10 years Rhomberg Sersa Rail Group, told by Michael Match, CEO Rhomberg Sersa North America, since end of 2008 in the company, since January 2017 in this position.
In 2012, the year of the merger of the two companies into Rhomberg Sersa Rail Group, I was part of the team in Australia. We had a lot of challenges at that time – lots of ups and downs, lots of middle of the night possession stress, but lots of fun and laughs as well. I wouldn’t have missed a minute of it. By 2017 we had succeeded in positioning Rhomberg Rail Australia for sustainable growth with a solid foundation for the future.
Meanwhile my role in helping the Australian team had come to a point where I knew it was time for Richard and his team to take the business to a new level. At that time my personal life had changed considerably, and I was in a position to look at new horizons. So the fact that of all the places in the world for Sersa to have bought a rail business they had one, where I grew up – in the small village of Brockville in Canada. The opportunity for me to have my new family live and understand where I came from and the challenge of a new business to develop in such a large market made me end up in Canada. Now I am running a North American business starting the same growth pathway as Australia. The merger of Sersa and Rhomberg opened an opportunity for me that would have been inconceivable anywhere else.
Australia as a model for North America
The journey continues as we grow the business in North America. More successes and failures, hard work and good friendships, developed with rail folk in a huge rail market. If a company is a small one in a big market, you have to be smart and find a good strategy. Just to give you an idea about the size of this market: North America has over 800,000 kilometers of railways whereas Austria has around 9,000 kilometers! The development of our company in Australia has been a great success story and still is, it works as a model for us. The success in Australia was achieved by working closely with all areas of the group, gathering support from the group knowledge, and with the direct involvement by both owners. The transfer of knowledge and experience from established markets in our group to the new market Australia was a crucial point for success and we rely on that model for our success in North America.
Partnering with Locals and offering Specials
In Canada and now the USA, we are setting the focus on a partnering model with local companies. We believe in long-term relationships, working better together, and helping each other in doing things together. We want to share the values of the Rhomberg Sersa Rail Group with our partners. And that means we seek to be friends rather than competitors, looking for common synergies rather than competitive friction. The advantage of being part of an international group becomes evident in our specific products and services: In 2021 to 2022 mechanics from UK worked directly with us to bring over a large group of machines from UK to the US and then got the machines working. Nobody in North America knows how to operate and maintain these kinds of machines the way our people do. Our project and engineering skills are extraordinary because of the interchange of staff between Canada and the USA, Ireland, and UK. We do a good job in solving the problems of our clients, because all our clients in the group have the same problems and need the same services.
Working in a company of great guys
My personal highlight in the ten years has been working with the guys in Australia to reposition the business and set up a successful future. My current highlight is developing relationships and the foundation of future success in North America, being empowered by all my international colleagues. We will build up our future with a bunch of skilled people. By investing in people by building up their engineering and technical skills, while focusing on special competences for the long-term, then growth and profit will follow. That’s what we did in Australia – we built a business that is run by locals in an entrepreneurial style with group support and crossover. There are great people throughout our group, with everyone having the right intention, following the same goals and expectations for success and excellence in rail. Travelling together, challenging, and supporting each other, we should never forget how lucky we are not to work for a company driven only by short-term bottom-line profit.
New ways to support clients in 2032
My picture of 2032: We are the best, not the biggest. We are best in business on a world scale, not just in a local market. We took the power, enthusiasm, and strength these two parent companies were built from and made a group that is stronger as one. Developments in the new markets have allowed the DACH markets to increase margins by focusing on specialized local areas while exiting some traditional areas that have seen increased competition and so reduced returns. Our people exploit international opportunities within our group, we have the best in world rail engineers and professionals. We are exploring new ways to support clients commercially, operationally, and technically as they deal with an ever-challenging task to run more volumes on their railways with fewer resources and in less time.
