How Orbem Partners with Tekkr to Build Speed and Systems
Challenge
Orbem is becoming a global MRI powerhouse and needs to scale its world-class R&D
Orbem faces the classic deep-tech dilemma: how to build a scalable system for global growth while preserving the very R&D rigor that made the company successful. The challenge is channeling the team's powerful intellectual curiosity into a standardized, repeatable system that can balance today's execution with building the "production capability" for tomorrow.
"You can't only focus on the opportunity of the year; you also need to invest in the future. You need to have one foot in the present, one foot in the future - it’s a constant balancing act.”
With a new phase of growth ahead, Orbem is setting out to build robust systems to align its teams, accelerate priority initiatives, and lay the foundation for a scalable organization.
Solution
Tekkr partners as a hands-on "acceleration partner" contributing to building Orbem's new "tech operating system." Tekkr focuses on co-designing the system, accelerating internal Orbem project drivers, reinforcing accountability, and accelerating decisions. We are partnering with Orbem's product & technology office to channel the team's strengths into a structure built for execution preparedness.
Tekkr also brought in senior operators with deep experience scaling tech organizations, including Philipp Römer (ex-VP Product at Parloa, Forto) and Barzel Segal (former executive in unicorns such as Workday).
The following outcomes are the first results of the partnership and collaboration between Tekkr and Orbem.
Outcome #1: The right focus on the right projects
Challenge: As any fast-scaling organization, Orbem’s leadership faced competing priorities: deliver high value to your customers as fast as possible, while also building out a world-class tech organization. Given the fast-moving commercial environment and fast internal growth, it was difficult to identify the top priorities for organizational development with internal resources only.
Solution: Tekkr Diagnostic Workshop. Tekkr conducted an outside-in deep-dive diagnostic across product, tech, and science teams, conducting 15+ interviews to identify the most critical systemic blockers and prioritize high-impact initiatives.
Outcome:
- Translated the 30+ challenges identified into 3 focused, high-leverage initiatives with defined execution timelines and deliverables
- Enabled the leadership team to make fast, confident prioritization calls grounded in shared data-backed evidence
- Secured clear ownership and execution milestones for every strategic project
Outcome #2: Accelerated Decision-Making and Execution
Challenge: Orbem's culture of deep analytical rigor, a huge asset for R&D, needed a structure to translate that intelligence into rapid, aligned execution on key initiatives. The team needed a way to move from analysis to action faster.
Solution: Tekkr leveraged and facilitated the "Growth Day Workshops" to drive clarity and execution. The initial kick-off was powered by Tekkr's AI-enabled platform, which allowed the team to go from ambiguous problems to concrete project plans in a single 60-minute session, a process that would otherwise take weeks.
Outcome:
- Empowered the leadership team to make faster, more confident decisions, by providing guidance based on best practices of tech-driven scale-ups
- Embedded a bias-for-action that unblocked key initiatives and secured timelines
- Respected the contributions of many stakeholders, while significantly accelerating the proposal creation and project execution
- Established a clear, well-managed process that baked in clear ownership of initiatives and next-step alignment, leading to high accountability
Outcome #3: Built a cohesive "Systemic Enablement"
Challenge: As Orbem scaled, the company was moving from a collection of "individual heroics" to a structure of formal departments. Roles and interfaces between teams needed clearer definition to maintain speed and quality.
Solution: Tekkr partnered with internal project drivers to facilitate the clarification of ownership models, decision rights, and lightweight governance routines. Using best-practice examples from other scale-ups, Tekkr provided templates, sparring, and regular check-ins that helped leaders move from theory to implementation quickly.
Outcome:
- Reduced ambiguity by defining ownership and decision rights for key roles within the Product & Technology Office
- Accelerated coordination across Product and Technical Program Management
- Built confidence in team leads to drive initiatives independently, through sparring and coaching sessions
"I don't want to reinvent the wheel. Why not build on best-practices from others that we adjust to our unique company context? Tekkr helped us drive conversations faster, provided best-practices and acted as a driving force, holding people - including myself - accountable."
Outcome #4: Unified Product Lifecycle Management (PDLC)
Challenge: Orbem's MRI-based offering combines AI, software, hardware, and data. As the company scaled and new departments emerged, it became challenging to maintain clarity on how products were developed across multiple product lines and verticals.
Solution: Tekkr acted as an acceleration partner, sparring with Orbem's internal project drivers. In a six-week sprint, we supported the development of a high-level blueprint for a unified PDCL framework, creating a common language for product, science, and engineering teams.
Outcome:
- Developed a single, high-level blueprint for product development
- Improved clarity and cross-functional understanding
Outcome #5: Designed a Target Information Management Model
Challenge: As the company grew to more than 180 people, information naturally became fragmented across multiple tools, siloed within internal teams, and hard to maintain consistently. While documentation existed, it was therefore difficult to navigate, update, and trust as a single source of truth.
Solution: Tekkr conducted a deep-dive assessment across the company, providing a clear diagnosis of the status quo based on 20+ interviews, and deriving potential opportunities for change based on multiple benchmarks from other tech-driven scale-ups. This gave Orbem's leadership a clear, outside-in perspective on their information management challenges and an implementation plan for the immediate next quarter.
Outcome:
- Delivered a clear plan with defined opportunities and levers for improvement, including sizing of ROI, based on potential financial uplift and cost of enablers associated with target model
- Translated this assessment into a concrete roadmap of prioritized and sequenced initiatives that can now be driven by the Orbem team
"Scaling a company rapidly requires clarity. Who is doing what and how? In other words: great information management. Due to our growth information became hard to manage. Tekkr was able to jump in quickly, assess the situation, drive decisions and deliver a prioritized, executable plan that our team can now own to move us from information overload to clarity.”
Outcome #6: Future-Proofing the Team via Strategic Hiring
Challenge: To support the new operating system, Orbem needed to add key senior talent. The challenge was identifying the right type of profiles and positions to support leading the next stage of growth.
Solution: Tekkr supported the CPTO Miguel in defining the senior roles required to future-proof the organization, including mandate definition, organizational structure design, and candidate sparring. Leveraging the experience of Barzel Segal, Tekkr helped align role definitions with long-term capability needs.
Tekkr sparred with Miguel, Orbem's CPTO, to help him define the key senior roles needed to "future-proof" the team, including defining mandates and key organizational challenges. Leveraging the experience of Barzel Segal, Tekkr helped align role definitions with long-term capability needs.
Outcome:
- Clarified leadership roles and mandates for the next growth phase
- Informed hiring decisions with strategic alignment to company goals
Results
Building Speed and Systems for Sustainable Growth
The partnership with Tekkr provided a critical booster for Orbem's organizational capabilities, allowing the company to invest in its future without sacrificing today's effectiveness. By acting as a driving force, Tekkr established clear ownership (for both Orbem’s project drivers and Tekkr project drivers) for key scaling initiatives that had been difficult for the internal team to prioritize.
This collaboration helped drive conversations faster and increased visibility across the company for the key challenges of scaling the Product & Technology Office. It established this work as a positive change and opportunity for everybody at Orbem: a transformation to new heights. This successful kick-off is laying the groundwork for Orbem's next phase of growth.
Highlights:
- 4 major cross-functional projects executed within ten weeks
- Significant acceleration in decision-making and project implementation speed
- Stronger alignment and visibility across product, tech, and science
- High engagement and buy-in from leadership and initiative owners
"Tekkr brought clarity, focus, and speed. They didn’t just advise; they helped us execute."
