Some time ago we were approached by the subsidiary of a longterm client in Southern Germany. Their issue was the closure of their in-house R&D unit which at the time was staffed with 13 well-qualified employees who had performed together very successfully over a long time. The region around Lake Constance has a relatively poor infrastructure and the company rightly was concerned about the professional future of their employees who for family reasons and their strong ties to the area were not willing to relocate; a job market in the area, however, does not exist.
We were asked to provide outplacement support to the 13 team members which we started out in the conventional manner, i.e. thoroughly reviewing and assessing each person's skills and ambitions; initially the results confirmed the situation mentioned above. Within the outplacement process, however, we developed an idea to market the group as a self-employed team.
From then on our task became a management consulting job: together we assessed a promising product portfolio (i.e. their R&D experience), worked out a business plan and put together a budget. Quickly we realised, however, that the management and entrepreneurial skills of the team were not sufficient to make this a long-term success business story. We recommended to form the business structures but immediately start looking for a larger company where the group could dock on as an external R&D unit. At this stage, we also suggested to bring in an M&A consultant.
Not too long, and the group started discussions with a renowned german company, a large corporation in the optical sector based in former East Germany but operating across Germany, and indeed succeeded that acquired the shares of the newly-founded company. Less than four months in the search process, the team made a seamless return under a solid umbrella with about the same salary for the same job at the same location - a truly extraordinary in-placement story.
