A jack-of-all-trades: from PCR analysis to razors

The Payer Group is an international player in various business areas – from medical products to consumer healthcare

Eduard Payer wanted to develop the world’s best men’s razor when he founded the company in 1946. Today, with locations in Europe and Asia, the Payer Group supplies a wide and varied range of high-quality products and services all over the world. Michael Viet was already working for the Payer Group in management positions from 1995 to 2006. After an excursion into the mining industry, he returned to Styria in 2019 as CEO and gives an overview of the group with its diverse areas of activity.

What is it like to work in a castle?
Michael Viet: For me it is a privilege to work in such a beautiful location in western Styria. Of course, it is also charming to be able to sit in a castle. Our employees are also proud to work at such a beautiful location. Furthermore, customers and guests who visit us tell us that they are impressed by the location with the castle in the beautiful hilly landscape in combination with state-of-the-art technology and a modern infrastructure. Payer’s headquarters is the Buschenschlössl Sonneck, west of Graz. The history of the castle can be traced back to the 14th century. In 1951, Eduard Payer bought the Buschenschlössl and made it the headquarters of the Payer Group in 1952.

You come from a management position in the mining industry. Are there parallels to medical technology?
Viet: These are two very different industries. One area that is very important in both and needs to be driven is innovation. At Payer, we also work with world market leaders, which is why we, as a strategic partner, have to constantly develop and focus on technology and innovation to not only meet but also exceed our customers’ requirements. Another parallel I see is people. They are our most important resource – each and every one of them contributes to the sustainable success of the company. Therefore, it is of great importance to get the best minds and to promote and develop them as well as to give them responsibility to be an attractive employer. This allows us to work together for many years, learn from each other and grow together.

Why has the Payer Group focused on products for medical technology in recent years?
Viet: We originally started in the field of electric men’s razors and gradually expanded our portfolio in the personal care sector, for example with women’s razors and epilators. With our existing know-how and our decades of experience in the field of consumer goods, we saw a potential new market and a strategically important step in medical technology more than ten years ago. Since then, we have focused on medical technology at our Austrian headquarters, the technology and innovation centre of the Payer Group, and have aligned our infrastructure very strongly with this.

Which medical products are we talking about here?
Viet: We are active in the markets of diagnostics (PCR analysis, blood-gas analysis, platelet analysis), patient support (respiratory systems, patient monitoring), surgery (laparoscopy) and consumer health (mother & child care, oral care).
In all areas, depending on the project requirements, we produce either devices, modules or components (consumables or microfluidics). With our many years of highly developed experience, we have established ourselves as one of the most important suppliers of highly complex and process-safe medical fluidics and consumables. From rapid prototyping and small-scale production with scale-up capability to automated high-volume production, we apply our expertise in single- and multi-component injection moulding, combining different materials and technologies for an excellent product in more than 20 million consumables produced per year. In addition, we use our experience and expertise for fluidic parts with an extremely low volume of fluids such as blood, plasma and other body fluids, coupled with optimised flow dynamics.

Your website directly addresses the “incredibly wide range of products” you develop and manufacture. Can you give an overview of the most important products in development?
Viet: On the one hand, we are active in the healthcare and medical sector, primarily at our Styrian headquarters, and on the other hand consumer goods business sector. Consumer goods is a very broad area, which is why we concentrate on the categories that follow. We have been able to complete countless projects with renowned companies, including world market leaders, with whom we have been maintaining strategic partnerships in the various areas for decades. These include shaving, grooming, epilating and styling such as hair and beard trimmers, beauty care (e.g. facial brushes), household appliances such as cleaning devices and lifestyle products such as products for outdoor sports.

What are your top sellers?
Viet: Grooming and styling is one of our core areas and we have been noticing an increased market trend for several years. Especially multi-grooming kits with different cutting attachments for hair removal all over the body are very popular. Every year, we produce around ten million ready-to-sell packaged products for global players

You support customers in the development of their products, from design to the production site. How does this process work?
Viet: We offer our customers a holistic solution. We serve a large number of international brands as a one-stop shop, from development to the finer details of the production process, including assembly and packaging, and cover the entire value chain. In addition, it is also possible for our customers to enter a process step in our value chain at a later stage. After the acquisition, the product is of course designed and developed by our development department in constant exchange with the customer. After the first qualitative tests with prototypes, our industrial engineering department takes care of making the respective product producible. In addition, the required moulding tool is designed and built. Depending on the customer’s requirements and the project, we assemble various parts manually, semi-automatically or fully automatically into a module or product and package it.

As CEO, isn’t it difficult to reconcile so many fields of activity?
Viet: For me, it is important to always keep the focus in sight. We have a clear strategic focus on our core businesses, where we strive together as a global team to be the best in everything we do. This is also reflected in our vision “One Player to be Number One”. It makes me very proud that we were able to fulfill this ambition and the intrinsic drive of our employees last year with a great success, a special award from Procter & Gamble. In November 2022, we were named “Partner of the Year” in the “Grooming” category.

After Hungary and China, you opened a new location in Malaysia this year. What are your expectations and what role will it play in the Payer Group in the future?
Viet: In order to secure our company’s success in the long term, we rely on a diversified and effective location strategy. In addition to our strong presence in Europe and the use of synergies, we celebrated the 20th anniversary of our Chinese location this year. Being able to continue to act and react in a resilient, agile and resistant manner, especially in today’s world full of uncertainties and volatile conditions, we made the strategic decision in 2021 to also strengthen Asia with the “China+1” concept, with an additional location in Malaysia. An important aspect of this is also to respond even more flexibly to our customers’ requirements and to lay the foundation for further growth.

What is your opinion on the current discussion of becoming less dependent on China?
Viet: As already mentioned, we celebrated the 20th anniversary of our Chinese location this year. After the takeover by the Hui family in 2002, this logical step was taken very quickly for Payer with a location in Asia. The production site is equipped with the most modern machines, and in recent years many areas have been fully automated. This shows that China continues to be strategically very important for the Payer Group. Of course, we are watching geopolitical developments very closely. Basically, we see that we have a sustainably stable and successful basis with the China and Malaysia concept.

What are the reasons for keeping the headquarters in Austria? Wouldn’t it be more cost-effective at one of your locations in Asia?
Viet: Our Austrian headquarters is also the technology and innovation centre of the group. Since technological progress and innovative solutions at all levels play an important role in a successful industrial company, we have also invested heavily in the location over the last three years – a total of around 20 million euros. This has included the expansion of the production facilities specialising in medical technology, the extension of the cutting competence centre, the modernisation of the laboratory and testing infrastructure, the redesign of the offices and meeting rooms, and the creation of new work areas through redesigns. In addition, we were able to win a major project in the “Consumer Health” sector in 2022, through which we built a new production area with around 500 square metres of manufacturing space. In this area, we also set up a fully automated plant recently.
Due to our constant growth, personnel has a high priority as the most important company resource. The number of employees in Styria has increased by 20 per cent in the last two years. In Styria, we also appreciate the proximity to top universities and colleges. We now have very good relationships and many cooperations and implement projects in various areas, such as product development, sustainability or employer branding. We see the combination of theoretical knowledge with a breath of fresh air and our experience with practical knowledge as very valuable. In addition, we are of course pleased if we can offer some people an exciting job in our company during or after completing their studies.