The (SMA Solar Technology AG) has been dedicated to advancing a renewable future through renewable energies for over 40 years. As a German medium-sized company with more than 3,000 employees from 18 countries, SMA is a pioneer and leading entity within the renewable energy industry. With its engineering prowess and innovation, SMA is at the forefront of shaping the global energy transition actively.

In a technologically complex and rapidly evolving environment, SMA is not immune to the challenges of digitization. Like all technology firms, SMA faces increasing innovation speed and continuously changing customer needs. Alongside sophisticated engineering achievements, customer-centric, seamless processes will be critical for future success, aligning with market demands and evolving flexibly.

So, how does an organization like SMA adapt its competencies, work practices, and decision-making processes to these demands in order to co-create a decentralized, digital, and renewable energy world? How can it transform into a responsive organization capable of meeting constant change?

Complexity requires continual learning, evolution, flexibility, and adaptability – and it is precisely this mindset that we were able to establish in our collaborative transformation project with SMA. We consistently took the necessary time to reflect on our approach and integrate priorities effectively. Step by step.

In 2020, the first teams (IT, Sales & Services, DigitalCore, and emerce) embarked on their transformation journey using our transformation framework, The Loop Approach®, to explore whether this approach could be right for SMA. Simultaneously, a core transformation team was formed, consisting of consultants from TheDive and SMA colleagues. This team coordinates all joint activities and ensures their alignment with SMA's strategy.

In an in-house Loop Fellow training session, 14 employees from all areas of SMA were empowered to embed the mindset and practices of Loop into the organization. These trained Loop Fellows act as ambassadors within the organization, regularly hosting Loop Masterclasses to inform interested colleagues across SMA. In addition, this network structure supports mutual assistance in addressing questions, fostering development, and managing stakeholders effectively.

Since mid-2021, the internally trained Loop Fellows have been supporting additional SMA teams on their Loop journeys, either in tandem with a consultant from TheDive or in purely internal configurations. This approach allows SMA to scale its transformation journey almost autonomously, achieve greater penetration, and build sustainable expertise internally.

Since early 2022, the Loop Fellows have also taken on roles within the core transformation team, thus embedding essential structures. Together, they are working on a "Loop OS" framework designed for self-organized teams at SMA, aiming to establish a reliable framework within flexible and agile structures.

Since 2022, selected teams have been actively engaging in new compositions to implement cross-functional work, aiming to consistently reflect customer-centricity in their structures. The current mandate encompasses guiding this process to leverage Loop not only for team development but also for evolving processes and structures. The expertise of TheDive in organizational development expands this scope to include aspects such as leadership issues, service design (Design Thinking), and further promotes iterative work.

To achieve the best possible fit of the Loop Approach to SMA's needs, a "slim" version of the approach was developed and tested throughout our collaboration. Together, we recognized that this variant did not provide a valid approach to effectively integrate Loop into the organization with the necessary care. However, this realization is by no means seen as a failure. Instead, it contributes to the cultural embedding of honest retrospectives and continuous learning. Sometimes, knowing what not to do can already encompass a significant part of the solution.

14

Loop Fellows across all SMA departments

12

Loop Team Journeys with approximately 100 employees

150

Participants in Loop Masterclasses

500+

Appreciative check-out rounds, where others' strengths were acknowledged and continual change was celebrated as something positive

5

Masterclasses with approximately 30 participants each since 2021