CREATING A SHARED CORPORATE CULTUREcorporate culture and adaptable to local conditions - a tricky balancing act that must be learned over time. Many are recruited straight out of university

1

DL+ | IESE Business School and The Swire Group

CREATING A SHARED CORPORATE CULTURE

A Custom Case Study with IESE Business School and The Swire Group

DLa different kind of Case Study

2


The seats on the space shuttle were really special. They were special because they were manufactured using the most advanced materials, and because they helped launch their occupants into orbit. But what made them really special - unique in fact - was that each individual seat was created especially to fit a single astronaut and nobody else.

The Swire Group is a diversified conglomerate with holdings across multiple sectors, including property, aviation, beverages and food chain, shipping, and the trading and

1 Established in Hong Kong in 1950, Hong Kong Aircraft Engineering Company Limited is among the world’s leading independent aircraft engineering

and maintenance groups and is one of the largest Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul service providers in terms of capacity.

2 An anchor bottler in the Coca-Cola System. It is the bottler of Coca-Cola and its related products in Hong Kong, Taiwan and most of mainland China, as well

as parts of 13 states in the United States, mainly the mountain west region. These combined territories represent a population of 420 million people.

industrial sectors. Many of the group’s core businesses are located within the Asia Pacific region, where traditionally Swire’s operations have centred on Hong Kong and Mainland China. Group subsidiaries include the airline Cathay Pacific, Swire Properties, HAECO1, Steamships Trading Company, Swire Beverages,2 and Swire Foods.

Swire, it is evident, does a lot of things in a lot of places. So is there a unifying thread that pulls everything together to create a shared corporate culture? The answer, perhaps unsurprisingly, is a rigorous and regimented approach to Executive Education and Development.

How IESE and Swire tailored an ‘Executive Leaders Program’ not only for the group but for each individual

“Swire is a very sophisticated company, providing its executives with world-class training.”Xili Wu, Program Director, Executive Education, IESE

THE SWIRE GROUPHQ: City of Westminster, London.Established: 1816Employees: 130,783

“It’s not just content - it’s how content is applied

to maximise interactions. I’m not saying

online elements couldn’t have

worked, only that they just weren’t

relevant in this context.”

Bruno Cassiman, Professor

of Strategic Management, IESE

5


Ethos International is Swire’s in-house leadership development company. It designs and delivers a suite of training programmes (structured as a development journey covering 20 years of an individual´s careers within Swire) for promising staff across the Swire group. These programmes ensure that participants develop the capabilities needed to perform and progress, aided by detailed assessments and highly tailored training. It is supplemented by enrolling managers in business management and executive programs at noted international institutions. Ethos’s training programmes emphasize sustainability and contribute to the ongoing development of a strong corporate culture and a style of leadership that is consistent with Swire values across all levels of leadership.

Swire’s top people rotate through the various businesses, sectors and global regions in which the group operates. This requires executives to be both grounded in an overarching corporate culture and adaptable to local conditions - a tricky balancing act that must be learned over time. Many are recruited straight out of university - the crème de la crème from the finest academic butteries. They will spend decades spiralling up the ziggurat, acquiring the skills and experience that qualify them to play at the highest level. Once at such lofty heights, what more have such people got left to learn?

Ethos’s General Manager, says the group has “a well-established approach to acquiring and raising executives.”

But he admits that the risk is that harmony becomes homogeneity. While not everything from outside such a large organization is worth internalizing, executives put dynamism at risk when they cease to look beyond their own corporate cloister. For that reason John Slosar, Chairman Swire Pacific, tasked Ethos to put together a tender for a multi-module custom program to be delivered by a top business school.

Around 15 schools submitted bids, The institution eventually chosen was, according to Ethos, the one best able to combine academic theory and real-world practice, with a dedication to providing a truly customised experience for both the business and the participant.

Carol Hamilton, General Manager of Ethos International, says “Ethos and Swire were very pleased to partner with IESE on such a prestigious programme. We respect their expertise in providing a customised executive learning experience.”

