Rohrbeck Heger GmbH

Opportunity identification in the area of indoor air quality

Situation

Mann+Hummel (M+H) is a German manufacturer of air filter systems with 75 years of history and a strong focus on innovation. The firm aims at growing beyond its traditional markets, and particularly want to address the Indoor Air Quality & Indoor Air Purification markets as potential growth areas.

So far, efforts were driven out of an Asian IoT Lab. Assessment of opportunities and decision-making processes were mostly organized bottom-up from there. However, this structure hindered the exploitation of market opportunities outside the scope of the Asian IoT Lab.

Rohrbeck Heger partnered with M+H to guide collaboration between business units (BUs) in Asia and central functions in Europe with the goal to enable the client to understand and implement a Radar methodology while generating usable first results.

Approach

In the first phase, Rohrbeck Heger defined a customized radar framework with the German headquarter’s and the Asian entity’s participation. Second, scanning activities were conducted and a shortlisting process of opportunity profiles led to a detailed description of opportunities. Extensive research and the formulation of assessment criteria were part of the third step. In the fourth and last step, Rohrbeck Heger guided the prioritization of opportunities. Following, recommendations were discussed and translated into actionable next steps.

Within 5 search areas scanning activities led to the identification of approximately 70 opportunities. All opportunities were described briefly in short profiles and assessed from a market perspective. Together with M+H around 25 opportunities were selected for further analysis – information depth was increased and further assessment criteria were added – including internal aspects such as strategic fit.

Results

The selection of 10 opportunities for immediate action resulted in recommendations on acceleration, initiation and pre-study activities, with 2 actions directing to new product development activities and 8 actions regarding R&D projects.

Rohrbeck Heger’s systematic guidance through iterations, workshops and knowledge consolidation helped M+H to understand and develop foresight activities. This enables the firm to reproduce the radar process periodically to identify and reassess opportunities.

M+H has taken the first steps towards successful opportunity scouting, that fosters future-oriented decisions on product development activities and R&D investments.

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