More than ever, a worldwide, effective development- and technologies network is required today in order to satisfy the requirements of the market.
 
The issue thereby concerns access to important key technologies as well as identifying the desires and needs of customers in the regions of the world.

Only by “being on location“ and through direct experience can someone be in a position to inject dynamism, develop technologies quickly and transfer them into innovative and competitively superior products.

During my time as head of electronics at Audi, per my operational responsibility at the top management level as well as in my advisory- and supervisory roles, I was able to initiate and implement important themes and thereby gather very valuable experience.

At AEV – Audi Electronics Venture GmbH (this was operationally under my control and I was chairman of the advisory board), long before the word ”digitization“ became a buzzword, we recognized the big, strategic significance of software for the successful implementation of innovations.  

With AEV as a cooperative platform, this led to the targeted development of a broad technological network via joint ventures and company participations in the megatrends of ”connected car,” “autonomous driving,” and ”electrification“ (see also AEV network).

Among these, the company best known is surely e.solutions GmbH (e.solution), which has been active very successfully in the field of the "connected car" since 2009 and is respected worldwide in the automotive-, tier 1-, and technology industries.

The successful implementation of such new models of cooperation requires certain prerequisites on the operational as well as the advisory or supervisory levels of these joint ventures and participations.  

In addition to pronounced power of vision and passion for technologies and innovation, there needs to be the will and the courage to question that which already exists and to consciously walk new paths where a culture of failure must also be permitted. Not all of these new paths always lead equally to the desired goal.

A wide-ranging understanding of the interdependencies, however, is also required in order to identify, build-up and sustainably implement the right technology partners, core competences, business models and processes.