Going Global — Maasvliet's Sourcing & Entry Gambit

A four-round, advanced international-business simulation set inside Maasvliet Mobility Systems B.V., a Rotterdam maker of EV drivetrains, battery-management systems and charging electronics (founded 1994, 3,100 staff, EUR 780M revenue at a 9% operating margin). On 10 June 2026 a margin-and-mandate ultimatum and a geopolitical shock land in the same week: the three largest OEM customers (61% of revenue) demand an 8–12% price cut at a 120-day renewal or they dual-source from an Asian rival, while new export controls and tariffs reprice the lanes that carry advanced battery-management IP. Maasvliet's European cost base runs 30–40% above the Asian benchmark, so the sourcing decisions must recover at least EUR 45M a year to restore margin — and the board carries scar tissue from 2019, when offshoring cell-balancing assembly to a contract manufacturer leaked a proprietary design and was reversed in 2022. Playing the strategy director you (1) map the value chain on a control-vs-cost grid and separate core/proprietary activities from context activities; (2) choose a global-sourcing footprint per activity along the location axis (onshore / nearshore / offshore) AND the independent governance axis (captive vs. outsourced), hitting ≥EUR 45M of annual savings while keeping the cell-balancing IP off any flagged border and out of third-party hands, and avoiding a single concentrated fragile lane; (3) select the North American entry mode for a USD 90M (~EUR 83M) pipeline across the export → licensing → joint venture → wholly-owned-subsidiary spectrum, trading cost and speed against control and domestic-content eligibility; and (4) integrate the footprint and the entry mode into one plan, absorb a live tariff or export-control shock, and pitch the board that still remembers 2019. The math rewards Van Gorp's two-dimensional sourcing logic, dual-sourcing for resilience, a phased entry that serves the live pipeline before the greenfield plant opens, and policy-modelled geopolitics — and punishes the five classic errors: offshoring the crown jewels, conflating location with governance, the control reflex of a slow wholly-owned plant, policy-blind export, and a single flagged-jurisdiction lane. Final KPIs track Annual Savings (EUR M, target ≥45), IP & Control retention, Market Fit & Speed, and Geopolitical Resilience.