Up to now, by means of superior products and solutions, this SME has successfully penetrated niche applications within this attractive, truly global technology market. Thus competing with large, established competitors could be mainly avoided. But, the cost burden by the already necessary international presence is now encountering its break even limitations. Additionally, the leadership structure had to be revised.
The conviction within headquarter and international subsidiaries prevailed, that the company has now to enter the next stage: Strengthen the team spirit while being more and more dislocated, changing the market role from a Small Follower to a Serious Competitor, changing the value chain model from an export model to a global supply chain model and all of this as well as some more with support of a revised leadership structure for increased decision speed and effectiveness.
With intensive involvement of the international subsidiaries, the corporate strategy on 3 pillars could be developed within less than 4 months despite of Covid lockdown constraints:
- A new Vision, Mission Statements and Shared Values to bundle the energy for the expected increase of competitive intensity in the targeted new markets for growth
- Product and market developments to serve the growth target while strengthening the business portfolio for aimed profitability levels
- New, more effective structures for this new business stage together with prioritized levers for professionalization of the internal business system
Implementation of this strategy was planned as a transformation programme, consisting of 14 projects with currently about 380 milestones/deliverables.