A future mission for organizational transformation
A Tier 1 supplier is embarking on an expansion strategy to capture new market segments in e-drive technologies.
A manufacturer of automatic transmissions is repositioning itself and entering the market for electric drivetrains. Together with EFESO, the company is implementing a profound transformation: functional teams are enabled to make faster decisions and benefit from lean structures as well as clear target frameworks—ultimately aiming, inspired by NASA’s “Pathfinder” mission, to achieve ambitious goals through strong technological innovation capabilities.
Challenge
A German automotive supplier group aims to position itself in the highly competitive e-drive market and is adapting its organizational structures and processes accordingly.
MoreEFESO approach
The project was designed as a transformation mission spanning a total of four and a half years. During this period, the project team actively drove improvements across approx. ten business areas in parallel.
MoreLessons learned
A structured breakdown of challenges into clearly defined focus areas makes progress measurable and easier to prioritize. Consultants should act as a link between the target vision and its implementation.
MoreTransformation at rocket speed
Many established automotive companies experience the transition to e-mobility as “navigating by sight” in uncharted territory, constantly facing new and complex challenges that must be solved at high speed to avoid being overtaken by competitors. For companies whose organizational structures and teams are not aligned with this new pace and a rigorous cost focus, this becomes a critical stress test for survival. They face structural and procedural overload, which manifests itself, for example, in slow development processes, a lack of or insufficient target cost orientation, and outdated organizational structures.
In this case study, a German automotive supplier group responded early to the profound changes in its core market, the drivetrain technology. The company planned to enter a new business field in e-mobility and deliberately and proactively moved away from its previous focus on conventional automatic transmissions. In this traditional segment, it had strong technical expertise and a solid market position.
However, this step into the electric drivetrain market required a fundamental transformation across multiple dimensions. Instead of metal-based manufacturing technologies, the focus shifted to a highly competitive e-drive market. While the company had already gained experience in electrification projects, such as in plug-in hybrid technologies, it still lacked a fully self-developed e-axle system. This gap weighed heavily, as the market was evolving rapidly. International competitors were advancing at high speed, and intense cost pressure had already become a persistent challenge for the industry.
To seize opportunities in this new segment, the company took bold steps, most notably through the acquisition of an e-drive manufacturer to close the competitive gap. However, this decision also increased financial pressure, as processes and structures from both organizations still needed to be aligned. At this point, EFESO came into play: based on a successful track record in multiple transformation projects, the company’s leadership engaged the operations consultancy to support the transition from its established core business to e-mobility. This required not only a technological transformation, but also faster decision-making, lean structures, and a clear organizational alignment.
Restart in a highly dynamic market environment under significant cost pressure.
Extensive consulting portfolio
In line with the challenges described above, this project went far beyond a simple initial support: the “Pathfinder” project was designed as a transformation mission spanning a total of four and a half years. At the outset, a small core team of just two to three consultants worked in close alignment with the responsible board member and key representatives from finance and controlling. This team laid the foundation, structured the initial workstreams, and established the necessary interfaces within the organization.
As the project progressed, resource deployment increased significantly. At peak times, up to 30 consultants worked simultaneously across various focus areas; over the entire project duration, around 40 consultants were involved. This broad setup was essential, as the team operated across approx. ten business areas in parallel. The scope ranged from reducing material costs and implementing manufacturing cost improvements to addressing strategic topics. In parallel, the teams worked on repricing and claiming topics, improved company-wide processes, and supported a robust footprint planning.
The high level of content and organizational complexity required consultants to constantly look beyond their own areas of responsibility. All stakeholders needed to recognize interdependencies, understand interactions, and make decisions that impacted not only individual projects but the success of the entire company. This ability to think beyond silos became a key success factor throughout the project.
Structured management of problem areas
At the beginning, the project team established full transparency regarding the status quo of both the product division and the acquired company. A comprehensive, fact-based analysis made all weaknesses, but also opportunities, visible. Based on this, the team developed a holistic project program that systematically mapped all development phases and created the foundation for a structured approach.
In the next step, the team defined clear priorities and introduced tools, levers, and comprehensive action plans that enabled rigorous management of the identified problem areas. At the same time, it ensured that the right experts were involved at the right time, without falling into micromanagement. This resulted in a modular yet highly effective approach.