IESE, the graduate business school of the University of Navarra, with campuses in Barcelona, Madrid, Munich, New York, and Sao Paulo, first came into prominence in 1964 by launching Europe’s first two-year MBA program (under the guidance of the Harvard Business School). With the opening of its state-of-the-art New York campus in midtown Manhattan in April 2010, IESE became the first European business school to establish permanent operations in the US. In 2015, it opened its latest campus in the heart of

6


Munich, allowing IESE to better serve the German-speaking and Central European business community.

The IESE faculty were asked to prepare a program which, like the seats on the space shuttle, would conform to a basic set of requirements yet would be tailored (from the bottom up) around the particular profile of each individual participant. There are many custom programs out there which are designed and built around groups of individuals (X number of executives from function Y in region Z), but few are customized programs designed around where an individual is now, and where they are going to be in five years time.

The in-depth needs analysis began with the academic and program team interviewing prospective participants and

their bosses. Gaps in training were identified, the challenges they are (and will be) facing were scrutinized. The Executive Leaders Program (ELP) which emerged was a supercharged learning delivery vehicle, streamlined to the exact needs of

“Ethos and Swire were very pleased to partner with IESE on such a prestigious programme. We respect their expertise in providing a customised executive learning experience.”Carol Hamilton, General Manager, Ethos International

7


each participant, with serious academic engineering under the hood. While participants were given a reading list, and asked to do some preparation before and after each module, there was no online delivery - everything was face-to-face.

Each module was centred around a question. Module 1 asked, What is your strategy? Its key content, focused on strategy formulation and evaluation, dealt with the following topics:

� Dynamics of Competitive Advantage � Creating Value in Multi-Business Corporations � Digital Transformation: New Mindset for Innovation � Strategic Decision Making � Innovation Strategy

Delivered over four days, Module 1 included lectures focused on real world business trends. These included detailed evaluations of low cost airlines Vueling and Ryanair, Ducati, Tesla Motors, Pfizerworks, Abbott Pharma Europe, as well as the Maersk Group. The keynote speaker from Swire was Rupert Hogg, Chief Executive Officer of Cathay Pacific. Also introduced (on day 3) was the Executive Challenge, an action learning methodology that allows each participant to focus on a particular strategic challenge that they are facing in their current role, and create an action plan to tackle it.

An on-the-ground study tour made up Module 2. Held in Barcelona, Dusseldorf, and London, the module asked, How to bring the frameworks discussed in the classroom to life? Specifically in terms of:

8


� Looking at Best Practices � Leveraging on Technology � Multi-Business Portfolio Management � Strategy Communication � Operations as Source of Competitive Advantage � Structured Decision-Making � Agility, Innovation � Stakeholder Management

Day 1 of Module 2, held in Barcelona, looked in depth at ISS (the facility management, cleaning, security, technical, catering and support services company.) ISS was examined in terms of strategy development and transformation; creating value in a multi-business portfolio; acquisition integration; building a strong culture; people empowerment, as well as corporate social responsibility. This was followed by a dinner and cava-tasting at Cavas Codorniu (the world’s oldest and second-largest producer of bottle-fermented sparkling wine.)

In addition, Cavas Codorniu was considered in terms of managing a family business while maintaining continuous innovation.

Day 2 (Barcelona) focused on the Spanish clothing label Mango and included visits to facilities at Parets, Llicá, and to the Hanger (Design Center). There was detailed problem solving via two business cases as well as overviews of fast fashion / fast follower business models, strategy execution, stock allocation and keeping client preference.

Day 4 (London) involved an internet panel with Expedia/Hotel.com, Boxever (the Customer Intelligence Cloud that connects customer, product and operational data) and 2degrees (whose purpose-built technology makes their online collaboration programs the solution of choice for many global brands). The conversation touched on technology trends, consumer behaviour, tech business models, and agility.

Finally, the day ended with a visit to a major customer in the shipping field along with lunch at Swire’s London HQ.

