transformation = peoplemanagement (dmr blue - detecon - best practice)

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Transformation = Peoplemanagement

www.detecon-dmr.com

DMRDetecon Management Report

2015blue

Special

INTERVIEWS WITH

Frank Dopheide, Verlagsgruppe Handelsblatt The Manager as a Brand

Dr. Markus Müller, Deutsche Telekom Telekom IT: More than Just an IT Service Provider

Dietrich Franz, DHL Supply Chain After the Transformation Is Before the Transformation

Daniel Markwig, SAP The AppHaus

Jens Bode, Henkel Laundry & Home Care Ideas Come from Inspiration and the Interaction of People

Various artists have taken a fresh approach to the interpretation of our fields and made major contributions to the design of our new Web site.

Pay us a visit at www.detecon.com

We have provided a public stage for art.

Art meets Consulting

Detecon’s business fields put us right in

the middle of one of the most exciting sea changes of

our time: the networking of global information and communications.

1 Detecon Management Report blue • 2015

Dear Readers,

Global markets today are dominated by a merciless battle: ICT is causing market entry barriers to fall left and right, while large corporations and incumbents face never-ending threats from new agile startups which practically redefine the markets overnight. This is the environment forcing companies to reconcile the demands for efficiency with the power of innovation into a harmoni-ous whole – a feat comparable to squaring the circle. The talent market has become global and keenly competitive as well because supply and demand are transparent.

The order of the day: anchoring transformation competence in corporate DNA as a fundamental prerequisite for the competitiveness and survival capability of companies and business models. This involves more than just the obvious tasks of implementing new structures and organizational forms; it demands a culture of willingness to change and “wanting to reinvent oneself constant-ly” – a culture of innovation. But how do you go about anchoring a culture of innovation in the company? What are the major factors for success? To find out, we talked to Jens Bode, an expert at Henkel, Dr. Markus Müller from Deutsche Telekom AG, or Thies-Christian Bruhn, General Manager of Kempinski.

The “knowledge society” has long since become reality. The employees – or, to be more precise, the oft-cited “knowledge workers” – are the critical asset for assuring success. All of the other, repetitive processes and standard procedures will be automated in the future. The future of work will concentrate on the optimal handling of knowledge, the build-up of transformation compe-tence, and the exploitation of the diversity of potential among employees. Transformation and people management must work hand in hand to generate expertise as a single entity. The situation includes a great opportunity for HR departments to redefine themselves completely and to secure for themselves a proactive role as “transformation coaches” in shaping companies. We show how this can be done within the framework of our analysis of the “Future of Personnel Management”. The discussions in this issue will once again cast an intense spotlight on the question of what characterizes high-performing teams, the people who are the foundation of successful organi-zations. The conversation with Major James Mullin III from the US Army about teams in extreme situations provides interesting insights, as do the academic findings of Professor Irene López from the Cologne Business School.

Along with Frank Dopheide, general manager of the Handelsblatt, we delve into the question of what elements of traditional brand management can be transferred to the positioning of top managers and how important this is for the sustained success of a company.

I hope all of you enjoy reading these provocative articles and that you will be able to make use of what you can learn from them in your daily work.

Sincerely,

Marc WagnerPartnerGlobal Head Transformation, People Management, and HR

Transformation= Peoplemanagement


Editor:Detecon International GmbHSternengasse 14-1650676 KölnGermany

[email protected]

Masthead: Supervisory Board:Thilo Kusch (Chairman)

Executive Board:Francis Deprez (CEO)Dr. Jens NebendahlLocal Court Cologne HRB 76144Registered Office: Cologne

Printing:Kristandt GmbH&Co.KGFrankfurt/Main

Photos:FotoliaiStockphoto

Content New Working Worlds

Work Where YOU Want to … 4

Interview with Dr. Bernhard Zünkeler, Forschungsinstitut artlab21

Molding the Workplace of the Future: A Fresh Breeze for Difficult Tasks and Innovation 8

Interview with Daniel Markwig, SAP AG

The AppHaus 14

KAIZEN – Beyond Process Optimization

Regarding the Mining of Kaizen Potential and Its Implementation in Daily Project Business 20

Interview with Jens Bode, Henkel Laundry & Home Care

“Ideas Come from Inspiration and the Interaction of People” 22

Interview with Dr. Heinrich Arnold, Telekom Innovation Laboratories

To Boldly Go where Telekom Has not Gone Before“ 26

Interview with Dietrich Franz, DHL Supply Chain

After the Transformation Is Before the Transformation 30

Interview with Dr. Markus Müller, Deutsche Telekom AG

Telekom IT: More than Just an IT Service Provider 36

Interview with Michael Leistenschneider

„Telco Landscape with Inestmable Drive“ 40

Digital Transformation Calls for a New Culture of Services

He Who Serves, Wins 46

Interview with Thies-Christian Bruhn, Kempinski Palace Portoroz

„The Fundamental Prerequisite for Me is the Personality of the Individual Employee“ 50

ICT4Development

How Communications Technologies Can Save the World 56

Pro bono Project with Africa Rise e.V.

How Digitalization Can Further Education in Africa 60


World Business Dialogue

Consultants and Students Look for Answers to the Challenges of the Future 64

Interview with Frank Dopheide, Managing Director of Verlagsgruppe Handelsblatt

The Manager as a Brand – Competitive Advantage in the Digital Age 68

Culture Change at Deutschen Telekom AG

Lead to Win – Deutsche Telekom‘s New Leadership Ambition 74

Interview with Major James E. Mullin III, U.S. Army

“War is a Chaotic Enterprise” 78

Interview with Prof. Dr. Irene López, Cologne Business School

High-performing Teams Support the Competitiveness of Company 84

Intercultural Leadership

Trust as the Basis for Successful Project Managementin Central and Eastern Europe 88

Magenta MOOC, Deutsche Telekom AG

Virtual Collaboration in the Entrepreneurial Context 92

Interview with Daniel Eckmann, Detecon International GmbH

„No One is Really Good without a High Positive Energy Level!“ 96

Plan Strategically – Operate with Excellence

The Future of HR Management 100

Future HR

New Challenges for Strategic HR Development 104

HR in the Cloud

Cloudy to Sunny? 108

The Authors 111

New Working Worlds

Work Where YOU Want to ...Sales and labor markets are characterized by disruption. What should companies do to deal with it? There is no end to the ideas for the design of work(places). But maximum flexibility in this context is subject to the achievement of a cultural transformation – and that takes staying power.


where you want ...

“Disruptive” is a buzzword which large corporations in particu-lar regularly find confronting them. New technologies give rise to completely new markets in record time – then cause them to vanish again. Market entry barriers in the traditional sense no longer exist, while the “pole position” believed to be so secure turns into a place at the back of the pack overnight. Writers frequently point to Nokia as an example of what can happen, but it is not alone. The monolithic structure of the entire media and magazine publishing industry is breaking up into its indi-vidual components. Many industries must suddenly deal with completely divergent challenges and sectors. Automotive giants, for instance, now find themselves threatened by Internet corpo-rations such as Google; only a few years ago, such competitors could safely be ignored because they were “irrelevant for the in-dustry”. This development has been fired in no small degree by the enormous technological progress in the ICT sector; no longer viewed as simply an “enabler”, it is regarded now as THE unpa-ralleled “disruptor”.

Moreover, incumbents especially are caught up in a merciless struggle involving much more than their sales market – globali-zation and new companies such as Google, which in the eyes of high potentials are far more attractive, have initiated a bitter fray to acquire the best young talent of the future. The “war for talent” is reality – in no small part because knowledge workers represent the strategic asset, the differentiation edge for companies, and secondary processes are becoming more and more automated or (in part) shifted over to the customers. So the loss of “top perfor-mers” to the competition can quickly turn into a serious problem because these employees take with them knowledge advantages. Another challenge for companies comes from the sharp decline in loyalty to a specific company, especially among high potentials. The task and an exciting environment top their list of desirable attributes; the “great name” is no longer decisive. So companies are operating in a disruptive environment on the labor market as well.

Maximum flexibility and adaptability are the order of the day – a matter of viewpoint

This is especially true for large corporations. They must deal with a range of different challenges, all of which are cropping up at the same time. The maximum flexibility demanded by the market extends to virtually all areas of work design, including working hours or the working location. If they do not have structures characterized by maximum flexibility and flowing parameters, companies are vulnerable to the forces of change and lack res-ilience. Ultimately, the transforming power of disruptive tech-nologies ensures that traditional working methods and processes

as well as rigid hierarchical structures and line organizations can no longer keep up with the pace. In addition, the question “Is big still beautiful?” must be asked. Companies with a workforce numbering in the hundreds of thousands (and we can find plenty of them among the DAX 30 corporations) lack the agility men-tioned above.

Flexible working hours, parental leave, tandem solutions, job rotation, sabbaticals, or home office and mobile working are only some of the catchwords making the rounds today. The opportu-nity to schedule working hours flexibly is a fundamental prere-quisite for agile structures and the ability to adapt for companies. However, complex regulations related to the protection of jobs and provisions in collective bargaining agreements or even in individual agreements within a single company are frequently a hindrance, especially in Germany. In global corporations, their internationality itself can lead to a virtually impenetrable jungle of agreements which must be taken into account when schedul-ing working hours.

Maximum ability to change is decisive for the determination of the physical work location as well, and the desire to cut costs is by no means an insignificant factor here. However, at the time the occupancy of a property is planned management cannot truly predict who will actually move in when the building has finally been completed. The continuous changes in corporate structures make planning almost completely impossible. Flexible utilization of office space must today be integrated right from the planning stage for new office buildings. The property becomes future-proof because a response to new demands in working structures is possible at any time. The objective must be to create the ap-propriate working environments which can be used by different employees for varying activities – whether for work demanding mental concentration, creativity sessions, meetings, or for quiet and relaxation. In line with the heading of “activity-based working”, the inte-rior design follows the requirements resulting from employees’ activities. Zones providing conditions for mental concentration, fostering creativity, supporting project work, or (especially) infor-mal communication are only some of the possible permutations. So-called “desksharing” is becoming the standard – regardless of the hierarchy in place. In its “maximum manifestation”, ma-nagement and employees share the workplaces in an open office structure because most of the confidentiality requirements, for instance, can be covered by providing retreat rooms and lockable containers. The so-called “cellular office” has come to the end of its service life. After all, work is an activity which, owing to the spread of knowledge work, is not tied to a specific location and

„



can be done from anywhere: at home, while on the go, and, of course, in an office. In some cases, it becomes possible to reduce the required floor space in office buildings drastically, leading in turn to substantial cost savings.

However, it pays to keep in mind that agile and flexible working structures of this type clearly make the management of employees more demanding. New regulations and agreements are required. Where do I now find my colleagues? When is my employee/colleague at home and when in the office? How can I hold my regularly scheduled meetings with employees who are scattered all around the globe? How can I assess employees when I can-not constantly observe their work? How is it at all possible for me to monitor what my employees do all day long? How am I, the manager, supposed to evaluate performance at all under these conditions?

A culture of results rather than physical presence? Yes, but ...

Unless there is the oft-cited transformation of culture, nothing will change. But implementing such a transformation is easier said than done. Endurance and perseverance are required for a funda-mental transformation of culture. Large corporations especially often run up against open and – even more dangerous – hidden resistance as soon as changes are scheduled for implementation. Quite often, the factor leading to blockades is managers’ fear that they will lose control. But anyone who wants to successfully flexi-

bilize working hours and locations must build up a genuine cul-ture of trust. If such a culture is not consistently instilled throug-hout the organization, the project is doomed to failure. Managers must understand: the “command and control” model belongs on the garbage heap of obsolete management styles.