In product development, for example, this meant that the project team reviewed and optimized all phases: from initial concept to start of production, and continuously fine-tuned activities in day-to-day operations. The team also established, among other things, a structured measure generation process. This enabled ideas to be developed along clearly defined maturity levels (from concept phase to series implementation), significantly supporting a consistent focus on sustainable business case optimization.
This required the creation of an organizational backbone capable of integrating three regions, four functional areas, and more than 50 stakeholders, ensuring seamless end-to-end collaboration.
The project team drove the transformation forward in approx. ten areas in parallel.
Top-Down support as a success factor
Throughout the entire project, the consulting team reported directly to the board and regularly updated them on the progress of the workstreams. In presentations, the team demonstrated clearly traceable results, derived concrete actions, and transparently communicated their impact. The team succeeded in creating, maintaining, and continuously refining the overall “big picture” of the project. This enabled emerging risks to be identified early and addressed proactively. The results were visible at the highest level of the organization: regular reporting to the supervisory board underscored the strong trust placed in the project team.
Strong top-down support made it possible to consistently implement critical measures, even within an organization that was, at times, operating under significant strain. Decisions were made quickly, prioritized initiatives received clear backing, and obstacles could be resolved much more effectively. At the same time, the consultants acted as a key link between strategic direction and operational execution. They ensured that the strategic intent was translated into day-to-day operations, understood across the organization, and reflected in specific actions. As a result, the targeted changes were successfully anchored both in terms of content and organizational structure.
Detailed work packages instead of complexity
During the implementation of the project, the following lessons learned proved to be particularly critical to success:
Create full transparency across the entire scope of the mission from the very beginning!
Only when all facts are openly available, technical, financial, and organizational, can the true value drivers and risks be identified. A radical level of transparency regarding developments, costs, processes, and responsibilities helps to overcome resistance. In this project, transparency also served as the starting point for defining measures and provided a solid foundation for sound decision-making.
Break down complexity into manageable units!
A highly complex product and organizational environment cannot be managed “as a whole.” Structuring it into clearly defined focus areas, such as material costs, manufacturing costs, footprint planning, or claiming, made progress measurable and easier to prioritize. This approach transformed seemingly “impossible” transformation goals into a series of manageable work packages and ensured continuous results.
Closely link strategic steering with operational execution!
The success of such projects or “missions” largely depends on consulting teams and client teams thinking strategically while acting operationally at the same time. Accordingly, consultants should act as a link between target vision and execution, ensuring cost transparency, restructuring development and procurement processes, and supporting employees during implementation when needed. This close integration prevented inefficiencies in this project and led to measurable, sustainable improvements.
The project team identified, prioritized, and managed more than 10,000 measures.
A new mindset for economically viable products
A key focus area was target cost management. The team established a dedicated cost-down organization within development and conducted a large number of intensive workshops, some involving several hundred participants. Instead of a purely function-oriented development approach, the team adopted a Design-to-Cost mindset early on, thereby establishing an entirely new perspective on economically viable products. Additional methodological “success levers” applied by EFESO in this project included:
- CapEx and footprint optimization: As no production facilities existed at the outset, the team developed virtual production layouts and simulated manufacturing lines based solely on the available designs. This enabled more precise evaluation of investment requirements, optimization of plant structures, and the avoidance of unnecessary costs even before physical implementation.
- Finance tools: The project team consolidated all multi-customer business cases and, for the first time, established clear management and steering logics that had previously been lacking.
- Claiming and management of OEM interfaces: The team implemented a systematic claim management approach, created transparency around technical specifications, additional claims, and package boundaries, and ensured that legitimate claims were clearly documented and enforceable.
- Material costs: The team harmonized the entire procurement scope, identified significant synergies and common-part approaches, prepared sourcing decisions, and conducted workshops with suppliers to jointly unlock cost potential. Both dual- and single-sourcing models were evaluated and implemented where strategically appropriate.
Over the course of the project, more than 10,000 measures have been identified, prioritized, and managed, making a significant contribution to the stable steering of the overall “Pathfinder” mission. The team ensured that processes became so resilient that momentum was never lost and business case improvements continued to progress consistently.