of Maschinenraum, and Nils Kreimeier, Senior Editor of the business magazine Capital, talk to thought leaders and makers from the heart of the German economy and focus on the personalities and their motivation. *The podcast is in German.

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