Clear communication and participation are the drivers criti-cal for success when establishing a culture of trust. Managers and employees must talk to one another, or flexible working environments will not be viable. The aim must be to create trans-parency regarding personal reachability and activities which have previously been agreed by the parties and which serve as the ba-sis for the performance assessment. This supports a course away from a culture of physical presence and toward one of results. While on the subject of clear agreements: dealing with one ano-ther in an open, flexible office world is not possible without rules of the game. The “clean desk” principle must live and breathe – dirty dishes, family photos, or personal papers on the desk are taboo because the employee’s “own” desk may be used by one of the colleagues the next day. Moreover, people must be more considerate of others when talking in the “office”. Loud phone calls, a chat at the neighbor’s desk, or spontaneous get-togethers of colleagues outside of the meeting zones must be avoided. Ex-cesses like this can be nipped in the bud by engaging all of the “office residents” in drawing up an “open office manifesto” and accepting responsibility for its observance.

Source: Detecon

Figure: Workforce of the future

Old world: one working place for all activities

At homeActivity-based working

On the go In the office

Open office worlds Think tanks Creative spaces Reteat rooms


Our experience and the feedback from many different implemen-tation projects have indicated that flexible, especially virtual colla-boration functions and is accepted only if the right infrastructure is in place and is absolutely reliable. Otherwise, the acceptance level for the models described above will quickly reach the end of its tether and employees will again start concentrating their work in physical presence meetings in the office. Repeated and frequented interruptions of video conferences, inadequate band-width, or slow laptops are only some of the killers for acceptance.

Change management or ... believers needed!

Confronted with the demand to consider the dimensions people, work location, and infrastructure all at the same time and the enormous complexity of this field of work, however, many com-panies ask themselves how a rigid organization with traditional “command and control” management style, functional silos, and a “culture of physical presence” can possibly be transformed into a flexible and agile enterprise. Before long, the calls for “change management”, for costly change tools and formats, become loud – in no small part because the contrary interests of social part-ners, facility management, HR department, and business units must somehow be reconciled with one another. But if all of these entities are to pull together in the same direction and if a true change in behavior is to occur, two fundamental preconditions must be assured: the support of top management and the resolute promotion of disseminators. True believers must be found so that the status quo does not surreptitiously dig in behind the façade of

OLD WORLD

NEW WORLDDepartment, Hierarchy Team, Network

Time, Control Results, Trust

Supervisor, One Way Coaching 360 Degrees

Work = Place Activity-based Working

Line Work, Department Project, Team

SmartWorking

Learn more about the subject of the “New Working Worlds and Smart Working” by going to:

www.detecon.com/en/Expertise/Consulting_Areas/Transformation

the brave new office world and the theoretical work models. The guiding principle: do not bite off too much at once, but imple-ment the transformation into a new working world in small and digestible steps. The conduct of managers is of enormous signifi-cance. They must incorporate the principles of the new, flexible, and often virtual working cultures in their own performance and encourage the employees to do likewise. Without this approach, long-established processes will never give way slowly to newer, flexible structures.

The positive and financial effects will be felt a little at a time. This is why the immediate question during a holistic redesign of the working world should not be about the business case. The high cost savings and increases in productivity documented in numerous studies can be achieved only over a sustained period. The first step is to convince the top management that the work flexibility described here will contribute to the long-term success of the company – as well as prepare it more effectively for disrup-tive changes!


Molding the Workplace of the Future: A Fresh Breeze for Difficult Tasks and Innovation

Interview with Dr. Bernhard Zünkeler, Founder of the Research Institute artlab21

Thoughts are free, according to an old folk song. But if you have ever been engulfed by everyday office life, you know perfectly well that thoughts are far from taking off in free flight. Future Work concepts step in here to secure liberties and to create a working environment offering stimuli and inspiration for “breaking out of the daily madness.”


DMR: Future Work is a buzzword now making the rounds; many companies are giving it serious consideration. What do you think has stirred such great interest in this subject?

Dr. Zünkeler: I believe that there are two fundamental aspects here. One is that we have reached a point where most employees have run up against their limits in terms of communication technology and how much more information they can pro-cess. We are interconnected as never before and we act within a global context – everything has to be done right now and immediately and always using a number of different media at the same time. You reach a point where you ask yourself how efficient and sensible all of that really is. It’s wonderful that we are all interconnected with one another, but there aren’t any real rules for dealing with the situation, and we are more likely to have the feeling of a “hamster on its wheel”. We struggle in vain to keep up and suddenly realize that many of the things which once provided us with a quiet or protective zone no longer exist. Whether we are in our own office or in the Italian restaurant around the corner in the evening, we are always reachable and feel like we must always be ready to perform. This is paralleled by phenomena which are known in today’s world as burn-out. But in truth, this is a perfectly natural defense reaction in the sense of “Look out, I’m now going to pull the plug on all of those people who want to rule my life.” This is not really a sign of illness; it is a personal response to the phenomenon of the employee as a “jack (and master as well) of all trades”. This is exactly where Future Work can provide an answer or a concept so that it never reaches this point to begin with.

DMR: ... or perhaps a driver and accelerator for this trend. What must we keep an eye on here?

Dr. Zünkeler: That is a good point. Depending on how you interpret “Future Work”, it can of course have the effect of raising the level of acceleration and reinforce the consequences described above. Since work can be done from anywhere today and the concept of “work life-balance” can practically be deleted from dictionaries because there is no longer any real separati-on, a Future Work concept must counteract exactly this situa-tion – by creating quiet zones, quiet points, and opportunities to break away from the complete domination of our lives by others. In my opinion, this also means in particular granting new freedom to employees and ensuring that the created envi-ronment offers stimuli and inspiration which make the “break-out from the daily madness” possible. This topic is intertwined with generational issues as well. A younger generation certainly feels differently about this. On the one hand, they are much more relaxed in dealing with the subject of third-party deter-mination. On the other hand, they alleviate some of the stress

by being more fluid in their agreements. I am an Internet im-migrant and still remember well the days when appointments were canceled only in exceptional cases. Today people tend to move slowly toward each other when setting appointments or the content of discussion; sometimes it takes three emails and four text messages to come to a binding agreement. That is how fluid things have become, and a younger generation is more likely to be accustomed to this and develops intuitively “defense mechanisms”.

DMR: What about the quality of the work being done by employees? How productive are they in this complex, highly interconnected workplace which is being flooded with information?

Dr. Zünkeler: The quality of the work is for me the second aspect why Future Work is in such high demand. At some point, we start to ask ourselves just how effective and crea-tive employees really can be if they are driven constantly, and how do we deal with this constant state of communication? Creativity does not necessarily light up when a person under stress attempts to work in three media at the same time; it pre-fers places where the circumstances are different. I’m not saying that tightly-structured and planned working hours do not have their place – on the contrary, we need that. But from time to time, people should expose themselves to other things, inspi-ration, and spaces. I would say that the Pareto principle comes into play here: 80% planned – 20% spontaneous. Moreover, we must learn to deal effectively with media, and that means sometimes setting aside or leaving out certain media or at least thinking about priority clusters of media. Someone might come up with completely different results if a subject is approached from a different angle or in a different physical environment while eschewing the usual methodology. Technology is in some ways a miracle tool – everything is possible, but we must learn how to handle it properly and to recalibrate the things for us. One should always observe the form in which certain media, work methods, and environments influence employees. And what the effects are on the virtual and physical space. Most of the time, only the material objects are taken into account, and we overlook the fact that in many cases it has more to do with the energy field which is all around us. Future Work is a holistic approach.

DMR: What do you mean by energy field here?

Dr. Zünkeler: Even though it may sound a little esoteric – ulti-mately, we are still cavemen. We cannot simply wipe out many of our traits, which have evolved over the period of three million years, within just 30 years merely because the most recent de-velopments have radically turned our life upside-down in many


Dr. Bernhard Zünkeler studied law and art history as an undergraduate before earning his doctorate in law (Dr. jur.); he worked as an attorney-at-law for more than ten years, specializing in labor and corporate law. Just under seven years ago, he founded the research institute artlab21, which explores the development potential of diversity. His relationship with Detecon comes from the joint conduct of the project Art Works, which he guided in collaboration with numerous international artists and Orange Council. Bernhard Zünkeler lives and works in Berlin and Los Angeles.

Marc Wagner, Partner, Global Lead Transformation & People Management, about ARTWORKS by Detecon:

„Is the following situation familiar to you? You go from your study, where you have been brooding over a problem for hours, for a walk in the woods – andsuddently the solution to the problem is within reach. You ask yourself: Why didn’t I think of that before? What happend? You are ripped out of your accustomed environment, leave the worn path or the monotonous highway, and suddenly you are in a new place. What does this have to do with arti-stic design? Artistic design – as you can see in our Detecon offices – can deliberately generate friction which stirs observers into rethinking ideas and drags them out of the ruts of their usual thought processes. This “disruptive effect” and deliberate polarization are the declared purpose. You may think the art is great, inspiring, bizarre, confusing, illuminating, thought-provoking, or perhaps just tasteless. The important thing is that your emotions are aroused and a contrast to the otherwise very rigid corporate environ-ments oriented to efficiency is achieved. Humor also plays an important role. Another fundamental building block of the concept is to encourage coincidental contacts and points of interaction – a major prerequisite for encouraging creativity and new ideas.

Within the framework of the ARTWORKS concept, the winner of a number of awards (German Design Award/Art Directors Club Award), we deliberately chose this path and have created visual irritants which pursue precisely this goal: triggering new chains of thought, wanting to be creative, and looking for explanation, whether the “Green Room”, “The Bavarian Parlor”, or the interplay of images and words. Everything has a purpose! The realization is not chic, stylish, and uniform throughout like in some Smart Working installations; it is instead individual, comfortable, practical, pragmatic, and has its own soul – an expression of our culture and our DNA.“

www.detecon.com


respects. What I mean is that we have and need certain bio-rhythms, and that is why we perceive certain things around us as intuitively right or as intuitively false. This includes a lot of things such as rest periods, sleep, and other things which pro-mote our individual ability to perform. This is all the more true in a business world which is increasingly fragmented and often negates these power centers that every one of us needs. In the end, the performance one hoped to enhance suffers a negative impact.

DMR: That makes it sound as if Future Work were also a means for deceleration.

Dr. Zünkeler: Yes, you could put it that way. But I would like to emphasize very clearly at this point that in the end it is a question of heightening effectiveness. At this time, we frequently expe-rience the exact opposite: gas pedal pushed to the floorboard, the transmission in neutral. We often see new media being used to process the same ideas, just faster, instead of stepping back to take a deep breath and to think about possible new solutions. That reminds me of someone who rattles the doorknob on a locked door and then, because the door doesn’t open, rattles the doorknob even more wildly. Future Work should be in a position to find the key for someone like this instead of making him more nervous. For me, this takes place in two dimensions. For one, Future Workplace is the immediate physical environ-ment in which I exist, produce, and live. Circumstances are certainly different today than they were just a couple of years ago and has a lot to do with personal mobility – it has become substantially easier and less expensive to go from A to B. This also means that the personal environment must be considered from a new viewing angle in terms of Future Work. Physical-ly decelerating means that isolated pockets where there are no controls must be allowed to appear. Places where there are no plans, if you like. This is my highly personal opinion, but I be-lieve people frequently succumb to the illusion that everything can be planned and managed. Reality teaches us that coin-cidence plays a far greater role, even for the personal sphere. And if you have not been granted sufficient “authorization to deviate from plan”, that will give you a headache. New media offer enormous opportunities for flexibilization. But someone using them top-down unilaterally will end up banging his head against a brick wall. The freedom to make decisions is con-sequently a very elementary and self-evident part of personal well-being and often the source of creativity and innovation. Last, but not least, virtually nothing is really plannable today – our surroundings, the environment of companies, everything is subject to constant and ongoing change, yet we still attempt to plan and control everything more and more tightly. Complete-ly counterproductive in my mind when the aim is to “waken

creative minds”! And a complete waste of time in many cases because you are always running after incidents with a plan that did not match actual events. That is why an environment must support this “unplanned” and “coincidental”, whether through “plan flexibilization”, the opportunity for coincidental encoun-ters, or through visual disruptions and stimuli which encourage reflection and “thinking differently”. We have taken many of these factors into account while implementing Smart Working at Detecon. However, it is important that people actually live the entire scheme and that it continues to evolve; otherwise, people fall back into tried and proven patterns and routines. This relapse can be prevented through continuous redesign or the deliberate replacement of objects in the environment. When the issue is deliberate deceleration, “relaxation and quiet zones” in the company are beyond a doubt inadequate. Instead, the corporate culture and the working style of the employees must support this objective, whether through the creation of con-scious personal time periods in which employees can work on their favorite projects or through the opportunity to schedule working hours and work truly flexibly – and the ones “at the top” must act as role models. Quite often we experience emplo-yees displaying a very positive attitude toward a Future Work initiative, but the managers are reluctant to let go of their right to control everything or equate “performance culture” with the hamster wheel mentioned above. This is a topic which must start all the way at the top.

