You are Livia Conti, Chief Technology and R&D Officer of Brennaro Sistemi, a Milan maker of electric drives and power electronics. A German rival is about nine months from launching an 800-volt drive platform; yours, built in-house, would take eighteen. Before the week is out, the board wants to know where that platform sits in your plan.
The situation
Brennaro Sistemi designs and builds precision electric drives for e-mobility, robotics and industrial automation: €720 million of revenue, a 9% operating margin, 3,400 people, 480 of them in research, and 210 active patent families. This year you have a discretionary innovation budget capped at €24 million and three technology calls the board wants read as one plan; it values the three together at €40–55 million over three years.
The most visible is the 800-volt drive platform, the next generation of what Brennaro sells into electric mobility. Building it in-house costs €16 million, two-thirds of the cap, and reaches market in about 18 months. A German competitor is rumoured to launch its own in about 9. Another route is on the table: hand the whole platform to a contract design house that could ship it sooner. And some ask whether Brennaro, strong in robotics and automation, needs to run this race at all.
The other two calls wait on your desk: three silicon-carbide inverter-control patent families, two years ahead of rivals and earning almost nothing, which a Japanese supplier offers €9 million plus royalties to license for the next six weeks; and a heat-management technology the platform needs and Brennaro lacks. Your career was built on one idea: invent it and patent it all at home.