Historically Grown, Strategically Too Expensive
An internationally leading provider of security technologies faced a strategic decision following an organizational realignment: The global R&D setup had grown historically—and had become too expensive, too redundant, and insufficiently flexible. Three development locations in North America, Europe, and Asia resulted in duplicate competencies, high coordination efforts, and limited ability to quickly relocate capacities or set clear priorities.
The objective was a location strategy that reduces costs, ensures innovation capability, strengthens access to talent, and clearly defines roles within the global network.
Fact-Based Scenarios Instead of Location Debates
In the first phase, the three locations were analyzed along central performance, cost, and risk drivers and benchmarked against comparable industries. Building on this, several footprint scenarios were developed and evaluated using clear qualitative and quantitative criteria. Three realistic options were refined and sharpened in workshops to provide management with a solid decision-making foundation.
The recommendation: a 2-site setup with Germany and India. Germany as the controlling hub for architecture, high-tech competencies, and governance. India as a scalable location with high cost efficiency and a strong talent pool, particularly in software.
In the second project phase, this target model was specified: organizational structure, responsibilities, and governance were defined and translated into an implementation roadmap—including change and communication elements.
The Result: 15% Efficiency Without Loss of Innovation Capability
The consolidation from three to two locations enables efficiency gains of up to 15%, reduces organizational complexity, and makes the setup more robust against market fluctuations. Through clearly defined roles between Germany and India, key competencies remain secured while duplicate work and friction losses are significantly reduced. The result is an actionable roadmap that makes the reorganization ready for structured implementation.
