Management kept on its toes

There is no one else who keeps him on his toes quite like his 2-year-old son, but at work, Thomas Sixt, Operations Director at Q-railing since the end of 2019, also hardly ever sits still. Being out of the ordinary in the best possible way – this is what he likes to do best, and that is a perfect fit for Q-railing. We take a brief look back with him as well as discussing how we can expect 2020 to be out of the ordinary.

Thomas Sixt joined Q-railing in 2015. Initially, he was the General Manager Sales responsible for the sales activities of various European branches, and later also for Q-railing USA. Despite many years of experience as an executive, he immediately felt a big difference: ‘With its open corporate culture and flat structure, I felt right at home in Q-railing from the word go. It may sound a bit like an exaggeration, but I had the feeling I was finally where I should be.’ He particularly remembers his conversation with CEO Ronald Guliker: ‘With a wink, he joked that it was my own fault it had taken me so long to find Q-railing. Oh well…’ 

Learn, improve and get on with it
Sixt explains that 2018 and 2019 were years of major internal change for the company. It started with extensive software and hardware system changes. ‘For Q-railing it has never been enough to just deliver and fulfil requests.

On the contrary, it is our endeavour and ambition to continuously improve ourselves and exceed expectations. We couldn’t rest on our laurels and didn’t want to.’ Sixt does not shy away from the fact that, during this time, there were also situations in which the company could not always fully meet its high standards of service and quality for customers. ‘Not everything always went smoothly, to our great regret. But we learned from it, made improvements and moved on from these challenges. Now it’s full steam ahead again.’

From Munich to the Lower Rhine
Sixt had so much confidence in the promise and opportunities of the market, and in the company itself, that he even moved from Munich to the Lower Rhine area to take up his new position. Say what? Sixt laughs: ‘Yes, people often ask me what made me do it. But the answer is easy: From 2015 to 2019, when I was very active in sales, travelling took up more than 70% of my time. Most of the remaining 30% of my work I performed at the Munich office. By accepting the role of Operations Director, management offered me the ultimate win-win: on the one hand spending more time with my family, on the other hand being given ideal working conditions.’ 

Main tasks for 2020: online and product innovations
Sixt runs the company together with board members Andre van Uitert and Sean Bartlett. ‘I am responsible for the entire supply chain, including the key area of IT. Specifically, this means improving all movements of goods, finance and information in the corporate group worldwide.’ One of his main tasks in 2020 is to further build on the company's strengths in an increasingly digitised market environment: ‘The main focus will continue to be on the customer experience. The online area will therefore receive a great deal of attention. Other than that, we want to inspire our customers with innovations. As a result, there will be another new catalogue in Spring, which will contain new balustrade systems such as Easy Alu, another adjustable all-glass railing and much more.’

Passion and humour
Passion, ambition, openness and humour are what make the difference for Sixt within the Q-railing group. In addition, the strong spirit of collaboration means that innovations can be implemented as planned. ‘This can only be achieved thanks to our outstanding teams,’ he stresses. ‘Our employees are passionate about what they do, and, if needed, they are willing to push the envelope so that we can always be a little more dynamic than our competitors.’