(Austria) – Zumtobel Group host event in Dornbirn to mark IYL 2015 and the company’s 65th anniversary, as well as 10th anniversary of Dornbirn Light Forum.

For the Zumtobel Group, IYL 2015 represents an important year of strategic realignment in which a strong foundation for profitable growth is being laid. Under the leadership of CEO Ulrich Schumacher, the group has adopted a multi-brand strategy joining Zumtobel, Tridonic and Thorn to create a lighting ecosystem.

Thorn, Tridonic and Zumtobel are organised as business divisions within the Zumtobel Group. With the objective of strategically developing their product portfolios, sharpening brand profiles and offering customers tailored solutions, business divisions have been assigned product management, development, marketing and quality assurance functions.

The Group is focused on expanding its competencies in smart controls and data management, continuing to develop its service portfolio and leveraging innovative business models to drive international growth. The heads of the business divisions are responsible for profit and loss as well as the logistics process.

Schumacher explained: “With our differently positioned Zumtobel and Thorn lighting brands and our “electronic brain” Tridonic, we have everything we need to be a pioneer, setting the pace in the international lighting industry. In a highly competitive market characterised by shifting technology and increasingly short innovation and product life cycles, new business models are more necessary than ever. We continue to move our business in the direction of services in the future. With this in mind, it is important to build an interdisciplinary structure that will allow Zumtobel Group to meet modern needs and take specific advantage of opportunities presented by the technology shift.”

Zumtobel Group’s management team hosted a welcome dinner for its VIP guests, and held a tour of Zumtobel Group’s 1,600-square-metre production hall, recently converted to house application cubes displaying the latest product innovations. The tour included presentations of the latest Product Highlights from experts of the Thorn, Tridonic and Zumtobel brands from recently appointed Chief Design and Marketing Officer Rogier van der Heide and Chief Executive Officer Ulrich Schumacher.

At the Bregenz Festspielhaus, Icelandic-Danish artist Olafur Eliasson presented his keynote speech on the importance of Light in Life.  Subsequent talks were given by marketing expert and brain management researcher Dr. Hans-Georg Hausel, and another by Alfredo Brillembourg and Hubert Klumpner, founders of the Urban-Think Tank. Expert on the Internet of Things (IoT) and recently appointed Tridonic IoT Architect Karl Jonsson concluded the speeches.

Zumtobel Group culminated the event with an evening gala dinner at the festival hall including talks from the curators of the Zumtobel Group Awards. Winners in “Applied Innovations” and “Buildings” categories were invited to talk about their current projects. Winner of “Urban Developments” category, architect Alejandro Aravena from Studio Elemental Chile discussed his winning project.

www.zumtobel.com