The increasing digitization of products means that the actual product itself is increasingly taking a back seat for customers. The customer experience—or the solution—is no longer created solely by the product, but rather through the interaction of software, E/E, and hardware, as well as the company’s own solutions and those of other companies. Software, in particular, is the key driver of innovation and a key differentiator in this context.

At our expert forum in Munich on November 11, 2022, we therefore focused on the current trend toward highly software-centric R&D organizations. We asked ourselves:

• What challenges do today’s R&D teams face when developing software-centric products?
• In architecture, what is the best way to decouple software from hardware?
• And what are the best practices and approaches for designing software-centric R&D?

Five experts shared practical insights into the current challenges facing R&D. We’ve summarized the key points from the presentations and accompanying discussions for you in this Summary Card. The result: the seven most important success factors for achieving a perfect symbiosis of hardware and software in R&D.