Coping with Business Transformation

By Frank Sazama

In the present and for the future, we see sweeping changes throughout entire branches of industry, such as the automotive or mobility sector, and a world that is transforming at a fast pace. We already see strong signs that products and services are becoming increasingly complex and that new and innovative companies are contributing to a dynamic environment. The characteristic features of the environment are already summarized in a common acronym - VUCA - volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity.

It is clear to us that a balance of complexity between the external market and within the company must be established in entire industries to continue to be successful. The result is an intensive effort towards greater adaptability and flexibility, particularly in engineering. This challenge can no longer be achieved with a short-term and selective change in work processes, rather it requires a medium to long-term, holistic transformation in which work processes, organizational structure and management culture must be in mutual harmony to be successful.

Our knowledge, experience, and skills support our clients in strengthening innovation, value creation and resilience in an increasingly complex environment. That’s why we work closely with our customers, creating individual, specific, holistic solutions and are valued as a reliable, long-term and independent partner.

The competencies of three companies (kVA, MethodPark, Kugler Maag Cie) have been bundled under UL-Solutions Software Intensive Systems (SIS). A large part of the services provided by these three companies are based on international standards and are similar in principle to UL Solutions’ core business.

In addition to UL Solutions, the service portfolio includes the independent evaluation of engineering processes during product development. The Automotive SPICE standard plays a decisive role in the cooperation between client and contractor, especially in the automotive context. We offer extensive consulting (support) in the improvement of engineering processes as well as the organizational and structural framework conditions. We also provide a similar range of engineering services and support during product development in relation to functional safety and cybersecurity standards.

Evaluating processes and products based on standards always follows a similar approach however, the support and consulting have a different character. This is about change, learning, training, consulting, coaching, and transferring knowledge and experience to people in diverse environments and with diverse prerequisites. The consultants adapt to each new situation and react with flexibility and adaptability to achieve the best result for the client in line with the applicable standards. The expectation from the standards means that the goal and necessity of the change are transparent and stable. Without meeting the standards, acceptance by the client is not possible.

Another area of the services focuses on change and transformation. Change, transformation and organizational development are not based on standards because every company and every engineering sector is as unique as its products, services, and the people who work in this environment and thus shape and form it. These special conditions place even greater demands on all trainers, consultants, coaches, their approaches, and their methodological toolbox regarding individuality and flexibility. This work is based on principles and models that support the process of change – from situation analysis through the development of a vision or a target image; a concept and road map to support change implementation and realization. Both the approach and the offer to customers are based on a broad spectrum of principles and values from lean, agile, empirical learning and improvement, and systemic/holistic thinking.

To illustrate the spectrum of our offering, here are some examples of customer needs that we can satisfy:

1. Could you help us to set up an agile team? We will generate experiences with agile/lean methods and principles in a small context of the software development domain.
2. Could you help us to set up a team-of-team? 30 to 50 people should develop a new customer steering system with software, hardware, and mechanical domains.
3. Could you support and guide us in re-organizing an electric/electronic department of 250 to 300 developers of the software and hardware domain? They represent several customer projects and variances of different products. How could we structure, synchronize, and improve the value-stream and performance of the department?
4. How could we improve our adaptability to the market because we observe more and more customer demand in this direction? We must also be competitive in the future market.
5. With our engineering department of up to 1000 people at different locations and additional suppliers worldwide, we are part of the dynamic and changing automotive domain. How can we fulfill standards like Automotive SPICE, Functional Safety, and Cyber Security while delivering continuous value and extended functionality as several customers expect?

As you can see, our services portfolio focuses on change, transformation, and organizational development, ranging from small orders for local optimization to changes in large electric/electronic divisions or even entire medium-sized companies.

Beginning with a customer means understanding the specific context, analyzing the situation, the organizational system (e.g., structure and workflow), and the social system (e.g., personal relationships), values, behavior, and culture. A standardized checklist can’t do this; it must be done by assimilation and building trust on the social level. The pain points clients mention are often not the real ones; the real ones are the hidden. We must always question and systematically scrutinize customer statements. That’s one reason our work must be done in iterations. We gain insight with each step and iteration, and we are unsure what’s around the next corner. Adapting agile values, principles, and methods to our work will guide and support us – as consultants, we must be agile.

As we think and act holistically to generate maximum value for our customers, we must structure ourselves and evolve our vision, pattern, and toolbox of methods.

Our general approach and related toolbox were structured and driven by the following questions:

• How can we support change at the respective level of the iceberg through models?
• Using models, how can we analyze and better understand the “status quo" at the respective level?
• How can we, supported by models, derive recommendations for action at the respective level or across the board
• How can we identify levers for change and thus prioritize or focus actions if necessary?
• Do we have models that help us to identify interactions better and thus better understand the organizational or the social system?

This results in several dimensions - specific to each iceberg level or across the board.

• Models to support the analysis.
• Models that help us identify levers and interrelationships to derive necessary priorities.
• Models to derive recommendations for action.
• Models and approaches for change.