R&D stands for Research and Development. As an internal service provider, Christian and his team take on a wide range of engineering and development tasks for other business units. What is special about this is that the R&D work is not limited to one area. A great deal of knowledge is generated from the activities that R&D Shared Services take on across the board. Moving forward this bundled knowledge will be available to colleagues from the Corporate Center and other divisions.

The tasks of Christian's team are varied and wide-ranging: they include supporting projects in joint test planning, organizing and carrying out competitor investigations. In addition, there is the new set-up of the Cost Engineering department with a very close intersection to Target Costing, which is part of Project Management. As a further R&D shared service, required samples are being built and the central organization for “samples from a single source” is being expanded.

Christian and his team work across the board for the other divisions at ebm‑papst.

In April 2023, “Engineering Services” also became “Shared Services”. In future, the actual location in St. Georgen will increasingly take a back seat and the function will take center stage. This will then apply throughout Germany, and in the foreseeable future also internationally. Even if this means a significant increase in organizational effort, the mood is consistently positive - among current employees, but also among colleagues who have joined from other areas since the beginning of April. Christian feels: “There is a real spirit of optimism. From the managers to every single workplace.”

Despite the complex organization, the processes should not become slower, according to Christian, because not everything will physically be carried out locally at one site. Instead, the team is currently developing a control model that covers local requirements but maintains a global overview.