The Customer:

• Sonnenkraft GmbH and Sonnenkraft Energy GmbH develop, produce and trade system solutions for the areas of photovoltaics (solar modules, inverters and batteries) and solar thermal energy (collectors, heat exchangers and storage).
• Sonnenkraft is the market leader in the area of ​​BiPV solutions (Building Integrated Photovoltaics), i.e. PV modules integrated directly into roofs, facades, carports and flying roofs.
• The Sonnenkraft Group, based in St. Veit an der Glan in Carinthia and a second plant in Wernersdorf near Wies in Styria, achieves sales of €249 million (2022) with 230 employees.
• Efforts to decarbonize the European economy and the attempt to reduce Austria’s dependence on Russian gas after the invasion of Ukraine led to rapid growth across the entire industry in 2021 and 2022.

The Project:

• Management Factory was commissioned to manage both companies from February to December 2022 in order to bridge a vacancy and to support the company in the transformation process from a commercial enterprise to an industrial company.
• On the one hand, organizational challenges had to be overcome, i.e. building up the necessary human resources for growth, introducing meeting routines, differentiating the distribution of tasks in the company, improving planning tools and quality management and starting a two-year management training course.
• The ramp-up of two new production lines for PV modules took place in 2022, the introduction of solar batteries inverters were prepared for 2023, plus the decision to invest in another high-performance PV line for BiPV modules in Wies.
• Last but not least, we had to look for and appoint two new managing directors for 2023ff. The 2022 financial year was the most successful financial year in the history of Sonnenkraft.