Module 3 took place over five days asking the question How to get there? Its key strategy execution content included:

� Strategic Leadership – Taking Charge � Aligning Strategy and Operations � Leading Change � People, Team, & Capability Building � The Challenges of Strategy Execution � Communicating Strategy

Lecture titles included Aligning Strategy with Operations, Customer Centricity and Service Excellence as Key Strategic Advantage, and People, Team, & Capability Building. In addition, there was a workshop and computer simulation for participants, and they also heard from guest speaker Guy Bradley, the CEO of Swire Properties.

9


“The participants are high potentials with

very busy lives. To get their attention we made

sure the first module was the hardest.”

Bruno Cassiman, Professor of Strategic

Management, IESE

“A thought-provoking program that successfully

marries the latest academic thinking with practical case studies, study tours and hands-

on experience. The tailored nature of the

course combined with the focus on strategy and

implementation was perfect for giving us a leg up as we

take board positions and make strategic decisions.”

Rupert Bray, Marine Services Director, Swire

Pacific Offshore

10


During Module 3, participants also worked further on their Executive Challenge. They received structured feedback and peer recommendations on the particular issue that they face, enabling them to fine-tune their action plans.

Module 4, the final module, asked What’s Next? and provided participants with an opportunity to share and reflect on key learnings and findings. Specific attention was given to the implications for participants´ businesses and Swire going forward.

Not everyone who joins Swire (either straight out of college or later in their career) stays with the company for ever. Compared to their contemporaries in other organizations junior Swire executives may find themselves with less responsibility early on. Slow and steady is the name of the game. Swire’s programme regularly moves executives between sectors and geographies. Those that remain are determined, highly skilled and highly motivated.

The first cohort to progress through the ELP developed by IESE and Swire numbered just 13. Many had been with Swire for the better part of two decades. For Bruno Cassiman and

the academic faculty at IESE the greatest challenge going into a program aimed at such senior, high-achieving and experienced individuals was going to be proving that their customized program merited the participants’ attention and focus. The high relevancy of the course, tailored precisely to each individual participant, had their attention from day one.

The ELP takes high achievers and improves them still further. It does so not simply in terms of what they are doing already, but in how this unique customized program prepares them to take on even greater responsibility, in even more senior roles. The ELP represents a massive investment in each participant both as an individual and as a player on the corporate team. It’s a team that spans the globe, delivering products and services under brands that are familiar from Beijing to Birmingham, from Hong Kong to Houston.

The essential question posed by the team at Swire, and answered in collaboration with the IESE faculty, is whether the tried and tested can also be agile and adaptive. ELP is a very strong response to that question since, as with the customised seats, tailor made for each astronaut on the space shuttle, ELP is contoured to launch its participants into orbit.

“The high relevancy of the course, tailored precisely to each individual participant, had their attention from day one.”

Xili Wu, Program Director, Executive Education, IESE

ABOUT IESE BUSINESS SCHOOLIESE Business School delivers top-ranked programs that will advance your global leadership competencies. We offer an immersive learning experience that empowers you to step away from day-to-day responsibilities, reflect deeply and broaden your perspective exponentially. You can then return to use the knowledge and world-class leadership skills that will advance your career and your organization to new levels of success.

Ranked # 1 in the world for executive education by the Financial Times, IESE is unique in its global scope and reach. We have campuses, field-based research hubs and strategic alliances across five continents, a distinguished international faculty made up of leaders in business, education and research from all over the world, and a 45,000-strong alumni community that spans more than 100 nationalities. When you take a program with us, you have the world in your classroom.

www.iese.edu/en/executive-education/

Developing Leaders looks at the critical confluence between the provision of executive education and the real everyday needs of organizations to strengthen their management teams, their corporate performance, and their leadership.

DL+ are case studies with a difference. Combining technical methodology with a newsroom sensibility for storytelling. Getting to the heart of the best custom executive programs in the world.

Published by IEDP | www.iedp.com

http://www.iese.edu/en/executive-education/

http://www.vanderbiltexecutiveeducation.com

http://iedp.com

CREATING A SHARED CORPORATE CULTUREcorporate culture and adaptable to local conditions - a tricky balancing act that must be learned over time. Many are recruited straight out of university

Documents