International development network

The worldwide distribution of goods continues to be a central pillar of the German economy. This is because of the significant competitive advantage that German industry has traditionally enjoyed. An essential prerequisite for this is that production and purchasing must be undertaken at those locations where production factors are optimal.

However, that alone is no longer sufficient to ensure a permanent competitive advantage. An additional criterion has emerged: global product development. Analogous to the physical value-added chain, the development of new products and their introduction on the market also need to be globally dimensioned.

This has two fundamental aspects:  

• Using the shared proximity of markets and development, country-specific requirements and basic conditions can be better and more quickly taken into account in the design of new products.
• Using the comparably lower hourly wages in countries such as China and India, development costs can be reduced as well, thereby making a contribution to the company’s success.

If a company seeks to meet the challenge of globally aligning development activities, it must, among other things, answer the following questions:

• How can development capacities be localized?
  This includes determining to what extent which tasks are to be taken over in which region and what type of staffing (qualitative and quantitative) is necessary for this.
• How are global platforms and start-up processes managed?
This includes determining which development location for the specific tasks (e.g. mechanical, electronics, software) is to serve as the headquarters for the global leadership. Also important in this regard is determining how external communication with customers and internal communication among the various departments are to take place.

ROI offers an extensive, practice-proven procedures and methods toolkit for this:

• Design of international development networks
• Design of product development process
• Global expertise management in development
• Dimensioning of development capacities
• Management of global product roll-outs

For more on ROI’s spectrum of services, see Innovation & Development.