phase 1 - family narrative

PHASE 1

Hi guys, here is my narrative for phase 1. Cheers!

HEW Kabel

Introduction

Heinz Eilentropp finished his studies at RWTH in Aachen, Germany. He graduated as a ‘Diplomingenieur’, graduate engineer in machine engineering, which was one of the highest degrees one could achieve during this time. RWTH was one of the best universities for technologies and engineering programs, still today its reputation is excellent.

While studying he faced some struggles and generally spoken had not an easy time. His father who worked as a jailer was never close to Heinz. In fact the two of them had a really bad relationship, above that the marriage of his father and mother was difficult. Due to a combination of all these factors, he decided to leave home at the age of 16. The older brother of Heinz called Joseph, was 10 years older had been recruited and served as a soldier in World War II. As soon as Heinz matured he decided to study machine engineering. During his studies in Aachen Heinz had no financial support at all; he was completely on his own. This is why he had to work and earn some money himself, besides his challenging studies in engineering. He worked as firemen in a steam locomotive, where his task was to ensure the fire keeps burning in order that the steam engine could run. Quite often he worked in the night in order to manage the immense workload of his studies.

Even though he faced a difficult and hard time, he successfully finished his studies. The overall experience in Aachen made him even stronger, he was very ambitious, diligent and hard working. For approximately 15 years he worked for several different companies in the cable industry. Owing to a job offer from a local cable company, he moved to Wipperfürth, a small town in Germany with roughly 30,000 inhabitants. After some years of living there, he then got married to Renate, who came originally from Wipperfürth. This marriage was childless and they divorced after a couple of years. Heinz founded HEW Kabel his own cable company in 1964, at the age of 38. He married Friedericke who already had two children, Thomas and Ute from her first marriage. Throughout the years Heinz and Friedericke got 3 own children, Anna, Marie and Maximilian. The latter were twins.  

Due to personal reasons, constraints and potential harm all of the names, except the one of Heinz Eilentropp have been changed.

History

Heinz founded HEW Kabel, a German company that produces high-temperature electric wires, in 1964. His inspiration and goal was to design and produce solutions that meet special customer requests. This customer oriented approach lead to individual, high-technological, high quality and innovative products. Often he managed to encounter the spirit of the age and beyond that created new trends.

The first products were mainly cables and lines for manufacturer of household appliances, control technique, coaxial cables for broadcast and TV applications, and last but not least heating cables to heat water pipes, in-floor heating or such systems that required protection against the cold. Throughout the years the product range developed and changed to a huge extent. The main focus had been put on special cables among others for atomic power plants, medical engineering and last but not least the automobile industry. What made HEW’s products outstanding and separated the company itself from competitors was the fact the cables were heat-resistant, stable and simultaneously still flexible. In total the company owned more than 30 patents, which indicates the enormous amount of specialization.

Key roles

Heinz was the founder, CEO and owner of HEW Kabel. He ran the business for more than 30 years, managed together with his employees to continuously develop the company and expand its field of application, product range and customer base. Due to a constant growth he implemented HEW Kabel as the market leader, in particular for customised, special solutions in Germany.

Friedericke, she worked in the beginning of HEW Kabel at the office of the company. However, after giving birth two her first child of Heinz, Anna, she concentrated on raising the children, organizing and managing the household.

Anna (29), the oldest child of Heinz, was married to Constantin and had two children. She completed her apprenticeship in bookkeeping, which she did at her father’s company. Afterwards, she left the company and raised her children.

Constantin Anna’s husband worked as a CEO and salesman for a local company. Before this he worked in sales and account management of a bank. Several years later, he bought and took over an electro-technical company that has been founded in 1964.

Marie (21) did an apprenticeship as office administrator at a local car dealer. She married her husband Florian and got two children as well. Florian operated in the financial, consulting and banking business.

The last child, Maximilian (21) completed an apprenticeship as a cutting machine operator at a medium-sized electro company located in Wipperfürth as well. Afterwards he worked in Switzerland in the technological field. He was the only one of Heinz’s children who had a technological background. Max was neither married nor he had children.

Each of the three children owns 7.5% shares of HEW Kabel. Possible reasons for doing so might be to circumvent tax payments.

Thomas and Ute the children of Friedericke’s first marriage who had been adopted by Heinz, did not own any company shares. Instead both of them received a house as well as a financial compensation.

Dieter, who occupied the director role in the company, was responsible for the technical processes. He worked for the company from the beginning on, was highly trustworthy and loyal. Dieter and Heinz became close friends over the years nearly on a daily basis the two of them enjoyed an after-work beer.

Michael was the chief engineer who also worked for HEW Kabel for more than 20 years. He was in charge of the development department.

Family dynamics

What does the terminology ‘family’ mean and indicate? In literature researchers came across several definitions, the most common one says, “family includes one’s family of origin (parents and siblings) in addition to spouse and children” (Rothausen, 1999). Regarding our case, we have Friedericke and Heinz, the parents, their three children Anna, Marie and Maximilian as the main roles. Their husbands Constantin and Florian as well as their children belong to the family as well. In this section however we concentrate on the closest family members and their relationship.

Heinz Eilentropp the founder, CEO and owner of HEW Kabel was a hard working, diligent, businessman, and a real entrepreneur who understood to continuously develop his company. He focused on his employees and gave them the possibility as well as power to take their own decisions. By doing so he encouraged his stuff, gave meaning and importance to them. Frequently in family businesses the performance of employees who are direct family members is misinterpreted. A mistake in judgment and perception takes place. Moreover a company’s strategic assessment and decision-making are enormously influenced by a single manager. If one person makes decisions, the probability that this individual is biased, does a mistake or simply oversees important facts is relatively high. Therefore other members, either from the family or employees should be enabled to contribute in the decision-making processes (Ling, 2012).

Coming to Heinz one has to mention that he always focused on his employees, respected them, trusted them without limitation, asked for their advice and took their opinions as well as suggestions deeply into consideration. He had really good and close relationships with his employees, more than once it was even friendship. Unfortunately with his children it was rather the opposite. He became a father when he was approximately 45 years old, which was quite late. HEW Kabel was treated like a child and was Heinz’s center of attention. The consequences for his real children however were severe. None of them was encouraged to study at a university to get a degree and more important to receive the knowledge needed to successfully run the family business. However, Heinz was never convinced that his own children were capable of running the business. He constantly gave them the impression and feeling of not being good enough, which led to the consequence that none of them planned to work for HEW Kabel, at least not with the father still managing and operating the company.