Our
Company
The world’s leading system provider for fire protection
Rosenbauer is the world’s leading system provider for preventive firefighting and disaster protection technology. The international group of companies develops and produces vehicles; fire extinguishing systems; fire and safety equipment and digital solutions for professional, industrial, plant, and volunteer fire services; and systems for preventive fire protection.
The listed company Rosenbauer International AG based in Leonding, Austria, functions as the parent company of the Rosenbauer Group. It is also the largest production company, the research and development center, and is responsible for the management of the Group.
In 2023, the Rosenbauer Group generated revenues of € 1,064.5 million. The individual product groups contributed to this as follows: Vehicles 74%, Fire & Safety Equipment 9%, Preventive Fire Protection 4%, Customer Service 10%, and Other Revenues 3%. With a global market share of 10.9%, Rosenbauer is one of the leading manufacturers of firefighting vehicles.
Revenues by product segment 2023
Objectives, strategy, and controlling
As an industry trendsetter, Rosenbauer helps shape fire and disaster prevention with pioneering innovations and outstanding products. Looking ahead as well, the company aims to break new ground in the development of firefighting technology. Rosenbauer strives to be the best in all areas. Its primary business goal is to achieve sustainable, profitable growth and to continuously increase the enterprise value of the company.
Rosenbauer benefits from a number of strengths in implementing this claim to leadership:
- its global presence and comprehensive service offering as the only
system provider for preventive firefighting and disaster protection
technology, - its role as an innovation and technology leader,
- its strong, vertical integration and industrial production methods,
- the international reputation of the Rosenbauer brand, and
- its skilled and dedicated employees.
The starting point for business decisions and the controlling of the Group is strategic multi-year planning, which includes market, portfolio, product, and production planning. A detailed budget will be adopted for each of the next financial years for all companies, the areas, and the Group. During the year, these annual budgets will be monitored for target achievement using tools including comparisons between target and actual performance, comparisons with the previous year, variance analyses, and forecasts.
Rosenbauer is conscious of its particular social responsibility as a provider of equipment to fire services whose members show a high level of social commitment. The group of companies therefore also takes non-financial factors, including the environment, human resources, and compliance, into account in its business activities; places great emphasis on sustainability; and maintains continuous dialogue with its stakeholders. Information on our understanding of sustainability can be found in the Sustainability Report 2023 on page 26.
Unique, global network
The Rosenbauer Group operates 16 production locations in ten countries on three continents and meets all major world standards with products manufactured in Europe, the US, and Asia. It also has its own sales and service companies in 19 countries as well as around 230 independent trading partners around the world.
Rosenbauer reorganized its sales regions at the start of 2023 in order to simplify market development through synergies. To this end, the NISA area (Northern Europe, Iberia, South America, Africa) was dissolved as an independent unit and was integrated into the newly established Americas, Europe, and Middle East & Africa sales regions.
The Scandinavian and Benelux countries, as well as England, France, Spain and Portugal, were incorporated into the former CEEU area, which now comprises all European countries and has been renamed the Europe area. The African countries served by the NISA area moved to the Middle East & Africa area. As a result, only one area is now active on the African continent. The South American firefighting markets were transferred to the former NOMA area, which now serves all of North and South America and the Caribbean as the Americas area.
The Asia-Pacific area is not affected by these organizational changes. Preventive Fire Protection activities are also still presented in a separate segment. Overall, Rosenbauer is represented in around 120 countries and therefore has an international network that is unique in the firefighting industry.
Number one for innovations
With its innovative products, Rosenbauer wants to define state-of-theart technology in its industry and actively develop customer demand. As such, research and development are of central importance to the Group. The Rosenbauer innovation process systematically integrates industry- relevant megatrends, findings from market observation, customers’ requirements, and employees’ suggestions. The Rosenbauer Group holds around 169 patents and patent applications, as well as numerous design patents, utility models, and trademarks.
In 2023, the Group invested € 27.8 million in research and development (2022: € 31.6 million). This corresponds to 2.6% of the Group revenues (2022: 3.2%). The capitalization rate was 21.9% (2022: 19.9%) and related to developments in Austria and Germany. A total of 58% (2022: 41%) of the company’s development costs amounting to € 16.3 million (2022: € 13.1 million) were incurred by Rosenbauer International AG, the Group-wide center of expertise for municipal and specialty vehicles, firefighting systems, and fire and safety equipment.
Research and development/R&D ratio
Research and development
In 2023, research and development activities were focused on further developing the existing product range and identifying strategic topics for the future in order to derive specific areas of action for Rosenbauer.
In the reporting year, Rosenbauer published the “Firefighting Trend Map 5.0” as an interactive digital visualization with extensive background information on the twelve trends it contains. The content was validated and refined through internal trend workshops and a workshop with experts from Central Europe. The digital processing has made it possible to prepare a large part of the underlying research findings in such a way that they are easier to grasp for further derivations. The Trend Map is intended to help readers to critically examine possible future events in order to prepare themselves for future challenges, but also to be able to seize opportunities at an early stage. Environmental changes caused by climate change, new and emerging global geopolitical conflicts, and health impacts, social upheaval, limited resources, the opportunities and risks of the mobility transition and advancing digitalization all have an impact on the fire and disaster protection sector.
Additional tools were also developed to enable clear and simple derivations for the respective fire department context when working with the trend map. Future workshops with several institutions and customers revealed that the new tool and the Firefighting Trend Map 5.0 are ideal as a moderation tool to support development and strategy projects.
The continuation of the “Green Energy on Fire” network and the concretization of funding and implementation support from the federal and state governments were also part of the development activities in 2023. Digital, online maps for “Green Energy on Fire” and the “Wildfire action map” are currently being developed. They are intended to support emergency response organizations in gaining an easier overview of the often complex issues and serve as a basis for deriving concrete approaches.
Together with universities, research institutes, and technology partners, Rosenbauer launched three parallel research projects focusing on robotics for firefighting operations. The EASIER project focused on rescue robot interaction with humans, specifically the research and development of a dedicated robot control station with a user-centered user interface. Following hardware and software development, the user experience was tested with several test subjects using a specially developed psychological evaluation method. A psychological study was used to assess the trust placed in the human-machine interaction. In addition, two further research projects were initiated with the Austrian Institute of Technology with a focus on the systematic and automatic detection of anomalies by the Rescue Robotic units. The aim is to identify possible intervention measures at an early stage.
Sustainability plays an important role in the Rosenbauer Group, which is why the Group focused intensively on the topic of the circular economy in the reporting year. The focus here is on the product. At the end of its life cycle, it should not become a burden on people and nature (waste) but should be able to be reused in the most environmentally friendly way possible through targeted measures such as refurbishment or recycling of components. Together with the Johannes Kepler University and the Linz Center of Mechatronics as well as other industrial companies, Rosenbauer launched a pilot project to identify specific recycling potentials for submersible pumps or thermoset rear seat benches (installed in the AT) and to develop an approach.