DMR: ... And what role is played by modern media and ICT in this context?

Dr. Zünkeler: We will enjoy new and groundbreaking oppor-tunities from current and future modern media. But for some reason, people have not yet really given this enough thought. I compare this with an example of the Indian tribe which was invited to come to Washington to sign treaties for reservations. The men announced to the president of the United States of America that their bodies had arrived, but they would have to wait another three days for their spirits to complete the jour-ney. This sounds like a most peculiar story, but it demonstrates clearly that it must be possible to turn off thinking processes sometimes so that you can understand what is going on in and around you. Essentially, subjects such as jet lag and burn-out are manifestations of this phenomenon. These two things must be brought together when talking about Future Work; they can-not be separated, in my opinion. “Moore’s Law” and the related advance of technology cannot negate our origins and the entire process of evolution ... And where it took almost one hundred years to make the technological leap from the letter to the gene-rally available telephone line and for practical and accepted rules to take shape, this process for email and cell phones has taken


just a little more than a decade. So we are just now starting to discover the incredible benefits, but also the risks. It is the dawn of an unbelievably exciting time – and Future Work is right in the middle.

DMR: Physical design also plays a key role for you in the holistic Future Work concept. How can rooms help us to turn off and be creative?

Dr. Zünkeler: Companies can and should use rooms and physi-cal design of rooms to encourage conscious breaking out. Here is an example from agriculture. During the 1960s, America and Russia competed with each other to see who could produce more corn or wheat. As a result, entire land areas were practically kar-stified. There was no sensitivity to the subject of monoculture at that time; the sole target was to increase effectiveness at any price. No one noticed until it was far too late that entire land areas are burned off, destroyed, by the use of such methods and become completely non-arable after only a few harvests. I also see an analogous risk for employees. That is to say, something which is stringently planned from start to finish, a total mono-culture, will seem boring, monotonous, and difficult for every employee. Another critical point is that close-meshed planning density increases the risk within the operation of “blind faith

in the plan” or “working by the book”. It is not especially easy for leadership, empowerment, and creativity to take root and flourish in this type of monoculture. Time set aside and a space for the unplanned and the here and now become important in this case. This space must also be aggressively integrated into the structure of the company. With respect to the Future Work-place, this means that there must be rooms in which a different direction is deliberately taken and an ambiance is created to pro-vide completely new and different stimuli. This is like a Post-it sticker on the refrigerator on which you have written something simply so that you are repeatedly reminded of it.

DMR: When it comes to a possible implementation, nothing will be accomplished without the support of management. However, no concept can function properly if it is not supported by the employees. How do you deal with this paradox?

Dr. Zünkeler: Perhaps we can call it a “desirable guerrilla tac-tic”? In any case, the point is to create areas in the company where a new way of thinking can develop and is allowed to deve-lop. Disseminators must be found among the workforce so that they can be interconnected and, acting together, make some-thing happen. This must take place away from the treadmill of the company so that they can simply act faster. Otherwise, these


disseminators will run themselves to death relatively quickly if they are moving with the gigantic machinery of the company or must move within these processes to make a difference. Of course, all of this must be supported and encouraged by ma-nagement, or it won’t work. And here we are again, back at the room to breathe which must be created. This is the common theme running through all of the discussions: whether perso-nal working hours, individual availability, the burdens I put on people or the physical surroundings I give them – there must always be areas where I allow employees the right to try out something completely different or to withdraw personally and shape their free space themselves. A company must be capable of carrying out ideas unconventionally, be able to come back to the employee time and time again, and to grant him or her certain liberties. This is where I think it is absolutely essential for the HR department in a company to enter the game. If the HR department is not a loud and strong advocate for its own employees in this regard, the whole business will become rela-tively difficult. In my opinion, the generation of free spaces and spaces for free thinking are elementary. And I am not talking only about physical rooms here. The spatial aspect and its de-sign make it much simpler for people to recognize that they can think differently here and that it is even encouraged. This can be an initial and powerful indication of change and usually makes

a more lasting impression than an email memo. A highly visible sign of a corporate culture which can ultimately make sure that result-oriented management and flexibility are not empty pro-mises. Tangible proof, truly experienced, of the successful inter-play of management with the employees.

DMR: After all, it is supposed to be a concept for the employees of the particular company ...

Dr. Zünkeler: Exactly. In an age when linear processes are shifting more and more to computerized systems, the impor-tant question for companies is this: How do we generate new thoughts? And that quickly takes us to art. The question about new thoughts is an elementary one for artists. How am I in-spired? How do I become innovative? How do I fire my ima-gination? How do I create things that stir enthusiasm? These are also questions which the employees of a company should ask so that they can find out what elements are important for them and what they are looking for in a physical and cultural environment. Then, and only then, will something result which contributes to a positive atmosphere and a good environment in the company.

DMR: Thank you for these fascinating insights. Phot

os: B

ernd

Zöl

lner


SAP brings clients to creative workshops in the AppHaus. A success story, as Daniel Markwig sums it up. The designer, also lovingly known as the

“AppHausmeister”, and his team created the concept for the facility. He gives us some insights into the creation and work methods of the house – and knows about

the good luck of not being at the center of focus at the right time ...

The AppHaus

Interview with Daniel Markwig, Chief Instigator and AppHausmeister the SAP AppHaus in Heidelberg


DMR: Innovation and fostering creativity are top subjects in many companies. What is their position at SAP, and what role does the AppHaus play in this context?

D. Markwig: We are a technology company. That is why we always tend to associate innovation with technological develop-ments. Sometimes it is difficult to communicate that the most fantastic new development is only as good as the use cases you can find for it. The team that runs the AppHaus is the Design and Co-Innovation Center; we conduct above all co-innovation projects with clients. Our primary goal is to find solutions for our clients which are suitable from a user-centric perspective. We examine the end users, the clients’ customers, very closely and attempt to solve use cases. We always hope that the solution we find will turn out to be as innovative as possible. The Design Thinking approach is an excellent means for accomplishing this. We must begin with an exploration of the problem space so that we can find out what kind of problems actually have to be solved. Only then do we turn our attention to what the concrete solution might be. Is it possibly the new SAP HANA database or a product which we have had in our portfolio for 20 years, or is it something that we have to build from the ground up? The AppHaus helps us to find the right problem. We can offer a space to the clients where they can talk very openly and without distractions about the things they want to achieve. Clients can focus very narrowly on themselves. This is a different viewing angle than the one taken in many traditional sales or consulting situations. We don’t start with saying that we have a fantastic so-lution that fits the clients; instead, we initiate a dialog with the clients. This is supported by our space [room in the AppHaus].

DMR: Does the contact to the clients come from other units at SAP, or do you acquire clients yourselves?

D. Markwig: Both. About 60% of our orders come from our existing accounts or from Board queries. We do our own busi-ness development and offer certain design services for the other 30% to 50%. More and more clients we have never had any previous contract with are referring explicitly to their accounts and saying that they have heard about the AppHaus and would like to work with us. So we are receiving more and more queries without ever have to push ourselves explicitly to the forefront. For me, this very definitely means that the AppHaus is a success story.

DMR: You just mentioned Design Thinking as a method. There are traditional centers such as the Human Centered Design at Swiss-Com which offer very specific methodologies. What can we imagine in this respect in your case?

D. Markwig: We definitely proceed methodologically in the sense of Design Thinking, User Centered Design, and Custo-mer Co-Innovation. However, we adapt our toolbox for each specific project – a luxury we can afford because we have such a broad set of skills on the team. One positive aspect for us is that we are a part of the product development organization and do not belong to the sales or consulting organization, so we aren’t a profit center. We can demand, for instance, that we need 50 man-days and not just 20 for a project. In a case like this, we have the opportunity to sponsor the difference. We even like to do so when we conduct the first project with clients to prove that better results are achieved through greater investment in the direction of design and a relationship to the client or end user. We rely here on the learning effect from our previous pro-jects. Our long-term goal must of course be the creation of awa-reness. Customers must be prepared to invest more in design and user experience.

DMR: How exactly do you bill that?

D. Markwig: If designer-days have already been purchased, we can sponsor a couple of additional designer consulting days from our own funds. We don’t work completely for free, of course. It must be clear to clients that they are buying design. The Design and Co-Innovation Center which operates the AppHaus is a design team within SAP’s product organization – that means we have designers and a few project managers on the team, but not our own developers. Naturally, most of our work must be cost-neutral or, even better, profitable. But our team’s core task is to deliver “best of breed” design. If need be we throw in a small amount of sponsorship, always with an eye on the long-term goal of getting the client to recognize the added value and be prepared to pay for it at some point.

DMR: Are you still in the starting phase?

D. Markwig: Yes. However, this is highly dependent on the specific client. Clients with whom we have been working for a very long time certainly see that the quality of the products has improved and that the subsequent costs of the products have de-clined since we implemented this new focus. It really is true that an improved user experience leads to lower training and main-tenance costs because overall the error rate among users falls. So there are measurable improvements for a good user experience. Of course clients realize that this is a relevant point.


DMR: We are interested in hearing about space, design, working areas, and how you can succeed in getting employees to “join in”. What experience have you had regarding these points for the App-Haus concept, from the assigned task back at the beginning to today?

D. Markwig: The AppHaus has a history that began in the USA in 2011. The original idea really was to assemble an agile deve-lopment team including all relevant roles such as developers, designers, and product managers and place them into a buil-ding suitable for a startup, then give them the task of developing apps, small consumer products. In the meantime, there are 13 AppHauses throughout SAP, but they all have an inward focus. We here in Heidelberg are the first one to clients to come and work with us here. We don’t have a development team, just a design team. When I think back about our road to this point, it was an amazingly agile process for SAP. In February 2013, we had five or six people on the team. The Board had given us the assignment to grow, and we needed more space so that we could work with clients. Thus we decided to set up a project space. We moved into the AppHaus in October 2013 – that is a very short time period for a large corporation. We would not have succeeded if the following three conditions had not been met. First, we had excellent support from our organisation’s Chief Operating Officer (COO). It was less a question of the funds he made available to us and more a matter of eliminating bureau-cratic obstacles. The landlords also gave us tremendous support because they took over much of the construction work for us; above all, it was done very fast and in a short time. For example, the doors had been painted white and loaded onto the trucks when we said that we wanted red doors – so they were unloaded and repainted. Second, Facility Management at SAP exercised very little control because they had a huge facility management project running in Potsdam at the same time, the SAP Innova-tion Center near the Hasso Plattner Institute. Looking back, the creative interpretation of regulations was quickly put into perspective by the enthusiasm of clients and colleagues – and even from Facility Management side itself. The third condition which contributed to our success was the commitment and the effort the team itself brought to the project. We not only made all of the decisions ourselves, from the flooring to the laying of the power lines, we even built a lot of the furniture oursel-ves. This was ultimately the decisive factor for the tremendous enthusiasm among the team and the stakeholders. It was quite a contrast to what you would have expected from SAP.

DMR: What kind of agreements were reached with you as the pro-ject manager?

