From an Individual company to an ecosystem: The Future is interconnected

Mr Heindl, when you reflect back on your journey as an entrepreneur, was there one moment that fundamentally changed the way you view entrepreneurship and gave you the idea of creating a whole ecosystem?

Jürgen Heindl: There were two experiences that contributed significantly to this. The first came before Progroup was even founded. At the time, I was working in a managerial role at a large international company. The term -“employed entrepreneur” was often used. For me, this was always a contradiction. Entrepreneurship means having responsibility, freedom and taking a risk yourself. These are things you can’t delegate. This realisation -encouraged me to make the decision to set up my own company. The second key realisation developed with our business model. Right from day one, Progroup has sought to maintain close partnerships with its customers. Over many years, this has created stable cooperations based on trust. These experiences made me ask myself the question: How can we ensure that family-run companies don’t just work with Progroup, but also work with each other? This is precisely where the idea of an ecosystem starts to emerge.

What exactly does this mean?

We’re currently seeing increasing market consolidation in many industries. For medium-sized family companies, this often means at some point they’re faced with a key decision: Are we going to sell our company, or are we going to pursue a different path? This is exactly where the idea of an ecosystem comes in. Rather than integrating companies into ever-larger corporate structures, we’re giving them the opportunity to remain independent and work together more closely. Each company remains autonomous, but together they can create a strength that none of them could achieve on their own. This allows companies to share knowledge, make better use of capacities and also cater for larger, international customers whose requirements would often be almost impossible for a single medium-sized company to handle. This creates a powerful network that can act like a large corporate group in many areas, without the individual family-run companies having to give up their independence.

You describe JH Holding as an “active owner” and “enabler”. What do these terms mean?

“Active owner” means firstly that we’re an active family of entrepreneurs and not just an investor family. My sons now have responsibility on Progroup’s Board and I’m focusing on continuing to develop the ecosystem within the holding company. What unites us is that we act in an entrepreneurial way and think long-term. The role of the holding company is primarily to be an enabler: We don’t seek to control or replace entrepreneurs. We want to provide them with opportunities through knowledge, experience and networks. Where it makes sense to do so, we’ll help them create suitable structures or support them with capital. But in the end, each company decides for itself which offers it wants to utilise.

You want to strengthen the independence of medium-sized family companies and create a closely interconnected system at the same time. How do you counter the concern expressed by many entrepreneurs that cooperation also means losing some independence?

Autonomy is an incredibly valuable asset for entrepreneurs. This is why cooperation only works if it genuinely adds real value. I like to compare it to joining the EU. Each member state gives up a little bit of its independence because it believes it will get a greater benefit from being in this larger community. That’s exactly how we view our ecosystem: Nobody should lose their entrepreneurial freedom. We actually want to create additional levels of freedom. That’s why we’re not creating a closed system that companies have to join. We’re creating a platform that they can use in their own interest. Anyone who can see benefits from this will make use of it and still remain an independent entrepreneur.

Why is a network like this becoming more ­important right now?

Because the general conditions in the market are changing. Our industry, like many other industries, is experiencing increasing consolidation. At the same time, there are growing requirements arising from digitisation, artificial intelligence and data-based business models. Large corporate groups are able to establish comprehensive structures to handle this. This is much more difficult for medium-sized family companies. With these conflicting priorities, our ecosystem is not intended to make all companies the same, but to give them access to knowledge, experiences and shared solutions.

You deliberately don’t invest in controlling majorities. Last year, the Evergreen Foundation was set up. What role does it play in your idea?

Our aim is not to take over companies. Our aim is to preserve their independence over the long term. European SMEs are very much defined by family businesses with their identity, regional roots and entrepreneurial spirit. We want to strengthen this diversity. The Evergreen Foundation can offer a solution for the particular case of “business succession”. If there is no succession plan in place within a business family, the only option is often to sell the business to a corporation or financial investor. The foundation provides an alternative here. It can support companies over the long term and enable them to remain part of the ecosystem. This has worked well with Poprawa P.S.A. in Poland, where the foundation holds 75.1 % of the shares but the company still operates fully independently with the local management team.

How can cooperation between independent entrepreneurs succeed and what makes a ­cooperation work well?

Each cooperation that works well requires common goals, clear rules and trust. Vertical cooperation between suppliers and a customer is now a matter of course. However, horizontal cooperation between independent family companies needs to be established first. To do this, you need transparency, mutual trust and a willingness to learn from one another. Sharing best practices plays an important role. Lots of companies solve similar tasks or problems without knowing about each other. If these kinds of experiences are combined, this benefits all parties involved. Of course, this all needs to take place within clear legal and competitive boundaries.

How will you judge that your idea has been successful in ten years’ time?

I won’t look at the size of the network, but at its quality. The ecosystem will be successful if lots of family businesses are actively working together, successfully acquiring orders that they would not be able to handle on their own and so becoming stronger together. If companies can engage with and support each other to secure their independence, enhance their competitiveness and ensure that a diverse range of SMEs is maintained. This is exactly how I envisage the future of family-inspired entrepreneurship.