Growth in 75 countries — ChangeMaker steers strategy execution at a building-technology group

Family owners and management launched the implementation of a large strategy program with the aim of consistently driving international growth, increasing market and customer proximity, expanding the international production sites, extending innovation leadership, and achieving margin-relevant sustainability goals. With nearly 20,000 products, the company operates worldwide in more than 75 countries, and the organization had perceived the previous strategy cycle as very effort-intensive and hard to steer because of this complex footprint. For the new strategy cycle, owners and management wanted a more effective and more efficient steering solution.

Family owners and management jointly defined 120 strategic action fields, each assigned to three matrix dimensions: function, country, and product category. This made it possible to see at a glance where each strategic action field contributes. The first wave of program owners was introduced to the substantive project within 3 days in groups of 6 to 8 participants and made productively able to work in ChangeMaker. The program owners then developed a total of more than 500 initiatives in workshops — on average 4 per strategic action field. The initiatives were set up implementation-ready with at least 4 milestones each, 2,500 in total for the entire program. The program, designed to run for 10 years, is on plan: about 75 completed milestones per month. All data from 500 initiatives with 2,500 milestones is consolidated fully automatically and delivered as a management-ready report per reporting level. Matrix owners at all levels are informed at any time about the current implementation progress in their respective area. The company has already started two more projects in ChangeMaker.