The industry in the Rhine-Main area shows with its current business figures how well it got through the Corona crisis.
Regardless of whether Merck in Darmstadt, Evonik with its important production site in Hanau or Schott in Mainz: People are happy about what has been achieved and look to the rest of the year with confidence.
In times of constant bad news from politics, the whole thing reads so unusual in its concentration that it is remarkable in the literal sense of the word.
At Merck, sales recently increased by almost a fifth, and at Evonik by almost 30 percent. The upswing is not only being borne by one product from the often very diverse companies, but actually by the entire breadth of the range. The laboratory business benefits from the demand from vaccine developers, in specialty chemistry ingredients for the vaccines are in demand, after all, everything also has to be packaged. The mentioned companies from the region are there everywhere. And where Evonik is also happy about the demand for materials that are needed for climate-friendly construction, Merck is benefiting from the growing semiconductor business. So the feeling arises that not all points have been set wrong in Germany,On the contrary, a very good job is usually still done in companies.
The Amazon principle
It is in the nature of things that what is good in the next quarter is no longer good enough that it has to be followed by an “even better”.
But that will only work with a permanently solid education and training system, with an infrastructure and digitization policy that finally comes to the world-class level that companies and their employees have long had.
And then it is important not only to stay at the forefront in research, development and production, but also to be able to play on the keyboard of the newly emerging digital platform economy.
Note: The Amazon principle does not only work with consumer goods at the end customer.
Perhaps Corona has opened eyes here too. It would be better because at one point - fortunately too - things will not go on like this forever, namely wherever sales are driven by government demand for vaccines.