NORD Austria celebrates 25 years growth Linz subsidiary has been a powerhouse for Southeast Europe for two decades

Drivesystems' Austrian subsidiary celebrated its 25th birthday in October 2010, completing its first quarter century of success. The Linz branch has always held a prominent position in the NORD group. It is the base for a key geographic region and, supported by its own subsidiaries, coordinates the activities in the neighbouring countries of the Czech Republic and Slovakia as well as in a number of countries in Southeast Europe.

The Austrian affiliate has thus been contributing to the growth of NORD as a whole for many years. From the start, NORD Austria's extended catalogue of responsibilities has been founded on the outstanding achievements of managing director Heinz Scherleitner's team, that has been providing a textbook example for dedicated customer support. Even in the early years of the Austrian subsidiary, the North German headquarters handed responsibility for the MSV trade show in the Czech city of Brno to Linz, thus beginning a close-to-customer working strategy that quickly and enduringly cemented NORD's prominent position in the region served by this major engineering event.

Just a few years before, NORD had invented the UNICASE gearbox design and developed a wide range of products based on this concept. This presented the growing number of customers in Austria and the region with a portfolio of superior products, establishing NORD as a technology leader with proven product quality. The period also marked the parent company's move towards becoming a full-range supplier of drive technology when, in 1984, a frequency inverter factory was established in Aurich providing NORD Austria with additional strong sales arguments. Continuing the proven close-to-customer strategy, NORD Austria set up its own subsidiaries. At the new sites, local employees were generally endowed with much responsibility.

The strategy has been successful as the figures show. Heinz Scherleitner, who has been leading the Austrian subsidiary right from its foundation, initially sharing a single office with only a secretary, is now responsible for almost 80 employees and subsidiaries in seven countries in the region. As early as 1994 an affiliate was founded in the Czech Republic, followed by Slovakia in 1997, and Croatia just a year later.

The Croatian NORD subsidiary is also responsible for Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. More recently established daughter companies, sales offices, and distributors represent NORD in Bulgaria, the Ukraine, Romania, and Slovenia. Along with the penetration of both the market and the region, the Linz factory has grown with the factory floor more than doubling in size to 1,800 m when a new plant was inaugurated in 2000.