Major Goals General Manager
The Chinese Market is a very dynamic market, which requires fast reactions and solutions. The company decided to reorganize and to merge both legally independent Chinese companies into one new organization.
For a certain transition period, they needed an interim professional to implement the new organization, to optimize processes, to speed up the market penetration and also the streamlining of the production, which was to ramp up quickly.
This interim manager developed as a first step – in a strategy expert role – a new strategy for Asia/China, together with the client’s Group management team. It was the intention from the beginning to assign the implementation responsibility to the same interim manager.
The Company
The company employs some 800 employees worldwide and operates a several number of on-site sales and service companies globally.
A company of glass processing industry
The company supports its customers success with tailor-made machinery systems and services for glass/windows processing.
They offer a broad spectrum of products ranging from stand-alone machines for production lines to turnkey production facilities that cover all steps in the processing chain.
Client Feedback by its CEO
“My expectations were professional management skills, paired with large competency in methodology, and a fast result-oriented implementation. Considering the difficult local surrounding conditions, my expectations were fulfilled in a very professional way.” (For more information, please have a look at the China Desk)
Main Task of the Interim General Manager
- The first goal was the reorganization of two companies under his leadership in order to speed up the processes between the two for faster responsiveness to market changes.
- The second goal was to streamline the production process and to build up the production capacity to accommodate the fast growth in the Chinese market.
- The third goal was to cut the product cost through localization while maintaining Swiss Quality.
Furthermore, the Interim General Manager should implement a strategy, how to enter and penetrate the mid-range market segment. Major challenges were space limitations in manufacturing, a highly competitive and price sensitive market and a tight labor market for new employees.
Achieved Results of the General Manager
The Interim General Manager had to change and improve the internal organization and processes between the two Chinese companies and especially to reorganize the production facility.
A KANBAN process was successfully implemented in the workshop, supply chain management was improved and also shortfalls in finance and reporting were amended. In China this required a strong leadership and coaching. In order to bridge with the Corporate Tech Center, a product champion was implemented for each product line.
