Since these roles are not permanently needed, depending on the size of the company, CEOs tend to work with consultants to develop a new strategy and then tackle the implementation on their own.

This approach poses a high risk to companies because Industry 4.0 is a very volatile market with rapid development cycles, in which “first-time right” is of particular importance.

This results in a constantly increasing need to have temporary access to industrial core competencies and experience in order to implement strategies quickly, cost-effectively, successfully and sustainably. To make matters worse, core competencies for implementing new digital strategies are in Europe often difficult, or at least only at high prices, to obtain. As a result, even small and medium-sized enterprises have already outsourced activities to Asia or have intentions to start international cooperation.

Living for fifteen years in Asia, I can say that all services are available, especially in countries such as India. However, with no leadership experience in Asia and no personal experience of how cultural differences affect collaboration, it is a great challenge to find business partners that suit your own company or even to establish your own subsidiary in Asia.

My services fill these gaps of medium-sized companies. As interim CTO, CDO and/or COO, I am running projects for several months to development new strategies as well as to implement the change in an executive role.

It is often argued that digitalization in a company is covered by the Chief Information Officer CIO. This is only partially correct. A CIO typically has an internal focus and optimizes processes to work more efficiently. Typical measures include a connection to SAP or other ERP systems or the introduction of cloud services. There is a certain overlap with the tasks of a COO if both roles are filled.