-4.1 Interviewee: Mr. Neil Smith, Managing Director of voestalpine Böhler Welding (China) Co., Ltd.

1. Can you briefly introduce yourself? What is your role at voestalpine Böhler Welding (China) Co., Ltd.?

I grew up in the south-eastern valleys of Wales in the United Kingdom, an area once known for its iron and coal industries but today known mainly for its stunning scenery and landscapes.

The first 12 years of my career was spent as an engineer in the underwater defence industry then, in the late 90s, I jumped boldly into manufacturing industry. Through the first two decades of the 21st century, I moved base from the UK to France, then to China for the first time - I returned to the UK for a while, then eventually ended up here in Suzhou. I am now in the eighth year of my second Sino stint and I have headed-up voestalpine Böhler Welding China since the beginning of 2016.

I joined voestalpine Böhler Welding China to turn around what was a failing business. Established in 2007, the factory in Suzhou had never made a profit and was incredibly inefficient, mostly due to a lack of strategic goals and direction. I am of course pleased to say that after a period of tough decisions and restructuring and a period of stabilisation, we are now in a strong growth and profitability phase. I am responsible to the management board of vaBW group for the strategic growth of our China business and all aspects of day-to-day management here.

If you would like to learn more about my career, please join me on LinkedIn: www.LinkedIn.com/in/neilraymondsmith

2. In your company's industry, what do you think is the biggest change in the past few years both domestically and internationally, and what has your company done to deal with it? What is your company's strategy based on such changes?

We are seeing, we think because of the ongoing global economic turmoil, and now more or less confirmed in last week's 14th five-year plan, a tendency in nearly every industry towards domestic sourcing. We believe that this trend is going to get stronger as a result of the announced dual circulation economic plan and in particular the internal circulation economy. The CCPs plan is growth built on boosting domestic consumption, stimulating domestic innovation, developing home-grown technology, and pushing toward self-sufficiency while reducing – and eventually eliminating - dependence on export earnings and imported technologies and products. For us, it is likely to mean that our imported material sales are likely to suffer while on the other hand, domestically made products are likely to benefit. Our growth strategy mainly revolves around the localisation of certain products combined with capacity increases in our Suzhou plant.

On the point of the lost sales to the USA mentioned above, it wasn't a big problem because I transferred production to our factory in Jakarta.

3.Has voestalpine Böhler Welding (China) Co., Ltd's business been affected by COVID-19 pandemic?

We have been affected directly and indirectly by the Coronavirus pandemic. Like everyone else, we faced complete uncertainty in January but we recovered very quickly in February and are now having an exceptional business year. Mostly driven by government stimulus initiatives, we have seen strong demand in several industrial segments. From an indirect point of view, we have seen a slowdown in some export business due to some overseas projects being stalled and delayed, and more recently, our manufacturing companies in Europe have not been able to fulfil certain commitments to us due to Corvid-19 controls and restrictions in their locations.

4. voestalpine Böhler Welding (China) Co., Ltd. just won an award for being the Best Employer in Greater Suzhou area, could you share this experience with us and introduce more about the talent management in your company.

The winning of that award is confirmation to my team and me that the leadership and management principles that we have developed over the last five years have delivered very high levels of employee motivation and engagement.

This starts with the leadership team itself. We have undergone an extensive transformation since 2016, from an extremely silo-oriented, dysfunctional group to what is now a high-functioning and highly cooperative team. We all examine our strengths and weaknesses in order to build a mutually beneficial support framework and we have identified the elements of toxic behaviour that existed between us in order to drive them out. This journey has been extraordinary and I am proud of every one of them for making what are highly personal changes to their behaviour.

Together, we have built a business focussed on people development. Every employee knows our factory is a safe and healthy place to work - in fact, they help us keep it that way. We actively promote a high level of integrity in all aspects of working life and our policies and rules are crystal clear. In return, we give every employee at every level the opportunity to better themselves through our internal development programs and we encourage everyone to participate in our company success through our continuous improvement initiatives. If you ever join voestalpine Böhler Welding China, you will be encouraged and expected to find ways to make your job easier and more efficient and ways to delight our customers even more!

I am very proud to be recognised as a good employer because I believe my employees are my most important asset and I strive to provide a great environment for them to be safe, to work and to develop.

5. What originally brought you to Suzhou? Do you enjoy life in Suzhou?

There are two main reasons why my wife and I chose to return to China in 2013. The first is because I needed to do something positive after the negativity of five years of post-2008 financial crash business restructuring and closures in Europe. My first assignment back here in Suzhou was to set-up and get running Worldwide Packaging (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., over in SND.

The second reason, and according to my wife the most important one, was for my son to learn to speak, read and write the Chinese language. We both want to give him the broadest possible horizons and we value this as an important part of his future development.

My family and I find life in Suzhou to be fulfilling with plenty to keep us sane and active and we have a great circle of local and expat friends to enjoy life with. Of course, it will eventually be nice to be able to travel freely outside of China to visit our families in the UK.

6. How do you hope to see DUSA develop in the future?

DUSA is a valuable resource of knowledge and information sharing and I particularly find the training programs that are regularly on offer to be very useful. Probably the most value I personally take from DUSA is the experience sharing by like-minded people in what can be a daunting and complicated business environment here in China. I hope that the management reflect on the founding principles of the organisation and continue to promote them for the benefit of all members.