As part of the continued internationalisation process intended to improve the development capacity within embedded software, Bang & Olufsen started a search for new international partners during fall 2004. It was to be a global search, however a number of questions emerged form the start, including:
- which are the focus countries
- which are the selection criteria
In order to optimise the process, DIBD prepared a comparative analyses, which benchmarked 11 countries in Asia and Eastern Europe on:
- political/economical stability
- development within IT in general and embedded software specifically
- logistics
- wages and salaries
- supply of qualified labour
- financial instruments
- cultural differences
The result pointed to India, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Romania, Russia, and Hungary, and subsequently DIBD's local networks in the countries started a comprehensive search. For this search, DIBD in close co-operation with Bang & Olufsen prepared a questionnaire which benchmarked companies with core competencies within embedded software in these countries.
As a result of the search, Bang & Olufsen over spring 2005 travelled to all the countries in question, and finally decided to enter into partnerships in Romania and India. Today, there are 18 employees in Romania and 17 in India working solely with projects for Bang & Olufsen.