“Boost” strategic program

A high-performing organization: becoming more efficient and scalable.

Comet aims to be the market and technology leader in the markets it serves, make its customers even more efficient and successful, and become an even more profitable company. In order to fully exploit its growth potential, Comet must further raise its own efficiency and scalability as an organization and be able to respond flexibly to future cycles in the semiconductor industry.

Comet launched its Boost strategic program in 2019 with these goals in mind. It focuses on three major thrusts: boosting growth, enhancing efficiency and strengthening culture.

Boost growth.

Product portfolio with technology leadership: The expansion of the product and service portfolio, with a focus on the semiconductor market, is an absolute priority for Comet as a technology leader. The prerequisite is a deep understanding of customers’ requirements – in a word, customer intimacy. Thus, Comet involves customers in the development of technological solutions as early as possible in the process, with the aim of increasing customers’ productivity. A prominent example of this is the collaboration between IXS and a leading company in the semiconductor industry in the field of 3D advanced packaging.

The new CTO office established in 2023 also enables a systematic and holistic approach to market trends and to technologies from a Comet-wide, whole-Group perspective.

Proximity to customers worldwide: A core task remains the expansion of the capacity levels and organization in the growth regions relevant to Comet – while taking into account rising geopolitical tensions and the growing investment in local supply chains.

In particular, Comet wants to strengthen its presence in Asia with a dedicated Asian hub, and for this purpose began planning in 2023 for its own building in Penang, Malaysia. From its design center for the Asia region in Korea, the PCT division is continuing to build out its presence in the regional markets. IXS and IXM expanded their sales and service organizations in Japan, Korea, China and Taiwan in 2023.

Enhance efficiency.

Processes and organization: Subjects such as the optimization of supply chains, the standardization of products, the automation of production processes and the implementation of lean measures are permanently on the agenda at Comet.

As a globally growing company, Comet also sees much potential in further improving the worldwide collaboration of corporate functions and regional execution. In addition to the continuous improvement and harmonization of policies, processes and tools, Comet is also working on the consistent further development and implementation of its target operating model and its management systems. The goal is a scalable organization that can respond to regional needs with agility.

In 2022, Comet established a Global Operational Excellence organization at Group level, which was further reinforced in 2023. The team acts as a center of expertise for all issues relating to operational excellence.

Digitalization: The company’s continuous digital transformation is of great importance for Comet. The digitalization and automation projects range from a smart production environment, product life cycle management and a contract management workflow, all the way to customer relationship management and cybersecurity.

Strengthen culture.

Learning and development: Any initiative is only as good as the people who drive it forward. Continuous learning, development, and empowerment of employees are central to Comet, especially with a view to improved collaboration, customer focus, and speed. With dedicated training courses, Comet supports employees’ development at different organizational levels and creates shared foundations for excellent collaboration.

Attractive employer: In view of the shortage of skilled personnel in the labor market, especially of R&D specialists and engineers, Comet stepped up activities to better position itself as an attractive employer. To this end, an employer branding campaign was launched in 2023 with the tagline “Your curiosity will help you and us grow.”

Networking with talented young people while they are still students and winning them for the company are at the top of the agenda, alongside identifying and fostering existing talent within the Group. In 2023 as well, Comet was active at numerous education and job fairs and semiconductor trade shows worldwide to present itself as an employer. The partnership with the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign initiated in 2021 to support students at the university also continues.

Comet also invests in an attractive working environment to retain its employees. Among other advances, in 2023 Comet developed a new internal job architecture that will be rolled out in 2024. This enables global comparability of jobs within Comet, but also with the market. The job architecture established creates a basis for clear career paths and is intended to enhance the company’s competitiveness in the local labor markets.

Sustainable thinking and working: Thinking and working sustainably has been developed and promoted even more systematically since 2021 under the ESG program. Comet employees around the world collected ideas for combating climate change, which are now gradually being translated into concrete actions. Comet also held its first eco-design workshops with selected employees from all three divisions in 2023. In 2024, an online training course in eco-design is planned for a larger number of employees with the goal of developing products with an improved environmental footprint.