Situation
Our client, a successful Swedish company with over 200 years of tradition and private owners, took a 10-year strategy into the execution phase. The company has a strong global presence with factories in Europe, the USA and China. The disruption of electrification in the automotive industry has been recognized as an important factor for the substantial growth of the business with an innovative material that could enable the automotive industry to build electric systems of the future.
Although they developed and marketed the key material for over 30 years, it was still a niche business. The company felt that it did not have the resources, network and experience in automotive technology to successfully master the necessary change to move from the niche to the mass market.
Action
Due to the importance of this business for the future of the 10-year strategy, the company was looking for an experienced interim manager who could take advantage of the window of opportunity that was perceived to be wide open.
The interim manager immediately began initial discussions with his established network of automotive manufacturers and suppliers, offering them the opportunity to develop together to evaluate the full potential of this new material for their systems. He quickly learned that the system complexity that had to be mastered represented too high a hurdle for the car manufacturers and entailed risks that would not allow a short-term introduction.
But more than that, there was no engineering experience in the market for some of the aspects to be considered, and customers were busy mastering their projects in the pipeline.
Short-term agenda:
- Establishing a wide range of new customer contacts in order to obtain relevant feedback from all areas of the market
- Ordering a neutral market study with the aim of identifying and quantifying customer needs and the relevant and addressable markets
- Prioritization of further business development activities according to market size and lower barriers to entry
- Definition and presentation of a project plan for the development and construction of a prototype as a technology showcase
- Proposal of an additional pull strategy with the consequence of building up an engineering service business to lower the entry barriers for customers
Result
The company learned that the targets could not be achieved through the planned business development activities (“push”) alone. They would need to add a whole new “pull” approach, which means creating a demand for materials at higher levels of the supply chain.
The Group CEO and the interim manager worked together to develop a concept for a new engineering company. The interim manager drew up the complete business plan. After 9 months of the project, the business plan was presented to the Management Board and accepted with very positive feedback and some additional ideas.
The Group CEO tasked his leadership team and the interim manager to set up a new company to bring this business plan to life. Three months later, the new company was officially founded and the interim management partner AC Alpha was informed that the company wanted to take the interim manager on board. The interim manager was commissioned by the Group CEO to lead the construction and market launch phase for the new engineering company.
The customer’s feedback was very positive and expectations for this interim project were high.
The longer-term results were also good. Around 5 months after the successful completion of the business development project, the new company was staffed with a powerful core team and successfully launched on the market. Another 6 months after the market launch, the company presented a highly innovative technology prototype at the IAA. In addition, a new platform business model was introduced to form the basis for scaling and global expansion.
