EA Elektro-Automatik

How we helped

• Automotive & Industrial
• Performance & Technology
• Growth
• Organizational Transformation
• Supply Chain Management & Operations

At the end of 2021, Markus Schyboll, CEO of German electronic test and measurement company EA Elektro-Automatik (“EA”), was fully aware of the challenge presented in scaling the company at pace while simultaneously overcoming global supply chain disruption.

The formerly family-owned business had enjoyed attractive growth for almost 50 years. However, in recent years, global megatrends had materially accelerated the demand for the company’s products across various industrial and R&D applications, in particular the energy transition and the electrification of the global economy.

Convinced there was a significant market opportunity, Bregal Unternehmerkapital (“BU”), the largest mid-cap investor headquartered in the DACH region, had acquired the business as part of a succession solution in 2019, recognising the end-market attractiveness, solid business fundamentals, strong financials, and internationalisation potential.

The fast scaling of operations – especially production capacity – was a key element of BU’s value creation plan, in addition to improving the company’s go-to-market approach, broadening its international footprint, further investing in R&D, and bringing new products to the market.

“The ambition of the BU team was to double EA’s revenue at pace, given the potential that we could all see,” Schyboll states. “With the energy transition gaining momentum, our product portfolio could be used in a variety of rapidly growing applications.

“Before BU invested in the business, EA still relied on a rather traditional craft and working style. To harness the significant market potential, though, we had to fundamentally change our manufacturing and logistics processes. We knew we had the key capabilities, but that it would be difficult to scale at the same rate as demand for our products increased. The BU team therefore recommended we seek outside support from a consultant team.”

Given the speed required, Christian Weigend, Director at BU, knew the kind of consultants that would be required to make a difference fast. “The key was to find specialists. Practical experience was critical, with a focused, hands-on approach. AlixPartners proposed a small but highly capable team with many years of experience in electronics manufacturing.”

How to achieve the “impossible”

In the final quarter of 2021, AlixPartners (“Alix”) was engaged by EA to help master the challenge of continued rapid growth despite ongoing global supply chain disruptions. Working closely with BU, Schyboll, and the CFO, Georg Bletschacher, the team set about making the plan on paper a reality.

“In the summer of 2021, our order intake was skyrocketing, and we had difficulty keeping pace with it in production,” Bletschacher recalls. “Our operations were lean, and when the Alix team joined us, our immediate priority was to build a plan focused on bringing in more resources, people, procedures, and equipment.

“The second phase was execution, which meant bringing it to life for everyone involved. Larger organizations often have whole teams to design and execute such plans, but we did not have those. We were strongly supported by Alix in the roll-out of state-of-the-art methods for running the factory, setting up supply chain resilience against macroeconomic disruptions, weekly production planning, and daily shop floor meetings, among others.

“Crucial to our success was the Alix team’s willingness to go into the details, not just telling us how it’s done, but actually showing us themselves. We had the feeling we had selected the right partner, led by very competent people who were not only methodologically strong but could work culturally in our company, too, without a stereotypical consultancy stance. A textbook approach wouldn’t have worked; the momentum would have been lost.”

A non-linear route to results

During the project, AlixPartners’ scope extended beyond purely improving output, driven by the connective tissue between manufacturing, HR, S&OP, and, critically at that time, supply chain management.

“If you want to double the output of a company, everything needs to be reimagined,” says Schyboll. “It was quite a challenge, even more so when you’re moving at such high speed.

“We were chasing down factory bottlenecks while also exploring global footprint expansion opportunities. With Alix, a long-term vision was developing, but we were also winning in the immediate term because of their personal time and presence spent on the shopfloor, reducing the distance between consultants and factory employees. That really changed the mindset for everyone.”

Following organic revenue growth of c.40% annually between 2020 and 2023, BU successfully sold EA for €1.6bn to Fortive Corporation in January 2024, a deal that AlixPartners also supported through an operational vendor due diligence.

“AlixPartners’ work contribution has been an important cornerstone to EA Elektro-Automatik’s overall success,” says Carsten Seipp, Senior Investment Manager at BU.

“EA has obviously been an extraordinary case. Our portfolio companies usually experience double-digit growth, but EA organically tripled its revenues in just four years. This hypergrowth was achieved despite the global supply chain challenges at the time and a material ramp-up in production capacity, including the construction of a whole new production facility – a lot of moving pieces in a highly dynamic market situation.”

Weigend concludes, “Put simply, we had high ambitions, but the execution of the teams has far exceeded our expectations.”