D. Markwig: We have three key people on the team who always hold all the reins in their hands: our people manager, me, the project manager, and one employee who is highly dedicated to the space. But in fact we repeatedly took the time, in an agile way, to look back at what had been done. Then we asked the team how they felt, what worked well, and what could be im-proved. Someone on the team, for instance, would come up with the idea to have bookcases or benches for the workshop room. Then the same person who had this idea turned it into a mini-project to carry out the suggestion. This was how the Scheherezade Room with its Arabian Nights theme came to be. The team is supposed to find self-fulfillment and create a home of their own. We call this a “sense of ownership”: giving people the feeling that they are in charge of their environment. Almost all employees spend more time in their offices or at work than in their own living rooms. So why shouldn’t the employees also have a say in their working environment? Of course we cannot let ourselves go totally wild, but so far the feedback we have received from our guests and employees is that they feel com-fortable here – and in the end, that is what we wanted to com-municate.

DMR: How did you manage to get the social partners on board?

D. Markwig: In the second week, we had a visit from a delega-tion sent to us by the works council. They explicitly came here with the idea of rescuing us from this venue because it was an open-plan office without its own canteen, far away from the main campus, and did not even have its own parking spaces at that time ... These are perhaps the expectations held by a classic SAP employee. But our team is happy here and does not need to be rescued. In the course of the discussion, we asked the works council representatives to go into the team’s working area and ask the colleagues themselves if they felt at ease here. That caused a major shift in the perspective during the discussion. We started talking about how the things we have learned here could perhaps be transferred to Walldorf [SAP headquarters] as well.

DMR: That is an important question. How can a concept be trans-ferred and applied to the entire corporation? What do you consider to be the success factors?


D. Markwig: As I see it, there are a number of important factors. I have absolutely no doubt that including the team in a redesign of this nature is one of them. I understand that you cannot give just any team all the freedom it wants, that there must be certain rules, and that not every person would like to become involved to the extent that we did. The employees on our team are simp-ly accustomed to interacting physically with their environment and not just at the monitor. It was completely normal for them, for instance, that they would build a bookcase. We have lear-ned in various projects at SAP that an iterative process is very helpful. In Walldorf, we designed rooms in cooperation with a highly respected furniture manufacturer several years ago. They turned out to be very beautiful rooms, but unfortunately at the beginning they did not exactly suit the teams who needed to use the rooms. So it took a lot of time and effort to change the rooms to make them a good fit. I can imagine that it would not have been necessary to do so much correction work if the relevant team had been more closely involved right from the start. Another factor is that internal functions at companies, whether IT or facility management, are not seen as service orga-nizations, but as governance organizations. In reality, a team like ours expects facility management to be a service organization. Certainly it will be necessary in the future to consider whether these organizations will not have to instill more of a customer-oriented attitude in their approach.

DMR: We see a good opportunity for facility management to emancipate itself and move away from being strictly a unit for the optimization of efficiency in a building, offering instead its own consulting services which provide optimal guidance in the design of an environment. But that is a contentious discussion point at the moment.

D. Markwig: In my opinion, that is also a generation issue. We see that a lot of the employees in facility management, particu-larly at the higher levels, understand that they must change. But just as in any other company, there are also people in the middle levels who are protecting their principalities. They frequently have a very clear picture of how things should and must run. I imagine – in the long term, anyway – that it will certainly be possible to build up an excellent relationship between the ser-vices which we can offer in a consulting function through our facility management. We see how our space has a special impact on our clients, simply because it is different. One would have to embrace this context a little and exploit it to bring changes about within a company.

DMR: The design of the space on premises is presumably an ongoing process.

D. Markwig: Yes, of course. Moreover, it is extremely impor-tant that there are ongoing discussions about the objectives one wants to achieve. This is a question which facility management almost inevitably answers with “Save money!” But sometimes I want, more than anything else, to surprise the clients or offer an especially good working environment or foster creativity and communication or improve the productivity of software devel-opers. This thinking about these specific objectives for the con-crete space does not take place right now. But if we could get to that point, then the problem of always wanting something that is as new as possible would disappear. I then have the chance to establish myself more solidly in this framework and to fulfill my demands by changing something now and then.

DMR: How can the environment support creative processes, especially in view of what you have created here?

D. Markwig: We have three key words we position. First is enablement: we make it possible for people to become creative in a technical sense by offering them workplaces conceived in the sense of Design Thinking – lots of whiteboard areas, stan-ding tables, and a certain degree of flexibility. Second, we offer inspiration by providing a workshop-like space which shows that the work done here is truly hands-on. There are no con-ference tables where one person gives a presentation and the others simply consume what is said; we generate an atmosphere of genuine collaboration. The third key word is permission, i.e., the permission to do something. People often do not dare to change anything. Since everything here can be moved around and always looks unfinished, it creates an atmosphere of “Let’s just try something!” This atmosphere is not limited to the space itself, but extends to encompass the content of our work. The clients we invite to come here are more willing just to try out something wild or crazy. They arrive with the expectation that they will see a presentation – but before long, they are rolling up their sleeves and the ties have been flung into the corner. (Laughs) We force people to embrace the space and put them into groups they would not expect. As a result, they forget about the hierarchies. We recently conducted a workshop for a large company involving people from all of the different hierarchical levels, from end users to management board members. The fas-cinating element here was that some of them did not know the people they were collaborating with; it was not until the end of the day that they learned they had been working with a Board member – and they had just naturally used the informal form of


Daniel Markwig is project manager

for the AppHaus in Heidelberg in the SAP

SE Design and Co-Innovation Center. He

studied mechanical engineering at the TU

Kaiserslautern and integral design at the

State Academy of Visual Arts in Stuttgart;

he has been working as a designer at

SAP since 2005. Here he designed user

interfaces for business software, was

one of the first Design Thinking coaches,

guided the introduction of agile software

development methods, and worked with

SAP clients to develop and implement

product ideas. He is currently in charge of

the strategic evolvement of the AppHaus

concept within SAP.

http://experience.sap.com/designservices/apphaus


address. The consequence is a different form of communication and a different flow of information within the framework of a project. As we go about breaking down structures, it is impor-tant for me that we surprise people. This need not be unpleasant, quite the contrary; my experience has shown that the situation the people are put in is very pleasant for them. They are relieved of the burden of responsibility, just go with the flow, they are not in a position in which they must produce something or else, but can just ride along with the situation. We help them to look at things from a different perspective. The important thing is that they feel at ease – it won’t work otherwise.

DMR: How do you manage to take people out of their comfort zone without the situation becoming awkward for them?

D. Markwig: That quite often happens automatically. People are so surprised by what is done with them here that they simply accept whatever comes their way because at this point they don’t yet understand what we want from them. For the moment, they slip into a different role, they are supposed to forget everything they knew this morning and start thinking about things diffe-rently. Of course we know that these people will later return to their former roles. But for this one day it is important that they think differently.

DMR: How can the long-term effects of something like this be se-cured? Is it possible, looking at the whole company, to generate a spirit and change something in its culture?

D. Markwig: The subject of space does not stand alone for us. People, process, and space are for us precisely the elements which must fit together. We need a team as well as a type of people and change management which enable us to make optimal use of this space. We want a specific process focusing on Design Thin-king and end users which the team can carry through and which we can support with the space. We want the space to become a home for the team. The entire thought process of facility ma-nagement that I described above must change. It is important to be oriented to an objective. Then I can work with my people to achieve it. This is exactly what is new, what was not there before: the teams can contribute their work to what we really want to accomplish. Naturally, it is important to keep the fundamental idea of Design Thinking in mind: You must not ask people what they want – you must find out what they need.

DMR: The subject of innovation culture is a topic of constant dis-cussion right now, as is the question of intrapreneurship. But many of the formats established along these lines quickly peter out because a large organization never has the patience and stamina needed to make it through a radical cultural transformation. What do you think?

D. Markwig: I think that large organizations are structured in a certain way and will always function in exactly this way. Even companies like Apple are oriented in their production areas to optimization of the things they already do. Innovation power is found in very isolated pockets. Nevertheless, I believe that the things you can try out and learn here can be carried over to the corporation. We see right now that even small changes are being rolled out into the broad organization, that people are exerting more influence on their own spaces, that they are attempting to create transparency. As a minimum, small things are possible. Organizations must understand that their employees are their capital and that it is necessary to do something from time to time which will make life easier for the employees. I often find this missing. I never have the feeling that the human side is completely neglected in our company, but I often hear from clients that employees are viewed strictly as cost factors. This is the wrong approach.

DMR: So a “Big Bang” does not work. Is it more the small, but certainly visible, changes being introduced continuously and fed by grass roots initiatives rather than large-scale management board programs which will be effective?

D. Markwig: Of course it is always good to have allies right at the top. But something which trickles into the organization slowly, perhaps even without being noticed, will be longer- lasting and consequently of greater benefit for long-term suc-cess. We are speaking about a cultural transformation, after all, and this never happens as a “Big Bang”. If you analyze revolu-tions, you will see that they either broke out after a very long simmering period or very quickly returned to what had existed before. Steady evolution is not the worst thing that can happen.

DMR: Thank you for these fascinating insights.


Putting a monetary figure on savings is not always the best possible result from a project. The kaizen principle demonstrates how consultants can work toward a permanent culture of improvement – to the client’s benefit.

Regarding the Mining of Kaizen Potential and Its Implementation in Daily Project Business

KAIZEN – Beyond Process Optimization

he broad spectrum of methods for process re-engineering can be compared to a jungle which is becoming increasingly im-penetrable. The primary focus of the most common methods always aims at achieving an ideal balance among the elements quality, time, costs, and resources. Companies must accordingly reflect their questions and objectives in process re-engineering in terms of the available methods if they want to heighten the performance of their operations and exploit fully their potential for improvement.

But a large number of re-engineering projects do not take aim at creating a permanent culture of improvement. That is not all too surprising; after all, they usually have clear instructions to achieve quick success. The results are actions which are suppo-sed to be implemented within the shortest time, require little financial investment, and can be realized without any great changes whenever possible so that people’s willingness to change is not put to the test. But it is much more important to create a culture of permanent optimization in which turning away from the status quo and the sensitization and integration of all of the affected employees is explicitly demanded.

T This challenge arises in many consulting projects as well. Large corporations in particular tend to invest in complex strate-gy projects featuring a grand vision of their final goals while generally neglecting measures for improvement which could be carried out directly. Yet a top-down procedure within complex projects and concrete bottom-up optimizations which can be pragmatically realized are not necessarily mutually exclusive. The goal – most especially for strategic transformation pro-jects, restructuring campaigns, and within the framework of the harmonization of complex IT landscapes – must be to create a work culture in which process disruptions are discussed and im-provement measures are proactively initiated rather than simply accepting the problems as a given. And this is precisely the point where the kaizen principle of continuous improvement can un-fold its full potential.

Efficiency through cultural transformation

Kaizen (kai = change, zen = for the better) is a Japanese manage-ment philosophy which aims to identify and prevent mistakes and inefficiencies in the company and follows clear fundamental

KAI – Change ZEN – Good


principles. Its focus is not on the great innovations, but on the numerous suggestions for improvement which result from the involvement of all of the employees. Essential elements are the fast implementation of these suggestions and the visibility of their success.

The effectiveness of the principle comes from learning to recognize waste, seizing upon available opportunities for action, and assuming responsibility. This approach must be implicitly incorporated into the consulting business by anchoring the kaizen culture in everyday consulting activities and adapting suitable elements and methods in a way that will benefit the client. The kaizen philosophy must be the consultant’s constant companion in everyday project work. There is an ongoing sharing of experience and know-how transfer with respect to the procedure for the identification and exploitation of opti-mization potential in terms of kaizen. This applies both to the on-site project for the processes within the company and to the consultant’s own project management and support processes. In keeping with the ambassador principle, the client’s awareness for waste and for pragmatically realizable potential for impro-vement is heightened and the required cultural transformation is promoted. Discussion of inefficiencies and mistakes as well as of potential alternative solutions must be allowed. The ongoing culture of optimization which is required cannot be created un-til the conscious analysis of the causes of the waste is possible.

