Community Forum – Technical Support Structure

How is your technical support structured?

We are interested in how other organisations structure their R&D technical support function. Do you have a dedicated support team for each of your business units or do you provide service on a priority basis using flexible resources? What does the structure/organisation of this group look like – and how are roles and responsibilities defined? – Amy Geschke, Open Innovation Director, Crown Holdings Inc.

Community Response

Kati Fritz-Jung, VP R&D, Sargento Foods, Inc.
I have worked under three different structures: matrix, business unit dedicated support and priority basis using flexible resources. By far I have found the business unit alignment the most effective and the matrix least effective.

By BU aligned resources I really mean a hybrid between BU aligned and flexible resources. BU alignment was had through a dedicated group of technical personnel while at the same time specialty technical assistance would be tapped into when specific projects required it. In addition, a separate Applied Research (could also be Basic Research or “Innovation”) team was a separate group but tied into the BU’s through the BU groups within R&D. Project management and prioritization was managed via a somewhat elaborate project, portfolio and resource management system. The system was “home made” and from an IT stand point, not very complex. In addition, R&D funding came from the BU’s investment year to year. Over the four years using this system the R&D budget increased and didn’t decrease. In essence BU demand and investment grew. This is a little risky in that it could have gone the opposite direction. On the other hand, it really puts R&D under the gun to perform.

Benefits:

• Accountability to R&D to perform
• BU’s shared in the responsibility in R&D resource utilization as their budget allowed for a finite amount of R&D resources
• “Innovation” was shielded by having the cost of innovation in the cost of BU resource costs
• Closer alignment with the business brings increased business savvy to R&D

Drawbacks:

• This was a change, and change always comes with resistance
• Required a higher level of accountability and sense of urgency on R&D’s behalf. I have found that in the end most technical people find this invigorating.
• If you lack depth of technical expertise, aligning them with BU’s will make it more difficult to create and maintain depth of expertise
• If you lack strong interpersonal relationships between R&D personnel, you will be less likely to utilize expertise between R&D BU groups

At Purina we were first organized by technical discipline (flexible resources), then briefly by matrix and then by BU alignment. We found the BU alignment to work best. At Schwans the R&D team was organized by technical discipline (flexible resources), but I quickly re-aligned by “hybrid” BU alignment and our NP and cost savings achievements soared.