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EVERYTHING WE DO
IS DESIGNED TO
SUPPORT OUR PARTNERS
BY REDUCING EFFORT
AND SIMPLIFYING
COMPLEXITY.
JENS POGGENBURG,
Executive Vice President for AVL
It requires honesty and openness,
and that is something which means
different approaches in different
countries and which is different
from customer to customer. There
is no one-size-fits-all approach. So,
all you can do in a role like mine is
empower people to act in this direction.
This means I have to challenge
them to make these commitments,
and support them when they do.
‹Focus›: How important is it to
have clear lines of communication
with colleagues and customers?
‹Poggenburg›: Our affiliates are
the interface to our customers, and
whenever I travel, I try to listen to
the situation of both our customers
and the affiliates. In a globally
spread organisation like AVL you
need to support a culture of listening,
where customer feedback
comes back to the people who make
the decisions. This is what we did
in Customer Services and what we
are driving to replicate throughout
the organisation, around the globe.
We are doing a good job if the affiliates
around the world are driving
innovation at the headquarters,
too. They are the ones who need to
understand the customer, so for us
they are the voice of the markets.
The best and most competitive ideas should come from the affiliates, and
from their interactions with our customers. They have a huge treasure of
knowledge, which we just need to grab in a good way. We are setting up
dedicated activities to even become closer to the people at our customers’
organization who are eager to move innovation forward.
‹Focus›: So good communication drives innovation – can it also support
global legislative compliance?
‹Poggenburg›: Legislative requirements are a key driver for our customers
and they demand innovative solutions. This is one of the major influences
driving their needs. We put high efforts into understanding the drivers
of future legislation. Our installed base at certification agencies enables us
to get first-hand experiences about the application of our solutions. This
gives us the advantage to be a trusted partner for our customers in terms
of the applied technology and where it’s going. We act as a translator to
help them make the right decisions
‹Focus›: What are the implications of poor communication?
‹Poggenburg›: It's important that we are able to talk the language of the
people we are supporting – we simply cannot afford not to. As an industry
we need to be focused in how we operate, especially as the landscape
becomes more demanding and more complex. If we are not, it will result in
low performance, so communication is vital.
Furthermore, our message must be simple and easily understood. The industry
is under tremendous pressure. If we can help our partners and the
people working in this industry by reducing complexity and increasing
testing efficiency, we can give them room to innovate.
And this is reflected in the solutions we develop and deliver. We are bringing
together rig and road testing to make RDE compliance more manageable.
Our simulation tools reduce development loops, reduce costs and speed
up time-to-market. Everything we do is designed to support our partners
by reducing effort and simplifying complexity. And this is true whether
it’s an OEM we are supporting with a powertrain project, or whether it’s
an international legislative body we’re partnering with on a major project
such as CARB in California. We are driving efficiencies, and helping the
industry take action now that will make the high demands of future markets
and legislation much less daunting when the time comes.