But isn’t the wastefulness of their clients the lifeblood for consultancies?

It may sound absurd for a consultancy to extend its focus from the grand solution of everything for the client and to seek to eliminate waste in the company by taking small, pragmatic steps determined by application of a method which has been around since the middle of the 1980s. But the reason for doing so is obvious – it leads to a clear win-win situation.

Within the company itself, the “experiencing” of the concrete improvements, from the specific identification of the process disruption to the implementation of the appropriate measures for improvement, gives rise to a new work culture which remains in place even after the consulting projects have been concluded. Every single employee is sensitized to question his or her own working procedures continuously and, by taking small steps within his or her own sphere of influence, to improve them quickly or to look for possible optimization potential. This po-tential must be understood as an opportunity to reduce waste in the work steps.

Standard questions in this respect include the following:

• What do I do when, how long, how often, and, above all, why? • What is the purpose of my action? Do I achieve my goals in the work step?• How can I reduce the effort in work steps? How can I increase the yield from the work steps?• What work steps do not lead to the desired results, are redundant, or are highly labor-intensive, and why is that so?

This encourages employees to think about and identify with their tasks, leads to the assumption of more responsibility on the part of employees, and ultimately to higher employee motivation and satisfaction. Motivated and satisfied employees display in turn a greater willingness to perform.

More complex challenges which cannot be optimized in a short time at the work level give rise to long-term options for action which, when structured, can be incorporated into the further development of business and long-term improvement measures.On the other side, a new quality related to customer loyalty ap-pears in addition to the more efficient project work. Quick wins realized in a short time instill trust in the success of the current collaboration, enhancing the client’s opinion of the consultant’s competence and reputation. The more complex options for ac-tion can lead to long-term and permanent collaboration which is profitable for both sides.

KAIZEN focuses on long-term savings

The positive effects of the continuous improvement achieved by following the kaizen principle cannot, as a rule, always be clear-ly assessed in monetary terms. This is especially the case in the service industry, where processes are frequently highly integra-tive and complex and the demands on their flexibility are great. However, the point here is not to put a precise figure on the monetary savings achieved by the specific measures or even by the improvements in their totality. At the heart of this approach is the creation of a corporate culture in which the performance capability and customer orientation of the company is implicitly raised long-term by the implementation of many small, specific optimizations requiring relatively low investments.


„Ideas Come from Inspiration and the Interaction of People“

Interview with Jens Bode, International Foresight + Innovation Manager, Henkel Laundry & Home Care


Innovationskultur@Henkel – Jens Bode, Innovation Manager at Henkel, views vitality as the foundation for success. He spoke to DMR BLUE about the success factors for creativity and competitive innovations.

D MR: Henkel is a company operating in an environment of extremely stiff international competition. In this context, what is the value of “innovation” for Henkel, especially in terms of efficiency and growth?

J. Bode: Innovations are of vital importance for Henkel. In an environment of global competition like the one we are in, they are major drivers for growth and profitability and an integral element in our corporate strategy. Unless a company can deve-lop new products, it cannot remain competitive and secure its continued existence. The subject of efficiency is important with respect to our innovation processes. The tools being used are examined repeatedly. Where is there potential for simplification, where are there thought paradigms and barriers to innovation, where and how can we accelerate these processes? The point here is to make use of this creative potential, to integrate learning curves into our processes and tools, and to make them even more efficient at all levels.

DMR: Have there been any changes in Henkel’s approach to the set of topics related to “innovation” over the years? I can remem-ber reading an essay about ten years ago which focused sharply on “think tanks” and emphasized a strong innovation department. Is this still your focal point?

J. Bode: You are referring to the think tank Invent. A team of seven international managers did nothing else but innovate for six months; its members were released from performance of any other activities for this period. The results included unusual, in-novative ideas originating from far outside traditional categories as well as soft facts such as team building and spirit. Despite the flood of new ideas, we nevertheless determined that their trans-fer to our operating business was anything but simple. The les-sons we learned were integrated into subsequent processes and closely meshed with operating structures and units.

DMR: How is the innovation process structured and organizatio-nally anchored at Henkel? Is there a central innovation department?

J. Bode: We do not have any corporate innovation management at the concept and product level. Henkel has three corporate divisions confronting differing challenges and taking various approaches to innovation, namely Beauty Care, Laundry and Home Care, and Adhesive Technologies. In Laundry and Home Care, for instance, we work with a tool which enables and en-courages all of our managers at the global level to contribute their ideas and concepts to the creative process. There is an in-tensive, structured ideation and innovation process on the part of marketing in our operations: guided creativity. This is where the various “insight nuggets” from consumer insights, trends, and technology trends are combined into new methods and analyzed.

DMR: Speaking of creativity: If a company’s innovative strength is to be maintained, it is important to encourage the creativity of its workforce continuously, especially to secure its attractiveness for the market of high-potential employees. How do you achieve this?

J. Bode: If we always ask the same colleagues to answer the same questions, we will hear the same ideas – this does not take us anywhere. Ideas always come from inspiration and the interaction of people. We benefit not only from our internal team and its diversity; we also take advantage of the talent and creativity of experts outside of our own enterprise. That is why we count on “open innovation”, the inclusion of external inno-vation partners such as universities and students, research insti-tutes, suppliers, or customers. Personally, I make use of every available source, internal as well as external, for workshops. For instance, I look very closely at micro- and macrotrends from the Henkel environment. Trends from parallel markets such as food, automotive, and architecture. I stay in touch by maintai-ning a network of trend scouts and a highly diversified group of people with creative talent. Internally, the teams combine their expertise with internal and external inspiration.

Left side image description:Inspiration and innovation area in the form of an oversized washer.


Success Factors:

Jens Bode, International Foresight + Innovation Manager

An innovation vision!A diversified and “motley” team – in all dimensions.

A sustainable innovation process.

Tools to which even those colleagues who do not work at headquarters can contribute their creative talent.

Openness for any and every kind of inspiration.Creative zones and spaces, mental breathing room.

Transparency and availability of information.An appreciative and motivating environment.

The ability to challenge and optimize yourself and the tools repeatedly. Implement learning curves!

A pragmatic assessment approach to ideas – feasibility should not necessarily top the list!

Do it! And celebrate successes.


DMR: While we are speaking of innovation in general – over the past decades, you have been intensely concerned with “innovation” and related topics. What are the most important success factors for an innovative company? What characterizes an innovative compa-ny?

J. Bode: A living culture of innovation is the most important foundation. It should involve a diversified team of employees as well as external stakeholders and tap them as a reservoir of potential ideas. In my opinion, additional prerequisites include a concrete vision and/or innovation strategy. Then there is the matter of the right balance between freedom and open-ness on the one hand and a certain “order” on the other; this is decisive for ensuring creative and innovative processes in an efficient and effective form. Systematic tools should provide substantive support to the innovation process. Moreover, the subject of sustainability is a key success factor. In this context, Henkel has developed an evaluation system – the Henkel-Sustainability#Master® – which identifies the value creation chain and the hotspots in the strategic focus fields where inno-vations have the greatest impact. Henkel must consider the full life cycle of products and processes to ensure that innovations improve their general sustainability profile. Henkel experts use the Henkel-Sustainability#Master® for more than just the assess-ment of potential innovations; it also plays a role in the dialog with retail trade partners, NGOs, and other stakeholders.

DMR: ... and what do you believe is harmful to creativity and innovation strength?

J. Bode: An environment lacking in inspiration and motivation is at the top of my list. The absence of any processes, or processes which are too technocratic, undefined interfaces, or a lack of breathing room are also barriers to innovation.

DMR: To return to the subject of “processes”: you surely have an idea management at Henkel. To what degree are there measures in place to ensure that they are given consideration in the innovation process? What incentive structures have been set up here, and how are the ideas appraised?

J. Bode: Idea management at Henkel is strongly supported with the aim of utilizing the creativity and idea potential for improve-ments and innovations found in all of our employees. They have the opportunity to contribute and realize their own suggestions for improvements. In 2012, for instance, idea management in Germany received just under 5,200 suggestions for improve-ment – just under one-fourth of all employees submitted one or even several suggestions, and 69% of these suggestions were also realized and acknowledged by awards.

DMR: And now a final question: What do you see as the greatest challenges of the future for a large corporation if it is to maintain its innovation capability? Do you believe that anything will change because of new market players or the rapid pace of digital transfor-mation?

J. Bode: There are a number of challenges in this respect. In relation to innovation, one of the greatest subjects is the constant scanning and assessment of trends in all dimensions. Some com-panies and former market leaders who did not recognize trends or who underestimated or even ignored them have vanished from the picture. The cycle of inspiration, openness, commu-nication, sustainable processes, diversity, and entrepreneurial foresight closes.



Interview with Dr. Heinrich Arnold, Head of Telekom Innovation Laboratories, Deutsche Telekom AG

To Boldly Go where Telekom Has

not Gone Before!

Dr. Heirich Arnold

Ulf Korsch

Cem Ergün-Müller


DMR: T-Labs had its 10th anniversary this year and celebrated accordingly! From your perspective, what have been the highlights of these past years?

Dr. H. Arnold: I do in fact sense a certain pride, motivated by various elements. For one, I’m proud of the pioneering activities of the colleagues at T-Labs. For the most part, we were pushing ahead as pioneers before Deutsche Telekom decided to inaugurate a new type of business. Our people were the ones who prepared the field for planting, whether for the Intelligent Networks at T-Systems or, the current project, for a new model within the EU to create a disruptively low-cost base for commu-nication. These are remarkable feats by our colleagues, who push ahead into areas where Telekom has not yet dared to go. This demands courage, a sharp eye for the right direction, a drive to shape the future, and professional competence.

The second point I am proud of is the one with the greatest commercial effect. Whenever standards of a global scope are set, as was the case for 4G, for instance, the patent pools are worth hundreds of millions of euros. To work your way into these patent pools, you have to collaborate with a number of colleagues from partner departments within the group, from the departments which work with patents to the standardization colleagues, and you must all be at the right place at the right time and with the right skills.

The third point is that we at Deutsche Telekom can definitely have a say in what happens globally. This is where unconven-

tional vehicles come from, like the Mozilla Foundation, which sends representatives from California to Berlin to obtain our specific contribution to the completion of the first Firefox ope-rating system release! The fourth point is a personal one. I am constantly impressed whenever people in my immediate vicinity find work in a subject matter which once had its origin at T-Labs and is now moving into daily life.

C. Ergün-Müller: My highlight is that over the last years we have emerged from a department involved strictly with research development in cooperation with our professorial chairs into a division which drives innovation nearly to the point of its im-plementation. We generate a much greater impact. We also call it “impact-oriented innovation” with the goal of actually mobi-lizing additional revenue or cost reductions.

U. Korsch: Moreover, we have established a close relationship to the people in charge of business and all the way to the Board of Management, and this opens up a whole range of additio-nal strategic opportunities relevant for business. We have the chance to obtain very rapid feedback and support from the exe-cutive suites regarding the direction certain subjects are taking – for instance, mobile virtual network operator, network sub-jects within Telekom, big data, and data analytics. So although we provide support in the form of small innovations, we have in the meantime reached a stage in which we work with the implementing units at Telekom and help to initiate major deve-lopments, generating the corresponding impact.

What is the name of the game for any company in today’s world? The ability to embrace transformation and innovation! Agility, flexibility, profound expertise, creativity, willingness to change – these factors, embedded in an innovation culture and inspirational leadership, are evidently the ingredients for success for any company oriented towards the future.

Dr. Heinrich Arnold, Senior Vice President and Head of Telekom Innovation Laboratories (T-Labs), describes his vision of an innovation culture for Deutsche Telekom and how he implements this vision in his daily work. Cem Ergün-Müller, Head of Marketing & Communication, and Ulf Korsch, in charge of T-Labs 2.0 & Corporate Initiatives, offer additional fascinating insights into the heart of innovation at Deutsche Telekom AG.


