Global Management Team Discusses PI DRIVE Strategy and Emphasizes Team Spirit

On September 25th and 26th, 2024, the PI Global Management Team met for a strategic dialog in Karlsruhe, Germany, hosted by Markus Spanner (CEO) and Florian Geistdörfer (COO). The team aligned on the global outlook of the PI Group, shared the status of the implementation of the corporate strategy PI DRIVE, and defined the main objectives and frame conditions for the 2025 budget.

The objective of the annual Global Management Dialog sessions is an open and reflective dialog—and ultimately alignment—amongst the managers of all PI Group functions and entities on the status and next steps in the execution of the corporate strategy PI DRIVE. Using collaborative workshop formats, the focus of this years’ management meeting was on cross-functional exchange, alignment, and learning. “ONE PI is the key phrase summarizing the support and synergies we want to create,” said Markus Spanner, CEO of the PI Group. “This team takes us to a new level of global collaboration.”

Day 1 was devoted to presentations and respective discussions on key elements of the corporate and functional strategies. The team reflected on core achievements to date, critically discussed remaining gaps, defined corrective actions, and transferred take-aways and key actions to their areas of responsibility.

The discussions focused on the enhanced value proposition of the PI Group. Florian Geistdörfer, COO of the PI Group, explained the company’s strategy for the future growth path: “While the PI Group will maintain and strengthen its core competency of cutting-edge, customer-driven, project-based business (Business Mode 2), the company will simultaneously focus on scaling up the series-based business (Business Mode 3) and on expanding the standard, modularized, and automated component and system business (Business Mode 1).”

The participants also listened to presentations on the progress and impact of the globally aligned market strategies. Everyone received first insights into the product and technology roadmaps and learned how the support functions will strengthen the market and growth strategies.

Day 2 was devoted to group work and dedicated sessions around these core building blocks for the execution of the corporate strategy. It allowed the participants to discuss in smaller, cross-functional groups and in more detail on how the execution of the strategy going forward can succeed.

The day ended with a review and outlook of the operational and financial performance of the PI Group, as well as decisions on the 2025 budget frame conditions.

Florian Geistdörfer emphasized that communication remains a key topic throughout: “The remaining problems to clearly articulate and communicate our new value proposition internally to our employees and externally to the market remains a joint challenge for our leadership team. We will do our utmost to transmit the essence of our strategy to each and everyone inside and outside the organization.”

“The two days showed once again, how invaluable these face-to-face meetings are for alignment and as a source of motivation,” said Markus Spanner, summarizing the Management Meeting. Despite the open acknowledgement of shortcomings and sometimes critical feedback, the collaborative and positive spirit, as well as the togetherness could be felt throughout the discussions.  
Florian Geistdörfer concluded: “Despite all of our challenges, the Global Management Team is excited about the progress, the chosen path and the prospects that we—all the employees of the PI Group—are creating together, and we are optimistic about 2025 and beyond.”

By the end of the year, the management aims to provide further information on the 2030 strategy to the whole organization and to continue the dialog across all regions.

Contact person: Florian Geistdörfer, COO