IMIG Highlights from 2020 and Expectations for 2021

Dr. Matthias Hartmann, founder and board member of IMIG AG reports on the past year 2020 and the coming new year 2021

Dear readers and those interested in IMIG,

when I started my expectations for 2020 last year, certain things were predictable, but others turned out to be quite different from what I thought at the time. The Covid-19 pandemic is certainly at the top of the list of factors that influenced or even shaped the year 2020 for everyone - be it professionally or privately, be it as a challenge or an opportunity for change.

For us at the IMIG Group, the period from mid-March to mid-May, in particular, was a major challenge, characterized by an ad hoc interruption of nearly all projects, and an extreme uncertainty about the future of the entire group of companies. Admittedly, the first few days were tough. Despite that - or perhaps because of it - different teams started to find new ways in the first week to adapt our service delivery to the new circumstances, offering added value to our clients albeit in a vastly different scenario. At the same time, all members of the global IMIG team have been working on measures that have enormously helped us - over a period with virtually no projects and thus no revenue - in seeing what was achievable through this team spirit. Thanks to a two-fold focus on securing survival AND shaping the future, we successfully navigated two extremely difficult months for us, quickly regaining speed to leave them behind. So far, we have not had a Covid-19 case worldwide in the IMIG Group, but many new application scenarios and consulting approaches. For this, I would like to thank our great team and our versatile and innovative clients.

According to the motto “unbelievable but true,” after the excellent previous years and despite all challenges and the difficult spring, in 2020 as a whole we have once again topped the previous results. It is precisely the many new, innovative consulting approaches and project topics that have led to our great successes for and with our clients, helping them in dealing with their long-term challenges. Further to our long-standing clients, this year we also managed to win several new clients of great interest, particularly in the market segments of automotive engineering and machine and plant construction.

Breaking new ground

For us, this means being on-site, understanding and being able to use local conditions. In spring 2020, we established another IMIG location with IMIG UK. This new office, currently with an expert team of 6 members under the leadership of Alun Tribe, makes us proud and shows great development.

Christian Pfingstl continues to be successful at IMIG Germany and IMIG Austria and has solidly strengthened his team this year with further senior consultants.

At IMIG Czech, which was founded in 2019, we had to deal with a surprising change in management at the end of last year, so I have been taking care of their operations directly since then. We have seen a notable development in 2020 and have great prospects for expanding our local team and our project portfolio in Eastern Europe in the coming year.

As for our activities in Spain, Xavier Pujol continues to work with his excellent lean management expertise and outstanding acceptance by our clients.

From Europe to the world

Our 20 years of experience in Asia drive our current and further development in this strategic region for our business. Kazuo Ooiwa has been a stability and success guarantee in our team since it was founded in Japan, and two years later in China. Major regular clients renewed their trust in our company and exciting new clients have been won through our local teams. Future topics such as future mobility, digitalization and artificial intelligence are worked on together in addition to the classics such as Business Excellence / Supplier Development in some customer projects by IMIG in Japan, China, South Korea and Australia.

After moving from IMIG Germany to the USA in mid-2019, Thoralf Enstroem took over the management of our team in USA in mid-2020. We look forward to positive business development in the USA in the coming year. Our current activities in India are experiencing major growth, so that we may be able to report on the next new IMIG location and another exciting development in 2021. We will remain true to our motto “Shaping the future” in 2021 with the further expansion of our location network, and the continued development of our organization from local teams to global teams of experts.

Starting on 01/01/2021, the new organization of the IMIG Group forms our local teams with global responsibilities with the four core segments.

• AM: Automotive & Mobility, (Led by Alun Tribe, UK)
• ME: Machine & Equipment, (Led by Christian Pfingstl, Germany)
• ICE: Industry Cross-Sections, (Led by Kazuo Ooiwa, Japan)
• BI²: Business Investments & Business Incubation (Led by Dr. Matthias Hartmann

under the overall responsibility for the IMIG Group by IMIG AG.

We are thus aligning ourselves with the next stage of our global corporate development and strengthening our performance in our main business areas.

• Future Mobility/Strategy and Innovation Management
• Digitalization/Cyber Security/Industry 4.0
• Agile Enterprise Organization and Agile Project Management
• Business Excellence & Business Development
• Supplier Development
• Assessment Centre
• Interim Experts/Interim Management

My thanks for this repeated excellent result in 2020 go out equally to our clients and our great team. This year, I would also like to emphasize the extraordinary client orientation, quality, flexibility, motivation and willingness to perform of all our employees across the growing number of international locations.

It is a pleasure and honor for me to continue working in such a creative and successful environment. I wish everyone who is shaping the future a great start into the coming year and countless successful adventures on the path to new goals.

Dr. Matthias Hartmann
Founder and CEO I IMIG AG

For additional information on IMIG, please contact us either by email: marketing@imig.com or by phone at: +49 (0) 7152 / 928 460.