DMR: You once said you had an embarrassment of riches, that you would prefer not to have such a great choice. How do you set your priorities?

Dr. H. Arnold: The sparks come through various channels: systematic screening, tech radar, discussions with partners, consumer panels, customer workshops, group colleagues. The difficult part comes later – deciding which of these ideas can be taken up by the group. There are three factors that play a role. What is a substantial development for Telekom? Where is it even possible to influence developments so that value is generated? And do we have a clear picture of who could drive the subject to its realization at Telekom and assume the position of sponsor? A good subject begins to take shape through the feedback of important stakeholders – conducting a peer review, discussing, approaching the marketing and technology depart-ments with the subject, and, ultimately, standing in front of top management and presenting the proposal.

DMR: How would you describe the innovation culture within Telekom? What role does T-Labs play here?

Dr. H. Arnold: In comparison with the way it was ten years ago, Telekom has become far more capable of incorporating and carrying out innovation. There is still a lot of work to do with respect to an innovation culture. The willingness to take risks is a key factor in this respect and indicates the status of such a cul-ture. There are people at Telekom who dedicatedly and actively support innovative initiatives, but there are also a lot of people who try to evade anything new simply because something could go wrong.

DMR: What are your success factors?

Dr. H. Arnold: The most important success factor is self-moti-vation. When a project manager becomes fired up with enthu-siasm, things can work well. The one who is the driver at the forefront of an initiative must be completely convinced of the project’s value. This person must constantly be on the lookout for solutions to problems which are significant enough to bring the entire project to a halt. The objective which has been set will never be achieved with someone whose commitment is no more than half-hearted and who is not intrinsically motivated.

Willingness to take risks plays an important role here as well, just like the proper way to deal with mistakes. I am convinced that the one who does nothing is making the biggest mistake.

C. Ergün-Müller: In addition, you should fundamentally trust the colleagues so that a bit of a free spirit lives at T-Labs. Nevertheless, certain guiding principles must be in place. We must contribute to the group strategy and orient our efforts to its top subjects. A slogan along the lines of “Why are you doing that? – Because I can!” is not right for us. We don’t do our work solely because we are keen on innovation. The first question is always this: Does it contribute to the success of Telekom’s busi-ness? Does it offer new prospects to our customers or for tech-nology? Within this framework, we can become creative and look for new topics, evolve them, and drive them to success.

DMR: What is the position of leadership within an innovation culture, and what form does it take?

Dr. H. Arnold: Leading our various competence teams is a highly heterogeneous task, and that is what makes it wonder-ful. But every individual must have at least one extraordinary trait which goes far beyond the standard level. A person is eit-her especially knowledgeable in a certain area or is an especially skillful communicator, is either especially clever or conscien-tious or is especially charismatic. The core here is found in the personality of each individual.

What distinguishes an innovator from an administrator? The innovator is the one who always sees change as an opportunity or even an obligation and always wants to use it to its advan-tage. That is why missed opportunities are the greatest source of frustration for an innovator. When we as a corporate group allow a great opportunity to slip through our fingers, I am sim-ply devastated. And that is where an administrator is different. This situation doesn’t bother him in the least. He wants to avoid mistakes at all costs and is more likely to see change as a threat to standard processes, so he wants to keep it as far away as pos-sible. The most important thing – no mistakes! But we need for everyone in the group to have the basic attitude of an innovator so that each and every one of us assumes a certain amount of individual leadership and is open to change.


DMR: The world of innovation is extremely fast-lived. The danger of falling so far behind you can never catch up is always there. How do you deal with setbacks?

Dr. H. Arnold: The real setbacks are very clearly the missed op-portunities. But when in doubt, as an innovator you just have to sleep on it, then get up and get on with your work.

Fortunately, we took the occasion of the ten-year anniversary as a chance to sit back and look closely at our situation. What, from the innovation perspective, are the great challenges facing Telekom? What are we working on right now? What worked well in the past? This last point in particular is extremely impor-tant to me personally because I can see that the bottom line of recent years is encouraging. After we had written it all down, we were almost bowled over by how much had in fact turned out well over the last ten years. We have to keep reminding ourselves of that. Despite all of the setbacks, hundreds of things have gone well, enough to fill an entire book.*

DMR: To what extent do international innovation centers such as Tel Aviv and Silicon Valley impact the on-site innovation culture here in Germany?

Dr. H. Arnold: Our way of dealing with one another is very open, very tolerant, and very Esperanto. Our working language is “broken English” because everyone comes from a different world. But it is incredibly helpful to take off the blinders and think about the most widely divergent subjects – even though huge differences in the working culture can be seen.

C. Ergün-Müller: Our international relationships are of signi-ficant advantage because they encourage us to think outside the box. And it raises the credibility of the corporation enormously, because we know exactly – and take into consideration – what is going on in Silicon Valley and Tel Aviv at the moment and reflect on their work, of course.

DMR: Your cooperation with the TU Berlin and the Ben-Gurion University in Be’er Sheva, making you the pioneers in the area of public-private partnerships, was highly praised, and support for it is expected to continue in the coming years as well. What role, what opportunities for T-Labs do you see here?

Dr. H. Arnold: The whole structure would not function without our university partnerships. It is a matter of keeping our skills up to date, the daily friction on the teams. What is really new? How do you make things current? We always need three ingre-dients: people who understand the corporate group; people who look in on us over and over and bring us the latest news from research and technology; and entrepreneurial experts from the market with whom we can complete and supplement our initi-atives. That is why the T-Labs model works only at sites where these three factors are all present, where there is a startup com-munity with people on the market who can be included ad hoc in projects. So Berlin is truly an absolutely essential factor for us because of the dynamics of the innovation environment and the renowned universities. And there is any number of positive side effects. We never have to worry about a fresh breeze!

DMR: You said at the CeBIT this year, “The time has come!” That sounds like you have great plans. What is your vision for the coming years?

Dr. H. Arnold: The time has come, absolutely! What we see in 2015 will be a foretaste of what Telekom will be in every respect in 2020. For example, we will see that we find ways to map communications on a Web basis, i.e., we will create a new user experience that no one has ever seen before, and it will cost only a fraction of the current price. I expect the first clear indicators of this development to become apparent next year.

We will also see the start of how we will use our most funda-mental strengths – offering secure communication supported by quality – on a global scale, including the Industry 4.0 con-text: in factories, in machines, along the entire digitalized value creation chain.

And the third point, we will constantly expand our use of the possibilities arising from data analysis for ourselves and for our customers. We will be the trusted partners for the digitalization of our customer segments and for ourselves. This is my positive vision for the coming years, and I firmly believe in it.


* www.t-labs.co/accelerator


Transformation, corporate restructuring, leadership – these are all topics which are at the heart of intense discussion in many companies today. Dietrich Franz, CFO at DHL Supply Chain, explains how a finance and controlling division can successfully deal with these challenges.

Interview with Dietrich Franz, CFO, DHL Supply Chain

After the Transformation Is Before the Transformation


DMR: A look at the current market situation shows us that DP DHL is in the midst of a rapid transformation prompted by dynamic customer demands and constant technological changes. The question arises as to how your finance and controlling division is dealing with this challenge and what structures you have already put into place to meet it.

D. Franz: Continuous transformation has been the normal or-der of the day for our finance organization for a number of years. Essentially, there are two aspects which must be considered. On the one hand, we must succeed in making the transformation to a “business partnering model” based on the greatest possible transparency. On the other, we must achieve the highest level of quality in the system and, of course, work efficiently with regard to costs.

DMR: What does this mean concretely?

D. Franz: Let me explain this in terms of three issues we are currently facing. Our top subject, as is today the case in many companies, concerns “transactional accounting” and everything related to it, above all centralization and outsourcing. Another important subject which has the close attention of the finance division in our group is “business intelligence” and the conse-quent enhancement of transparency at both the business unit and the group levels. The third issue concerns the aforemen-tioned “business partnering model”. By and large, this involves reorienting our teams strategically and familiarizing them with the role of the business partner. Parallel to these activities, we are outsourcing activities such as reporting which do not contribute value. We have already set up reporting factories to handle these duties in their respective divisions. Our progress to date encou-rages us to maintain this course. The ultimate goal is to bundle all of the transactional activities of reporting and to make them less expensive, but more effective, through standardization and harmonization. Major central functions such as treasury, con-solidated accounting, and cash pooling have been centralized for years, by the way – but we are continuing to evolve in these areas as well.

DMR: What has been your experience with the Multi Shared Ser-vice Center? Are you even playing with the idea of going back to “insourcing” for specific areas?

D. Franz: No, the trend to “offshoring” will very definitely con-tinue. Our experience shows that “offshoring” is a highly pro-mising business model because significantly higher quality can be achieved when the cooperation with service providers func-tions properly. I was just recently involved in a discussion about how difficult it is to implement compliance on certain emerging

markets. It became very clear at that time that compliance can, in the end, be secured only by means of centralized accounting processes and by separating certain process steps.

DMR: So the focus is exclusively on the core business?

D. Franz: Generally speaking, yes, but with the two dimen sions of “Business Partnering” and “Customer Facing”. Activities which are not directly related can be centralized or outsourced abroad.

DMR: You have touched on an interesting subject here by referring to the “business partnering concept”. Its aim is to relieve finance people and controllers of more and more of their duties in opera-ting processes and to integrate them more tightly into the decision-making process. Does their influence go beyond the strictly financial perspective? What influence does DP or the finance and controlling division have on issues of content and strategy?

D. Franz: We have made a huge leap forward in the implemen-tation of the business partnering model. Much has changed for the better – but we still have a lot of work to do. There are two reasons for this. One is that not everyone has understood and internalized the concept of the business partner. The second is that we are still working on setting a well-rounded “business partner concept” down on paper.

DMR: I would like to go into more detail about the implementa-tion. I was myself involved with the subject when I was program leader at Deutsche Telekom – it is a really great idea at first glance. However, it proved to be very difficult to transit to an operational implementation, especially when you remember that you have here a concept which is managed from headquarters.

D. Franz: That is quite true – a centralized implementation is indeed a real challenge. We have dealt with this by working with HR to draw up specific requirements concerning the capabilities necessary for this task. This is important so that everyone knows precisely what must be done. Owing to my experience, I believe that the important point is to cascade the contents through all of the management levels, to maintain a dialog throughout the coaching process, and to conduct oneself specifically to the si-tuation and subject. We utilize various communication and lea-dership instruments for this purpose, so-called “peer coaching” among them.

DMR: So a coaching approach means that you share your expe-rience with the CFOs and CEOs of other divisions and interact with one another?


D. Franz: I try to pass on my experience to the colleagues in other divisions and to enter into dialog with them whenever an occasion presents itself. However, this is more likely to happen at the CFO rather than the CEO level.

DMR: When you are moving in the direction of business partners, this would be the perfect dream – throughout the entire corporation, CFOs and CEOs are in perfect step with one another!

D. Franz: The top executives on the management team at DP DHL meet regularly at least twice a year to talk and interact with one another in any case. But I see “business partnering” as a topic which is more pertinent to the CFO functions. Ne-vertheless, I also speak within my division with the CEOs and other functional heads at DHL Supply Chain and ask them if they are receiving adequate qualified support from the CFOs assigned to them.

DMR: Speaking of “peer coaching” – we just touched upon the field of tension between finance, controlling, and HR. Coaching is a traditional HR instrument. Is this a method which you have standardized?

D. Franz: Yes, we make use of a large spectrum of standardized executive training concepts in the group. Since we started doing this at the end of 2010, we have been able to reach between 500 and 1,000 managers by this means. One positive effect has been the establishment of a basis of trust which enables us to give colleagues from other divisions a small glimpse of our own subjects, issues, and challenges.

DMR: One key topic in this context is “leadership”. Do you have leadership principles which have been broken down and are incor-porated into specific programs?

