 Hi, this is Tony Appleby with the Project Management Institute, and I'm at RISE 2019 in Hong Kong. And I'm delighted to be joined by Dr. Stefan Kompmann with Osrum. He's the CTO there, Chief Technology Officer. And we're going to have a little chat for you regarding what's going on there at Osrum. Welcome. Thank you, Tony. So, I understand that there's been a lot of innovation that's been going on lately. You started off as a light bulb company, but you're doing a whole lot more now. Can you tell us just a little bit about what's new? Yeah, Osrum is a more than 100-year-old company with a huge heritage in lighting. And as is yet, we started with glow bulbs, and I think we did this business for over 90 years. With the development of opto semiconductor-based light sources like LED or lasers, the game changed. We got more electronics on board, we got more functionality, not only illuminating objects, but now we can work also on sensing objects, for instance, infrared light. We can visualize data for augmented reality, and we can treat objects, and one of the highlights is, for instance, horticulture. So, our spectrum of solutions increased a lot, and I think that's an exciting story about the new Osrum. Well, that is exciting, but I am a little curious. So, how did you move away from your classic base to exploring innovative ways to enter the market and to serve the people that purchase your consumer base? I think the new Osrum was based on a strategic decision which we did five years ago. The big question was, where are the growth areas? You know, as a light source manufacturer, you can basically expand into the application. You could acquire companies which do luminaries, or go deeper into basically the new subjects of new light generations like opto-semiconductors. And I think we did a very good strategic decision five years ago with that we will not go into luminaries. We will go into the fundamentals, the fundamental of new light sources, and we invested a lot in opto-semiconductors, and this is now the foundation of the new Osrum. Well, that's truly exciting, and I want to explore that a little bit more. In large part, what the Brightline Initiative does is helps organizations bridge the gap that we so frequently see with the development of great strategies and too often the failure of those to become realized. You've obviously done that well. Can you walk us through a little bit of how that happened? I think the main question is, would you like to become a high-tech company or would you be a luminaire manufacturer where you need other capabilities? I think the analysis showed that our key and our core is basically the fundamental understanding of physics of light and especially this opto-semiconductor field. It was clear when we were looking for a strategy where we could differentiate sustainably on innovation that the part where we grow basically our business for LEDs and laser is the appropriate one, and at least now after five years it's probably the right decision. Excellent. So in moving in a new strategic direction there's oftentimes challenges, you know, cultural shifts, reorganizations, helping ensure that new focus really ends up being a reality. What were some of the challenges that you encountered and how did Osrum overcome them? I think when I look back I was nearly 25 years in automotive. I was working on powertrain and there is a big transformation when we talk about combustion engine to electric vehicles. But if you look at the dynamics, we are talking about a decade and maybe we have 30% electric vehicle or only 15%. In the lighting industry technology is changing in a very fast path from 100 to zero. So for instance the glow bulb was banned. The light saving bulbs were banned. Now the halogen bulbs are banned for general lighting purposes in Europe for instance. So with five years the entire technology goes from 100 to zero. So that's a high dynamic of technology-based transformation. And I think there is no other example in industry. Really in lighting you have to change your entire organization, your capabilities based on new technologies which are required. And I think that was a major challenge because you have to switch competencies. People who are excellent in glow bulbs are not excellent in optosemiconductor based light sources. So you have to retrain, reskill, get everybody moving in a whole other direction. What would you say would be one of the top traits or competencies that an individual in your organization would need in order to help the organization be successful with that kind of a transformation? It's not a dilemma but it's a challenge. We need people who understand very much in basics of physics the fundamentals of new light sources. On the other hand we are in a very competitive landscape. So it's not about innovation only and it's not about getting the new things done. It's the challenge to industrialize it for high volume in a fast ramp up on an appropriate price line. So we have to basically match the physicists and the know-how of our physicists with very experienced product engineers and project engineers to make it a business case. That's fair. I'm going to ask a similar question with slight variation. So as you go into transformation and you're walking that path how do you lay out the sequencing of events so that you ensure that you're being successful? I think we in these days you cannot make long time plans for the next 10 years. And a strategy is not a plan from A to B. A strategy is the number of options you have from A to B. And I think the big challenge in these days when we talk about the WUKA world is you have to adapt. You have to see when you have made a wrong decision and it's more the question how fast you can basically adapt your plan to the new circumstances or the changed assumptions. And I think there's something when you talk about strategic competence this is what we had to learn over the last years and that's one of our key focus areas when we talk about strategic alignment in our company. Awesome. So a final question regarding strategy and its development and its execution Broad and open, what would you like to share with those who are struggling to make real their strategic visions? I think in these days it's very important that you communicate your strategy. That sounds common sense. But what does it mean? A strategy is also a kind of change process. And my experience is everybody in the company needs the same time to understand this change. So you cannot communicate with five PowerPoint slides where you have detailed information. You have to give people the time to digest it. They have to chew it. They have to basically throw it out with questions. They have to re chew it. Then they swallow it. And then finally they have accepted the strategy. So this communication process is not a one way information. It's basically a strong interaction with your people. And my major premises is you have to spend with each and every individual in your organization the same time like the board is spending on these strategic changes. Awesome. Thank you for your time. Tony, thank you so much. Cheers.