Employee Information

Dear Employees,

Earlier this month we updated you about the strategic advancement of Formel D. We presented our motto Driving Excellence in detail and explained the four action areas in which we want to improve: Customer proximity, product portfolio, efficiency, and public image. Following the merger of the regions “FAB” (France, Belgium, and Africa) and “Western Europe” (Spain, Italy, and Great Britain) to form the new region “Western Europe & Africa”, we are forging ahead with our strategic advancement.

Next, we will now implement four main changes. We are establishing global key account management; we are introducing so-called service development functions; we are strengthening the regions in the areas of quality management and controlling; and we are reorganizing the management structure in our home market Germany.

Establishment of global key account management

One of our most important aspirations is to get closer to our customers as a company. We will therefore establish global key account managers to support our biggest customers. Catherine Besson, Dennis Wittenberg, Tobias Oettel, and Michael Volpert will take over this task.

Many of you know that Formel D already applied a similar model a few years ago. We do not want to return to this old model. Rather, the goal is to introduce a system that avoids the weaknesses of the old model behind and instead relies on the strengths of centralized overall accountability. To this end, we have learned from past experience and considered the feedback from our customers. When it comes to overarching issues, our customers want a central contact person – someone with global overview who can pull individual areas together as needed. Our global key account managers will work closely with the local sales teams.

Global key account management not only benefits our customers. It also makes it easier for us to identify new business opportunities across the various regions and increase customer penetration through even more effective collaboration between our global and regional sales teams.

Introduction of service development functions

Another important innovation is that we are introducing so-called service development functions. These functions will be handled by some managers in addition to their usual tasks for the following six areas: Vehicle Testing, Vehicle Quality Assurance, Parts Quality Assurance, Software Testing & Verification, Aftersales Support, and Engineering Support. With the service development functions, we ensure so-called end-to-end accountability in the global roll-out of our services. From development to introduction of a service to new customers, every step is tested and traceable. The process is in experienced hands all the way through to the introduction of the service.

Strengthening the regions in the areas of quality management and controlling

We will also reinforce the areas of quality management and controlling in the respective regions. The Quality Management division will be transformed into Quality Management & Continuous Improvement. Instead of managing quality management centrally from Germany, as was the case so far, we will now rely on the know-how and expertise in the individual regions. Accordingly, we will establish quality managers in the respective regions. This way, our customers have access to a local representative who can provide fast, straightforward support – from someone in the area who understands the regional peculiarities . In addition to their existing tasks, the quality managers will also focus on continuous improvement of our processes. They will make sure that our internal processes and the collaboration with our customers are always optimal.

We are also introducing an additional locally managed controlling position for each region that will work closely with the head office in Germany. By establishing controlling at a regional level, we are creating another prerequisite for working effectively and efficiently and allowing us to improve processes on an ongoing basis.

Reorganization of the management structure in Germany

In our home market Germany, we want to reduce complexity with regard to the upper management levels. A leaner management structure has enormous advantages for us: It helps us shorten decision-making paths and become more agile overall. At the same time, it brings the entire organization closer to our customers. In the future, we will be able to find out which challenges our customers are facing and how we can best support them here – without any major detours. It will allow us to develop the prefect solutions and build up the necessary expertise at an early stage.

With the measures presented today, Formel D has reached a significant milestone on the path of strategic advancement because it allows us to make significant improvements in two of the four defined areas: Customer proximity and efficiency.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your continued support and commitment – especially considering the fact that we are demanding your attention and patience with all the new information. However, it is important for us to inform you as thoroughly as possible, because the new functions and structures are an important milestone in the context of our strategic advancement. We look forward to working together with you to continue making determined progress along the path we have chosen. Together, we are Formel D!

Best regards,

Jürgen Laakmann (CEO), Gian Mario Deligios (CFO), Thomas Klukas (COO)

Dear Employees,

In recent years, we have successfully established ourselves as a global partner to the automotive and supplier industry, ensuring quality throughout the entire value chain. In order to not only secure this position in the long term, but also to expand it, we are initiating a strategic further development under the motto Driving Excellence. We are convinced that this will make Formel D an even more valuable partner for our customers and an even more attractive employer for our employees.

Currently, our industry is undergoing a radical transformation. Digitalization, autonomous driving, electrification, and new mobility solutions are the major megatrends of our time. In addition, the current coronavirus pandemic has left deep scars on many of our customers – and we too are feeling the effects of the pandemic. It forced us to announce short-time work and similar programs in the first half of the year. But we hope and will continue to try to return to normality as soon as possible.

However, we know that the world after COVID-19 will not look the same as before. We have to actively tackle the associated challenges together in a very dynamic market environment. First of all, at Formel D we are in the privileged position of being able to do this from a position of strength. We want to use this time to prepare ourselves even better for the coming challenges of our customers and our work environment – and thereby also secure jobs in the long term.

In order to reach our goal, we have identified four action fields under the motto Driving Excellence, where we want to improve: 1) We want to be closer to the customer at all management levels. 2) We want to impress with new solutions. 3) We want to structure our collaboration more efficiently. 4) We want to strengthen our external image.

What does that mean specifically? We are convinced that our managers in particular should get closer to our customers in order to understand their needs even better. We will also expand our product portfolio: As software and electronics become increasingly important, we will expand our competencies in the areas of software validation, virtual testing, and “aftersales as a service” in the coming years. Within our Group, we will also streamline collaboration and reduce complexity – for example, by reorganizing responsibilities in individual areas. Finally, we will make our strengths more visible to the outside world. Potential customers and employees should understand what our distinguishing strengths are.

Our first step is to merge the “FAB” and “Western Europe” regions to form the “Western Europe & Africa” region, which will be headed by Claude Roy. This will simplify our organizational structure. We want to reposition ourselves to be more effective, faster, and closer to our customers.

Although change is inevitable, the core idea behind this strategic development is to better position ourselves for our course of growth in the long term. We are making our organization future-proof, strengthening it from the inside, and continuing our success story.

Surely, you are all asking yourselves what is next. The coming weeks and months will bring changes in some areas, but for the majority of the workforce nothing will change in day-to-day operations. Overall, however, we want to evolve into an even more collaborative, competitive, efficient, and agile organization with an improved external image.

But it is also clear that implementing such a project is a marathon, not a sprint. For us, this means that we will take this path step by step – until we reach our ideal structure. Some details are still being worked out in more detail or are not yet finalized. All things considered, however, we have a clear vision of our common goal and know the parameters we need to adjust. We want to achieve this goal together with you by January 2021 at the latest. Of course, we will keep you up to date about important milestones in a timely manner. After all, we want to take this journey together with you.

In order to take you along this path in the best possible way right from the start, we have produced a video that will answer the most important questions regarding the further development of our Group. Feel free to take a look. You can access the video by clicking on the following link:

Please click on this link to watch the video of CEO Jürgen Laakmann

Alternatively, you can go to the “Login” section under “Employee Information” of our website at www.formeld.com and log in with the known access data (name: greenblood; password: FoRmelD&&!) to retrieve this information at any time.

If you have any questions in the coming weeks or months, please feel free to contact your managers. We have also set up a central email address that you can use at any time, if you have any additional questions about our development plans: driving.excellence@formeld.com . We will do our utmost to answer your questions as quickly and satisfactorily as possible.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your continued support and commitment – we have faith in ourselves as a strong team and are pleased that we are taking this important step together today. Together, we are Formel D!

Best regards,
Dr. Jürgen Laakmann (CEO), Gian Mario Deligios (CFO), Dr. Thomas Klukas (COO)

Strategic Advancement of Formel D