Dietrich Franz vhas had more than seventeen years of experience in the logistics industry. In his position as CFO, he is responsible for all of the financial aspects at DHL Supply Chain Division, including accounting, controlling, investments, and compliance/risk management. The finance organization is supporting the realization of the DHL Supply Chain Strategy 2020 and is itself going through a transformation process. Franz came to DHL in 1998 and has since then held a number of different positions within the group: EVP Corporate Controlling, CFO Corporate Canter /Services, CFO DHL Global Forwarding Latin America, and Senior Vice President in the IndEx program.


D. Franz: It is not really possible to separate coaching from “leadership”. We need a uniform understanding of leadership concerning certain dimensions because economic and social changes repeatedly give rise to new demands being made on managers. That is why we have anchored a large number of lea-dership training programs in our new “Strategy 2020: Focus.Connect.Grow.” Our Top 75 managers have all completed the training program. The effect: our management team (just to mention one aspect) no longer works in command-and-control mode, but has a pronounced team orientation.

DMR: What do you consider to be the characteristic traits of good managers in today’s times?

D. Franz: As banal as it sounds: they must demonstrate leader-ship qualities! Good managers must in any case be capable of leading, motivating, and bringing together people, including as well the ability to assign and delegate responsibility. They must be in a position to put together a team of ambitious and talented people who function smoothly with one another. I am absolu-tely convinced that the best results can be achieved only with the aid of a smoothly functioning team. Moreover, they should be capable of designating a qualified successor for their “old” job from among the members of their current team. All of these leadership positions lay a cornerstone of trust which can become the foundation for successful collaboration. I work according to the simple rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” If you can consistently follow this rule, you have already made enormous gains.

DMR: What role do you see the finance and controlling division playing in transformation processes? To what degree has the finance and controlling division at DP DHL developed from a “scorekee-per” to a “business partner”? And what has changed in the selection of employees or in the skills which you are looking for?

D. Franz: In the simplest case, good finance people or good con-trollers require three things in addition to the aforementioned leadership qualities. First, they must have mastered certain me-thods and technical skills. Second, they must have superb un-derstanding of the business and its production processes. Third, they must be able to build up a relationship of trust to the CFO – this is the most difficult aspect, yet it is also the decisive one.

DMR: So the requirements found in the controller profile have changed dramatically – is the primary emphasis no longer on un-derstanding figures, but on the increasingly important role played by soft skills?

D. Franz: Exactly. If, for instance, one of our controllers is planning to move into the position of CFO, he or she moves through various corporate divisions along the way – in our case, including the letter center or the warehouse – and takes over duties and responsibilities in other operating areas which go be-yond what is expected of the traditional position of controller. We need people here who interact, think entrepreneurially, and can see the big picture. Activities which can be standardized and centralized (like the preparation of reports) can be outsourced to lower-cost countries in the future.

DMR: This is an interesting point. It is precisely the aspect we ana-lyzed previously for the HR function. At that time, it was assumed that the HR function will in the future find itself in a difficult po-sition as the justification for its existence diminishes because many of its activities have already been automated and can be carried out as standard assessments by artificial intelligence and certain algo-rithms. These issues are the talk of the town, and not only in HR. What role does the finance and controlling division play in this context? Would you say that finance people and controllers will have to display a greater entrepreneurial spirit in the future?

D. Franz: Definitely. Transparency alone is no longer enough. Instead, people must be willing to investigate the significance of figures and their properties on the basis of a good business understanding. Starting from these results, they must take the next steps of initiating a dialog, taking part in discussions, and, as appropriate, giving recommendations to the governing body.

DMR: To return once again to the subject we discussed back at the beginning: What effects does the dynamic transformation have in particular on the products offered by your finance and controlling division?

D. Franz: I think the fundamental question concerns how the transformation can be shaped when the environment is beco-ming significantly more uncertain. And to be perfectly honest: I don’t have a definitive answer to this question. We are fun-damentally oriented more in the direction of security and are not so keen to take risks. In my opinion, we need long-term planning and orientation as well so that the strategic orientation of the entire corporation can be strengthened. So a three-month rolling forecast, used exclusively, will precisely for this reason not function because figures must be solidified and everyone should have the opportunity and time to work with these figures and assess them in comparison with his or her targets. Never-theless, we need flexible tools so that we are more quickly in a position to look ahead. It is important here to make significant-


ly greater use of processes such as business intelligence so that a forecast which is as realistic as possible can be prepared. But it is important to me that we design things to be simple and do not overcomplicate them. And something else: we are not operating in a vacuum. We must consider the expectations which the ca-pital market has of us.

DMR: How do you respond to these expectations? As you have just pointed out, the capital market expects to see certain values being posted, and a company is justified in fearing it will be punished by the capital market if its performance does not match up.

D. Franz: We have clear objectives and have issued clear guidelines, actions which speak in our favor and establish the high level of trust we enjoy with the capital markets. This is re-flected especially in the performance of our stock price. It is im-portant to communicate a sense of calm and continuity on these overheated markets. I believe I am correct in saying that the corporation has been highly successful in this respect in recent years. Another argument in our favor is the planning aspect; we make use of the top-down approach to keep the costs and time expenditures for our planning as low as possible.

DMR: Large corporations often find themselves confronted with the almost impossible task of simultaneously handling the pressure for efficiency and maintaining innovative strength. How does DP DHL master this issue?

D. Franz: Our logistics business must accomplish two things. For one, it must be close to our customers so that it can respond flexibly and innovatively to their changing expectations. The se-cond is that it is helpful to offer standardized products which are more cost-effective than those of the competition. DHL Supply Chain is attempting to accelerate the standardization of business processes – but without losing sight of our intent to continue offering to our customers individual and innovative solutions.

DMR: Speaking of transformation programs – let’s assume that your division is being restructured. What role does the finance and controlling division play within the framework of the transforma-tion programs?

D. Franz: We have just barely begun work on the transformati-on. The Supply Chain Division has adopted a new strategy and will carry out a restructuring. The interaction between strategy,

business, and finance is very tightly meshed. Finance has been fully integrated right from the beginning, much as is the case for an investment, and has a vital role to play. First and foremost, we make sure that financial data are secured, and we take care of the assessment of the business cases.

DMR: How do you secure the implementation of the measures for the transformation?

D. Franz: To start with, we need the “sign-off” in addition to the budget. Only then can concrete planning and determination of the measures begin; their implementation will be guided by project management. During this process, the controller has the task of supervising and measuring the adopted measures, but even more, he or she is responsible for appraising them. It is of fundamental importance, especially at the start of a transforma-tion process, that all of the actors display a certain willingness to make the change and that an understanding of why a change is necessary is generated. Every employee should be given the time needed to internalize “change” and to embrace the process – even though it may be painful here or there in some areas.

DMR: The subject of “change” belongs to the role of HR in some companies, in others it is an external role. How are you doing it?

D. Franz: Supply Chain has chosen a highly interesting and very successful approach to this. We have created a strategy imple-mentation team which is currently reporting to the head of the HR division. This step has enabled us to make outstanding de-cisions with regard to personnel measures at such an early stage. We are working “hand in hand” with the finance division and the other positions and are also in close contact with the regions and countries which are responsible for the implementation. Together, we are shaping the cultural transformation. Without external support.

DMR: What role does communication play in this context?

D. Franz: Communication is essential. The basic rule is that the more often and more precisely you communicate, the less friction you will have to deal with. So it is important to regard communication as a strategic resource for business. That is what we have done, and for the first time we have set up a truly global agenda which is valid worldwide and which can also be conveyed with a consistent communication strategy. We are making use of


completely new instruments for this purpose – for example, our CEO, John Gilbert, prepares a video blog once every quarter in which he answers questions from employees working all over the world. We offer the training program “Certified Internati-onal Specialists (CIS)” at DHL Express. Within this program, all of the employees of the entire division complete a certain training program, at which time they are certified. The effect is tangible. For one, we see clear improvement in quality; for another, the employees are immensely proud of their certifica-tion – the values for employee engagement, which we determine in an internal survey, have risen sharply since the introduction of the program. This has prompted us to plan the conduct of this program at Supply Chain as well, giving it the name “Cer-tified Supply Chain Specialists (CSCS)”. Last, but not least, this approach ties together the subjects of change and strategy and enables them to “communicate with one another”. We believe that CSCS is a highly effective instrument which, one, will have a positive impact on the company in many different ways and, two, will help us to set ourselves apart from other companies.

DMR: What else is DP DHL doing to achieve differentiation?

D. Franz: The “Certified” program is certainly a decisive measu-re used to convey to people just what contribution each indi-vidual makes to the success of the company as a whole. But since we at Supply Chain are still in the initial phase of the im-plementation, we do not yet have any concrete indicators from our experience. At Express, on the other hand, there are many different examples illustrating how well the approach works. If, for example, I am a courier who delivers one hundred packages which are in my charge punctually and correctly, then I have made my contribution and am a part of the success. So if I am aware that I can secure an economic benefit for the company with my action or my daily work and I also understand why this is so, we as a company have achieved maximum success in this respect.

DMR: What role does environmental sustainability play in the fi-nance and controlling division?

D. Franz: Our company has set itself the ambitious goal of in-creasing CO2 efficiency per 2020 by 30% in comparison with the value of 2007. A so-called “Carbon Accounting and Con-trolling” (CAC) was set up and implemented for this purpose. We are aware of our co-responsibility for global warming and

look closely at what we consume and how we can optimize that. At the same time, it is important for us that our customers can also utilize our environmentally-aware products to make a great contribution to a better world. Sustainable business operations are and remain an integral component of our corporate strategy.

DMR: Let’s look into the future. What do you expect to be the greatest challenges which will confront the finance and controlling organization in the future? What subjects will you be driving for-ward in the coming years?

D. Franz: I am confident that we will be able to achieve our ambitious goals. They include above all the creation of a best-in-class finance organization as well as the realization of a clear business orientation. Moreover, we must centralize or outsource highly standardized and repetitive activities to other countries. The ultimate objective is to realize the supply chain strategy suc-cessfully in the next few years. This is precisely the point where we here in the finance and controlling community want to – and will – make a major contribution.

DMR: Thank you for this interview.


Mission possible: Dr. Markus Müller, CIO at Deutsche Telekom, must simultaneously raise the quality of IT, reduce the costs by one billion euros, and deliver IT projects right on time – all by 2015. And he is well on his way.

Interview with Dr. Markus Müller, CIO, Deutsche Telekom AG

Telekom IT: More than Just an IT Service Provider

I T operations at Deutsche Telekom were originally divided among three divisions. That changed in 2012. The corpora tion set up a central IT department under the responsibility and leadership of a single unit, with unified objectives, a consistent portfolio, and low-cost production. The restructuring impro-ved quality and reduced IT costs permanently. Telekom IT has a workforce of 7,300 employees today. Under the direction of CIO Markus Müller, it manages an IT budget of two billion euros. The responsibility for CRM and billing systems which handle 250 million invoices a year and eleven million customer queries a month belongs to Telekom IT; it also operates the joint platform of the European Telekom subsidiaries and realizes substantial scaling effects. And Telekom IT has a challenging goal: the reduction of IT costs by one billion euros between 2012 and 2015, the improvement of IT quality, and the on-time delivery of IT projects.

At the same time, it must complete an important mission which has been designed to lay the foundation for implementation of the group’s strategy. Determined to make Telekom the “leading telco”, the division is using the broadband network gateway to provide the “IP production platform” for the mapping of new IP products in the architecture. This architecture secures the bundling of fixed and mobile networks. It creates a standardized “power strip” allowing the integration of attractive partner ser-vices and products in the Deutsche Telekom product portfolio and enables the integration of offers for business customers. The establishment of Telekom IT was desperately needed – and yet it required a massive effort. Dr. Markus Müller spoke to Detecon about the progress that has been made and the targets for the near future.


