Christian O. Erbe is medical technology in person. His engagement in the family business and his representation on several boards and executive committees of relevant German insti­tutions provde the proof for this. We talked to him about the Life Science Incubator, Erbe Academy and other passions. An interview from our #peopleinournetwork series.

I was personally involved in the decision about the right location in Sin­ga­pore. BW Bank linked us with the German Centre. We started with one single employee and didn’t know how strong and fast we would grow. The German Centre offered us the flexibility to adapt our office space needs to our business development. Moreover, the infrastructure convinced us. For example, there is a café that we can invite our customers to. And you can easily network with locals and expats to exchange experiences and learn from each other.

Why we are still there? Actually, the German Centre offers way more opportunities today than at that time. The Life Science Incubator is a new project on which many companies worked together, including ourselves. The result is a fully equipped lab that start-ups and established companies can use – whenever and to whatever extend they need to.

At the Erbe Academy, we offer many courses and trainings. We share our experience and our know-how and train the participants in using our medical tech­no­lo­gy. We do this for our own employees in sales, technical service and marketing. And we do this for external parties like doctors, nurse technicians, and many more medical disciplines. In the meantime, more than 40.000 persons have taken part in our trainings! At our headquarters in Tübingen, we have a physical academy, worldwide we have been training people “on the road”.

Erbe Academy in Sin­ga­pore will be the first academy abroad and the German Centre is the perfect place for it. We can use the meeting and conference facilities for small and large groups on flexible conditions, including catering. Our office is located there, so we do not have any logistical challenges. Last, but not least, Life Science Incubator is just next door in the lobby. Everything is under one roof! This package we only get in the German Centre.

Flexibility, for sure. You can grow, or shrink, if necessary – also during the running term of a tenancy contract. Life Science Incubator is an awesome facility. And the additional international services, such as German Centre’s cooperation with the German Business Incubator in Vietnam, which allows me to use the latter’s hotdesks and meeting rooms.

I do not have a role model in particular. For me, a positive role model is someone who is curious, with an open mind and open heart, who wants to learn and get a bit better every single day.

Our employees rank first, and the way how we guide and motivate them. Without our fully committed employees, we would not stand where we are today, they are our most valuable ressource. Second is ecological sustainability, to which every company has to contribute in order to make good progress, not only in medical technology. Digitalisation is an important strategic task. This includes our own, internal business processes as well as the courses of actions of our clients, where we integrate our products. This affects the whole process from patient registration up to his discharge from hospital.

The current change in focus away from hardware and towards performance is huge and really disruptive. In Sin­ga­pore, we have a sales team, we provide courses and trainings in our new Erbe Academy, and we participate in clinical studies with a team of researchers. I can imagine to relocate further functionalities to Sin­ga­pore, such as procurement, logistics or product development. If we do everything in the right way and if we continue to have good ideas, our main goal will be achieved easily: healthy and profitable growth.

We have sales representations in 110 national markets and we are running subsidiaries in 21 countries – and all countries have their special challenges. Therefore, every country is exciting in its own way.

Immediately and with all I can do: Stop the war in the Ukraine!