Shifting up to the optimal performance
An automotive group leverages EFESO’s “Mission Delivery Office” to drive momentum and ensure execution in cost reduction.
A global automotive Tier-1 supplier is under significant pressure: declining volumes, rising costs, and a failed product innovation are forcing a strategic reset. Together with EFESO, the company has launched a transformation program focused on sustainable cost reduction and high execution speed.
Challenge
An automotive Tier-1 supplier uses the crisis of a failed product innovation as an opportunity for realignment. As part of an optimization program, the company aims to accelerate initiatives and increase their impact.
MoreEFESO approach
EFESO establishes a “Mission Delivery Office.” The team defines clear target frameworks, steers initiatives, and consistently drives operational activities.
MoreLessons learned
Lean processes, decisive decision-making, and rigorous tracking of measures are critical to success. External expertise removes blockages and activates critical levers.
MoreEFESO success model
EFESO’s hands-on approach delivers fast, tangible results. The consultants directly contribute to efficiency improvements, create clarity on priorities, and ensure the execution of critical initiatives.
MoreRegaining planning reliability and stability
The automotive industry is losing its traditional certainties. As the shift toward electromobility accelerates, established business models are eroding faster than new, viable sources of value creation can emerge. In addition, this is shifting to markets outside Europe. Despite billions in investments, the company’s own share of value creation is declining, as new competitors enter the market with superior cost structures and greater scale.
For automotive Tier-1 suppliers, this creates a critical tension: they face increasing cost pressure and growing dependencies within their supply chain. At the same time, they must invest in new technologies and capabilities. Volatile OEM demand and a lack of planning reliability further exacerbate the situation. As a result, many companies are increasingly acting reactively, with limited steering capability and declining execution speed.
In this environment, a global automotive Tier-1 supplier was confronted with a dual challenge: a key product initiative fell significantly short of expectations, while structural cost issues and organizational inefficiencies were simultaneously weighing on competitiveness.
Rather than opting for incremental adjustments, the company decided on a decisive reset. The objective was to restore competitiveness in its core business under increasingly challenging market conditions, clearly focused on cost, speed, and feasibility. Key levers included the modularization of the Product portfolio, the targeted differentiation of product variants, and the consistent realization of cost reduction potentials, without fundamental redevelopment. The central challenge, therefore, was to deliver tangible results quickly under high transformation pressure, and to regain lost competitiveness.
Instead of making adjustments gradually, the company opted for a complete restart.
Translating strategy into measurable results
Based on the supplier’s requirements, EFESO established a Mission Delivery Office (MDO) that directly translates strategy into measurable results. Unlike a traditional PMO, the MDO did not limit itself to coordination but ensured that initiatives, priorities, and cost reduction measures were consistently executed, even beyond the project scope.
Experienced EFESO consultants were fully integrated into the organization and took on operational responsibility for critical work packages. They supported teams across the entire value chain, from process design and procurement to production and controlling, and ensured that measures were consistently tracked and obstacles resolved swiftly. Three project elements in particular proved to be drivers of success:
- During target setting, measurable goals were defined for each department. Top-down management targets were combined with bottom-up initiatives from the teams and translated into a unified target picture that was binding across all functions. For strategic and financial areas, such as investment and project decisions as well as controlling, specific targets for efficiency, prioritization, and performance delivery were defined. This target framework enabled precise prioritization, transparent tracking of progress, and consistent execution of measures.
- Governance and execution ensured that involved employees managed initiatives in a structured manner, prepared decisions effectively, and clearly assigned responsibilities. Bottlenecks and blockers could thus be identified and addressed at an early stage. This resulted in a direct translation of strategic objectives into operational actions.
- Measure Hunters tracked each initiative from initial proposal through to implementation, prioritized actions based on impact, and ensured that agreed cost reduction potentials were actually realized. This hands-on support significantly strengthened the organization’s execution capabilities.
Decide and execute consistently
Three key success factors can be derived from the project, which proved particularly effective for the consistent implementation of strategic initiatives within the organization:
Streamline processes and make decisive decisions!
Core processes in procurement, production, R&D, and operations must be clearly structured, lean, and efficient. At the same time, decisions must be made quickly, bindingly and consistently. Only then can measures be implemented efficiently, bottlenecks addressed early, and strategic objectives translated into operational results.
Ensure rigorous tracking and follow-up!
Even well-defined initiatives only deliver impact if responsibilities are transparent and progress is continuously measured. The role and approach of the Measure Hunters demonstrate how consistent tracking helps remove bottlenecks and reliably activates cost reduction levers.
Avoid parallel structures and unlock execution power in a targeted way!
The greatest impact does not come from isolated teams or parallel structures. Instead, all stakeholders must work in close integration, with clearly defined responsibilities and a strong focus on direct implementation. Targeted external expertise provides operational support where internal execution capacity is limited and adds valuable functional know-how. As a result, initiatives gain tangible momentum and the organization can fully unlock its execution capabilities.
The initial push significantly enhanced agility, decision-making dynamics, and execution speed during the early project phases.
Driving results with PMO plus X
The success of the project was based on a clear hands-on approach that went far beyond traditional PMO activities. EFESO consultants took ownership of key work packages, fully integrated into the organization, and created an initial momentum that significantly increased agility, decision-making speed, and execution pace in the early project phases. The following factors proved particularly effective:
- Execution over coordination: Initiatives were not only planned but actively driven forward. This enabled the project team to leverage existing structures and immediately close gaps, avoiding bottlenecks.
- Pragmatic tools and simulations: Dynamic measure evaluations, break-even analyses, and reporting simulations made it possible to assess the impact of initiatives in advance, support well-informed decision-making, and flexibly adjust prioritization within the program.
- Functional integration into core areas: Teams across procurement, R&D, operations, and controlling were directly supported, for example through targeted workshops, coaching, and ad hoc analyses. This enabled the company to implement cost reductions and process optimizations immediately.
Through this combination of hands-on delivery, deep organizational integration, and targeted use of functional expertise, an effective program launch was achieved. In addition, the organization significantly strengthened its execution capabilities for subsequent project phases, thereby supporting the long-term success of the initiatives.