Please introduce yourself.
My name is Manfred Striedinger. I am the CEO of Striedinger Consulting GmbH. With Subauftrag.com we arrange subcontractors from Slovenia and Croatia, mainly to the German industry or to the places the German industry is expanding abroad.
Has that always been what you wanted to do?
I always wanted to be a professional motorcycle racer (laughs). No, I’ve been self employed for 18 years and 2 months and happy with it. Before that I learnt everything about human resources management and personnel leasing as an employee of a large corporation.
How did you get the idea for a subcontractor arrangement service?
Over the last 20 years, the recruitment, placement and leasing of personnel has changed considerably. Higher education has become the more attractive way to a dream job for more and more young people. However, this has resulted in a growing shortage of well-trained specialists in trade and industry. Therefore, in my opinion, professional personnel leasing is no longer possible in the more highly qualified commercial sector. That was my reason to start something new.
And this was Subauftrag?
Yes. In 2011, we started to arrange subcontractors. From the small market of Carinthia to the rest of the world. For one year we put all our time and money into marketing. We had no clients and no subcontractors. It took a whole year before we could write the first invoice (laughs).
So you would say that was the greatest challenge in the beginning?
Yes, the biggest challenge with this business model was to build the network. At that time, that was the hardest part. Today, the network is well established and we can fill orders worldwide professionally and quickly. Now we have other ideas that we plan to realize. We want sales offices throughout Europe or – the whole world – the world is not enough (laughs).
There are simply other challenges that are beautiful in a different way. You have to pursue your idea until it works.
Is that a personal strength of yours?
Yes, I’d say it’s a strength of mine. I have an idea, believe in it, put it into practice and then find the best people for it. You need them if you really want to be successful. I have the very best employees, that’s why we are so successful.
Why is subcontracting needed?
The network is needed.
Why?
Because the companies do not have the knowledge that we have gathered from 10 years of daily working with subcontractors. We have 50 companies that we supply constantly and 350 subcontractors that we can call upon, with between 10 and 250 employees. We know our subcontractors and therefore we know who we can use where and for which projects.
What distinguishes subcontracting from others forms of recruiting?
The difference is that we have an excellent network, the fastest order processing, expert subcontractors, a professional internal team but above all we work at a highly professional level. This is our company philosophy.
What do you mean by highly professional?
It’s quite simple. We want everyone involved to be able to profit from our services. Selling cheap is easy. You may be able to make a deal on short notice, but that is not our focus.
Our service is profitable for the customer, because he gets what he needs and is happy to book again with us. It should also pay off for the subcontractor, and that will have a positive effect on our network. Of course, we also want to earn our share. In the long term, this results in better and larger fruits being harvested for longer.
Where do you see Subauftrag in 10 years?
We want to digitalise everything to such an extent that we are franchisable and can offer our services throughout Europe. This is our 10-year target, which is easy to reach and technically possible.
In one or two years we would like to have a foreign office in Belgium or Luxembourg, England would also be interesting.
5 sentences to complete:
Subauftrag stands for…
…quality.
For my team I want…
…that everyone stays healthy and motivated. After all, 99.9% of the motivation lies with the boss, a good salary and a casual environment.
For the future I want…
…that we pursue and achieve our goals exactly as we imagined them.
The secret to this success is…
…stick to our goals, listen and evaluate things calmly.
5 words to conclude this interview.
Thank you for this interview.
