B & O wants to climb into the League of Apple

Anyone who sees him for the first time, Tue Mantoni would hardly think the CEO of an internationally renowned company. The Dane is 36 years old and works with his youthful face, the unpretentious hair and slender physique more like the junior officer of an advertising agency.

Mantoni lead since March, the precious-hi-fi manufacturer Bang & Olufsen - and that is not his first job as chief executive. In the Danish group, he wants to create, what failed in the past two years, considerably older Chefs: Bang & Olufsen back on track for growth. And quickly. Sales are expected to triple in ten billion crowns (1.3 billion euros) more than the company become bigger than it ever was.

"We think this is very ambitious," says Rune Møller, analyst at Jyske Bank. B & O - as fans call the brand - has a problem: "We are caught in the middle - too small to exploit economies of scale can, but too big to be fast," said Mantoni. He stands firmly on both feet when speaking - but overcomes his upper body as if to represent this entrapment pantomime.

Mantoni is concentrated in conversation as in his work. He has nothing of the loss of a young IT manager, hanging in the chair, as if they were rock stars. He seems to be aware that he represents a serious, long-established companies - and therefore the juvenile card may not play too open.

Strategically located Mantoni based on three models: the computer manufacturer Apple, the Lego toy company and the motorcycle manufacturer Triumph. From the very different histories of the companies he has knitted for B & O is a simple strategy: "Leaner, faster, stronger" ("leaner, faster, stronger") emblazoned on his Powerpoint slides.

But first he talks Tacheles. ". We are in a situation where we have to make tough decisions, otherwise they someone is different for us," then count on Mantoni, which has B & O in the past few years everything went wrong: The once fashionable shops are not aligned with the zeitgeist new products brought to market and rarely on the rich, ignoring emerging economies.

With its open his words are followed by Mantoni Lego model and its board chairman, Jørgen Vig Knudstorp. As he came in Knudstorp relatively young age at the top of the company. The two are familiar from their time together at the consulting firm McKinsey. "What Jørgen very, very well done, was that he was very honest about what the situation was concerned, and that's what I tried today," said Mantoni.

"The other thing he has done in the transformation process was to say. There are no sacred cows" such a cow, he has been killed by marketing and sales from its headquarters in Struer, deep in the Danish province in the capital Copenhagen won. Bang & Olufsen was founded in 1925 in Struer and has its headquarters there since then. Take that key functions in the capital, provides the staff for riots in Struer. But on vested Mantoni takes no account: "It is a signal: We will now do what is right for B & O."