


Nick Phillips
Partner, Head of Industrial PracticeSTAUFEN.USA
With 20 years of experience in industry and consulting leadership roles, Nick is a Partner at Staufen Consulting and leads the US practice for industrial products. He helps New Product Development, Supply Chain and Manufacturing executives transform their people, processes, products and systems to generate focused P&L improvements. He has a proven track record of leading high performing teams and delivering value to his clients.
Nick has over a decade of consulting experience serving many of the largest Automotive, Aerospace & Defense and Energy companies in the world. He specializes in Product Lifecycle Management, Digitization and Operational Excellence.
While working at Deloitte Consulting, Nick founded and led the Model Based Enterprise and Digital Thread service offering, where he received the award for Innovator of the Year in 2021. While working at ABB, Nick helped create a global internal consulting group and was given the Presidential Award for transformation in ABB’s power transformer business. He is a Lean Six Sigma Blackbelt and holds an Automotive patent for mechanical engineering.
Nick earned his MBA from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill and his Engineering degree from Virginia Tech. He is passionate about enabling efficiency, innovation, and growth in the industrial product sector and about building the next generation of business leaders in the Circular Economy.
NICK PHILLIPS
Partner, Head of Industrial Practice
STAUFEN.USA
In July of 2023, Nick joined Staufen as a Partner in the USA. He has been leading value-based consulting transformations since 2011 and grew up as an engineer in the Automotive industry with Volvo and BMW. He joins Staufen USA from Deloitte Consulting.
Over the past 20 years, Nick has had the opportunity to serve many of the largest Automotive OEMs and Aerospace and Defense companies in the world. When asked to de-scribe his experience, he said “It’s been a humbling and incredibly rewarding career solving the difficult issues my customers face. Working through big challenges with people builds meaningful relationships, that’s the most rewarding part of consulting.”
An INTERVIEW with NICK PHILLIPS, PARTNER and head of INDUSTRIAL PRACTICE at STAUFEN.USA
How do you think the economy in the USA will develop in the next few years, and how is this driving your customer’s needs?
The current US economy is strong but impacts from the pandemic remain. Fragmented supply chains and high material costs are disrupting delivery and pressuring margins, making efficient operational executiona core concern. Capacityand lead-timesare still a major issue, increasing the need to remove operational bottlenecks and improve planning capabilitiesto adjust to rapidly changing demand levels.
The future US economy is expected to contract; customers are focused on product cost reduction, and margin improvement. Capital investment to near-shore(or re-shore) for reduced dependency on non-domestic supply chains has increased dramatically. We are seeing a high number of new facilities coming on line, driving the need for process improvement, standardization across sites,and operating model implementationsfocused on efficient execution, management, and leadership processes.
How can Staufen USA support local companies?
Our service offering is very well matched to the issues companies are facing in the US. We use a partnership-based approach to achieve our customers desired outcomes.
Companies are operating in an increasingly complex, uncertain, and challenging environment. The demands on operational and indirect processes in terms of adaptability and performance are increasing; this requires a stable, and at the same time, flexible process in order to stay competitive.
Our contribution to support companies in the USA: we Implement P&L centric processes and tools that allow our customers to effectively counter increasing cost and performance pressures while maintaining the highest quality standards.
Why Staufen?
Staufen is a company relentlessly focused on people, on relationships, and on achieving client outcomes. We are a global organization of deep specialization and our team members in the US are an extension of what is so well known in Europe, Asia, Mexico, and South America.
Staufen AG, with its headquarters near Stuttgart, Germany, provides support to companies around the world with its staff of 350 employees. The integrated academy offers certified, practice-oriented training courses. In 2022, Staufen has been honored with the “World’s best management consulting firms” award by the “FORBES” journal.
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