Complexity management

Product strategy

Combining customer benefit and profitability

Many companies are faced with the challenge of asserting themselves in a market that is subject to constant change. They want to establish and maintain a successful position. In order to achieve this, it is important to regularly review your own market positioning and the corresponding product strategy and adapt them if necessary. This is the only way to maximize the benefits for customers and keep the business profitable. In order to implement this continuous task, a systematically organized strategy process is required, which is implemented as part of complexity management. A product strategy created on this basis is the first step towards reducing complexity.

We first analyze the strategic goals of your company, its market positioning and the performance requirements that exist in various market segments. The starting point for the product strategy is the maximum benefit of your products and services in selected market segments – understood as the ability to solve the customer’s problem and fit seamlessly into their processes. To ensure that this product strategy can be regularly reviewed, we support your management in the development and introduction of a suitable process, applying our methodical approaches and our experience from a wide range of industries.

Service packages

• Define strategic goals for products and services
• Structuring the customer’s values
• Derive performance requirements of the market segments
• Synchronize product and technology roadmap

Your benefit:

1. You receive an effective and efficient methodology for your strategy process
2. You position yourself successfully and sustainably in the competitive environment
3. They create the basis for effective complexity management

Portfolio and variant management

Identify variant drivers and reduce complexity

For your company’s portfolio to appeal to your customers, it must be structured in such a way that it is easy for them to understand. On the other hand, it must offer precisely those features that meet the differentiated needs of your customer groups. The target image for your portfolio is therefore derived directly from the market segmentation and your product strategy.

Intelligent and data-supported portfolio and variant management is necessary in order to effectively reduce the complexity of the portfolio to sensible variants. Differentiated rules and data-based success patterns are used to control the portfolio and pricing policy. Variant management should be designed as a multi-layered, continuous process that pursues two objectives in succession:

1. Firstly, the short-term reduction of existing complexity by discontinuing products and identifying and eliminating variant drivers.
2. Subsequently, as a permanent measure in the short to medium term, the implementation of steps that allow the complexity required for success to be recognized. Efficiency-enhancing methods and systems can then be established on this basis.

The aim of our work is to enable your variant management to make the necessary decisions and develop successful patterns in a short time and in large numbers. The method we use for this is product mining for data-supported variant analysis – this is how we achieve an effective reduction in variants and develop intelligent product architectures.

Service packages

• Develop a differentiated portfolio strategy
• Perform powerful variant analysis with product mining
• Accelerate the decision-making process for variant reduction
• Reduce product complexity through suitable architectures and standardization
• Create clear requirements for the targeted development of new products

Your benefit:

1. You maximize both your profitability and your customer benefits
2. You focus your work on high-growth and high-margin market segments
3. You significantly increase the performance of your variant management
4. You achieve more commonality at component level

Operations Management

Mastering the complexity necessary for success

Each market segment that your company supplies has different supply chain requirements. This is ensured by the strategic positioning and your specific portfolio. The logical conclusion: an individual operational approach to supply chain management in each market segment. In order to reduce and control complexity, we develop suitable strategies and structures in Operations Management with which these approaches can be systematically developed. In this way, we reduce waste and ensure that the performance characteristics required in the market segments, such as delivery times, costs or quality, are guaranteed and taken into account in the production strategy.

However, the intensive use of modern data analytics has shown that the complexity cannot be mastered operationally using rules and heuristics alone. This is why we rely on quantitative methods such as product mining and process mining to develop tailor-made measures. Our tools range from global operations footprint and network design to factory planning and operational excellence. We work with you to plan the adjustments that result from our analysis for your working methods and organization. Our change management experts will support you in their implementation.

Service packages

• Derive supply chain strategies for the market segments
• Develop an overall supply chain strategy
• Develop and implement implementation measures
• Shaping organizational change

Your benefit:

1. You set consistent targets for your operations
2. You satisfy your customers by fulfilling the service level
3. You create efficiency in dealing with your complexity (“mastery”)

Process management

Enabling efficient handling of complexity

A large number of variants for your products and in your supply chain leads directly to more complex processes. The result: rising complexity costs and reduced efficiency. It is therefore important to align your processes with previously defined core competencies. The starting point for optimized process management is a variant analysis of your processes. We use quantitative methods such as process mining to precisely localize the drivers of complexity. For different market segments, we examine where it is important to strengthen your processes in line with your positioning and portfolio (segment-specific business process design). Aspects such as throughput, throughput times or the degree of automation of your processes play a major role here.

At the same time, we identify those process steps that are particularly resource-intensive and develop an efficient target process that takes into account the necessary complexity as well as your requirements in terms of process performance. At the same time, we work with you to define the roles and responsibilities for the new processes and make your organizational structure more flexible. We do not leave you alone with the organizational change: our experienced consultants use tried-and-tested change management methods to accompany all necessary changes.

Service packages

• Develop a consistent process model
• Revise processes with segment-specific business process design
• Adapting the organization to the new processes
• Optimize processes quantitatively with process mining
• Actively support changes through change management

Your benefit:

1. You strengthen your performance where it creates customer benefits
2. They address the specific process requirements of the market segments
3. You reduce your complexity costs

What is complexity management?

Complexity management is a method with which companies can understand, control and reduce the complexity of their products, processes and systems. For holistic complexity management, we look at the entire value chain of your products in the context of the networked global economy and the resulting micro-segmentation of markets. This allows us to identify external disruptive influences that could affect your company and develop suitable, effective counter-strategies.

The term is often used synonymously with “variant management”, but complexity management encompasses a broader perspective, as it is not just about managing product variants, but also takes into account other aspects such as process complexity and operations management.

What are complexity drivers?

Complexity drivers are all those factors and elements in a product, process, system or organization that cause complexity to increase. It is important to identify and understand these complexity drivers in order to be able to implement effective measures in a company that reduce complexity.

Examples of complexity drivers in the manufacturing industry include the variety of products, different customer requirements, services and processes, as well as external regulations and specifications. Global collaboration along the value chain also contributes to the complexity of processes – language barriers, cultural differences or time zones play just as much a role here as local laws, traditions or natural conditions.