DMR: You have already brought about a lot of changes since taking over as CIO. Since the founding of Telekom IT, costs have been cut by more than €800 million and the number of significant system failures has declined by about 80% since 2012. This would not have been possible without far-reaching and profound changes – structurally, technically, and in the minds of the employees. What motivated you to take on this task?

Dr. Müller: This challenge was very alluring to me. After all, Deutsche Telekom is a DAX corporation. A giant with the largest IT division in its industry. Before we established Tele-kom IT, there were three different IT teams, each of them with its own delivery and performance relationships, with completely different IT systems which could not work together. This could not help but affect our customers. You might say that our IT was even at that time a team with great prospects, but this team was laboring under adverse conditions. Changing this was a task unlike any other I had ever been asked to handle. It was a new challenge. And I must say, I have never for one day regretted taking it on.

DMR: You must realize cost savings totaling one billion euros by the end of 2015 – and you are already well on your way to achieving this target. How have you done that?

Dr. Müller: There have been a number of levers we have been able to use. The most important of them include the reduction in the number of external employees, strict prioritization of the IT projects, optimization of application management, reduction of license fees and maintenance costs for existing applications, and greater use of near- and offshoring opportunities.

DMR: You were charged to merge various divisions of the Telekom group into a single unit. Were you confronted with any cultural differences?

Dr. Müller: As I said, there were three IT teams with different target groups and objectives. On the demand side, there were teams for Telekom Deutschland and the international organi-zation, which the IT team at T-Systems used on the supplier side. You might well ask yourself how an organization like this could ever be allowed to develop. All three teams had long and divergent histories in the group. One focused on Germany, one on international cooperation. One focused on demand, one on supply. Replacing the various orientations with a single set of objectives demanded courage from the employees. But I would say that we have succeeded in putting together a genuine team over the last two years.

DMR: Let’s stay on the subject of culture for a moment. What do you believe is decisive for the creation of a new culture? And, in our concrete case here, for the creation of THE one Telekom IT culture?

Dr. Müller: I believe that one of the things that helped was the way we designed the organization of Telekom IT: the complete end-to-end responsibility for the group’s IT. We oriented the various solution areas to our internal customers. Colleagues who were once separated into supply and demand now work hand in hand. Moreover, we brought into being an extensive change and communication program. It provided a forum for employees to express themselves, communicate with one another, give vent to their criticisms, and obtain feedback. We bundled structural changes in this program and rolled it out as a package in a five-month cycle. In this way, we made the transformation more understandable for the employees and carried the people along with us. Finally, we actively sought open dialog, using calls and sounding boards, for instance, as well as during our annual road show through the states in Germany. The successes achieved by our team are the proof: we are on the right road.

DMR: The market and its demands do not change anywhere else as fast as they do in the telecommunications industry and the ICT sector. You have the difficult job of always being state of the art. An agile and highly flexible culture and organization are a must. How can that be achieved with so many employees?

Dr. Müller: I don’t see the headcount as being decisive for the level of agility. Putting people in the right place where they can make the best use of their skills is far more important. To ensure that this happens, we initiated an extensive qualification pro-gram which is oriented to the market demands and the strategy of Telekom IT. The program had a budget of €7.9 million for the qualification of more than 3,000 employees in 2014 alone. One important point: we rely on our team, not on externals.

DMR: How have you managed both to raise the level of quality for customers and to reduce costs? Aren’t these two tasks mutually exclusive?

Dr. Müller: No, not at all. I like to compare this with cooking. If I want to be a good cook, I need good ingredients. But that alone will not guarantee a good meal. I need know-how and the right equipment. What this means when transferred to our situation: we invested in quality. In new hardware and an exact analysis of the software so that the major system failures men-tioned earlier could be reduced significantly. We also trimmed the fat from the coordination processes and eliminated redun-


Dr. Markus Müller, born in 1962, earned his doctorate in computer science from the University of Passau. He began his career at McKinsey & Co., where most of his activities in Germany and the USA focused on the financial sector. In 2000, Markus Müller moved to Allianz and was initially responsible for the e-business strategy of the Allianz Group. He then took charge of building up the Group IT before joining the Dresdner Bank where, as chief operating officer IT, he took over the management of the IT restructuring and direct banking. Among other work, he focused on cost optimization accompanied by simultaneous heightening of quality and performance. After his return, he became Head of Group IT and assumed responsibility for the development of an international IT shared service approach in operational insurance business. As chief executive officer of the European data center, he successfully guided the Europe-wide consolidation. In 2010, Müller took over the position of chief information officer of Allianz Holding. Markus Müller has been CIO at Deutsche Telekom since 1 June 2012. In his position as managing director of Telekom IT, the internal service provider at Deutsche Telekom, he is in charge of one of the largest IT service providers in Europe, employing a workforce of about 7,300 and managing a budget of €2.05 billion.


dancies. In addition, we stopped using external employees. By taking these and other measures, we saved €200 million in the first year alone without suffering any loss in quality. Another major item concerned the software licenses. Licenses which were no longer needed were rigorously terminated, and we re-negotiated the terms for licenses we still required.

DMR: Today, Telekom IT is on a good course and is well positioned in terms of organization. Nevertheless, there is still a need for fur-ther transformation and restructuring. Why?

Dr. Müller: There are two reasons. For one, the responsibilities of Telekom IT are growing. For instance, very recently we took charge of the so-called power strip, the international standard interface for the integration of third-party service providers. But beyond this, I think is important to reconsider constantly whether one’s team is well positioned. If I might return to Telekom IT’s end-to-end responsibility for the group’s internal IT: the task of defining interfaces a little more clearly, bringing colleagues from other units to our division, or to transferring colleagues to other units never ends. But these are not massive reorganization measures and as a rule the employees can take them in their stride.

DMR: Restructuring and efficiency programs always have the negative connotation that people can lose their jobs or have to accept new assignments. It is virtually impossible to avoid skepticism and uncertainty. How were you able to motivate your employees despite this?

Dr. Müller: This is never an easy task for anyone. And every challenge which a team has to face makes it more difficult. In addition, it is a well-known fact that Telekom IT must reduce headcount so that it becomes leaner and more efficient. My ma-nager team and I attempt to motivate the staff by giving them a target vision. The IT is an elementary element of the core busi-ness at a telecommunications company. We are among those shaping the future of our company – as innovators and business supporters, not “merely” as IT suppliers. We have interesting work in the group and in business or in the government to offer to many of those who must change, and we cover any need for qualification which may arise.

DMR: One final question: What will be the greatest challenges for Telekom IT over the next five years? In what direction would you like to steer Telekom IT?

Dr. Müller: The greatest challenge is in providing the best possible support to the business transformation of Deutsche Telekom. We are pursuing a clear vision in our new IP world. In the future, our customers will use a customer ID to com-municate with us, to order and pay for our services. We make sure that standard Deutsche Telekom products – voice, data, TV – or third-party products like Spotify are flexibly mapped as product bundles and offered at appropriate rates and can be billed on a single invoice. And because we separate the lines and the services, our customers can take our services along to any location without any red tape. Processes which continue to be extremely complex today will become substantially simpler – when moving, for instance. The customers’ dealings with us will also become noticeably more convenient. All of this will be made possible by a gigantic rebuilding program. We will break through old structures which have grown up over time, determined by product and customer groups and distributed between fixed and mobile networks, and will put in their place one IT for all products and customers which will make simple processes possible. This will require a thorough housecleaning in an IT landscape of about 930 applications and platforms and the introduction of new technologies.

DMR: Dr. Müller, thank you for this interview!


Michael Leistenschneider is an institution in the IT industry. Although he resigned from the DATEV

Management Board for personal reasons at the end of 2013, his enthusiasm for the transformation

now taking place in the ICT industry continues unabated. He regards the telco segment to be an outstanding example of disruptive developments

“comme il faut – just as it should be”.

“ Telco Landscape with Inestimable

Drive ”

Interview with Michael Leistenschneider


DMR: Telecommunications corporations find themselves confron-ted today with disruptive developments and enormous competitive pressures of a magnitude rarely experienced at any time in the past. What do you regard to be the major market trends and transforma-tion drivers?

M. Leistenschneider: Well, now, the telecommunications cor-porations themselves played the biggest role in breaking up the monopoly positions all across Europe and triggered this in-estimable drive in the telco landscape. Everyone is benefiting from this development today, consumers as well as companies – even as the network infrastructure continues to improve and the range of services and products continues to grow. The tel-co segment in Europe is an outstanding example of disruptive developments just as they should be. As a consequence of this experience and thanks to the especially rapid pace of innovation in this sector, the telecommunications industry is strongly com-mitted to the constant reinvention of its own market. However, the general political framework must offer genuine potential for development – whether with respect to network neutrality, big data, or data protection. When it comes to “market trends”, the term “Internet of Things” pops into mind, a general concept en-compassing many elements which are at this time fundamental for the telecommunications industry. It covers such concepts as big data and Industry 4.0 as well as automotive ID, M2M com-munication, and smart phones, cars, homes or cities. This is de-finitely one of the top subjects of the day which is being driven forward and leading to changes. Other topics which intersect with it are mobilization and the trend to digitalization such as the digital handling of business processes in companies. There are of course inherent opportunities and risks ... there are a few providers today such as Google, Amazon, or Facebook who are invading industries which were previously successful while re-maining relatively autonomous. The developments in the sector of autonomous driving are, strangely enough, not being driven by car-makers, but by Google; the time gained by riding in a car which drives itself is supposed to be used to search for and study Internet services from Google.

DMR: What possibilities do you see for bridging the dichotomy bet-ween increasing efficiency and securing innovation capability?

M. Leistenschneider: We have to say good-bye to the philo-sophy that you can earn money by selling SIM cards. The customers of telecommunications companies are demanding services of a significantly greater scope today. If they do not re-ceive these services from their telecommunications providers,

they will turn elsewhere to obtain them. This change is already visible for the producers of washing machines, by the way. They are thinking about ways to utilize M2M communication and Industry 4.0 to make washing machines and refrigerators more interesting and practical for users. But they have not thought about the fact that future earnings will not come from the sale of hardware, but that the service will be the business, e.g., Internet-based laundry services. The dirty laundry is picked up and, after being washed and ironed, returned by a service employee – the whole process being organized digitally. Another example is the concept of car2go in the large cities. Instead of buying their own cars, people use the service. The trend of “away from the hardware and toward the service” is also valid for telecommu-nications providers, who must be very careful not to miss out on these trends. Allow me to illustrate the answer to your que-stion with this image. Doing a split is perfect when your legs form a straight line – in this case, efficiency and innovation. Ideally, the two complement each other perfectly. Innovation is never an end in itself; either it opens up new markets with new services or it is simultaneously (or exclusively) an efficiency model. By committing to process quality, you can assure both an increase in efficiency and your innovation capability. How does that work? Traditionally, efficiency can be increased by continuous process improvements, e.g., by the implementation of an efficient system for submission of suggestions. The social media services have a big role to play here. Companies used to have their own systems for submitting suggestions. DATEV eG today uses a kind of swarm intelligence to gather ideas for the improvement of processes in an innovation pool, the DATEV Innovation Pool (DIP). Suggestions for possible solutions are discussed in this pool. A lot of companies are using this method in the meantime. A good salary or good social benefits are no longer decisive for encouraging innovation capability in com-panies today – they are expected as a matter of course. The key question now is the task which has been set, the challenge of creating something new, or the opportunity to work with a team on a new and challenging task. This motivation must come from the “inside”. It is also extremely important to encourage team spirit, something which is familiar to us from sports. Successes must be celebrated together; that fosters team spirit. Moreover, the employer must develop its image as a “brand” so that the employees can identify with a clear employer brand. This can be developed and sustained only by the employees themselves, i.e., from the inside. If people are “pressed” into a mold or kept on too tight a leash, innovations will be stifled rather than en-couraged. Marketing at universities is also important as this is a means of recruiting university graduates who think innovatively for the company.


DMR: But what are the success factors, and what must the corpo-rate culture offer, especially against the background of a diversity of cultures?

M. Leistenschneider: Unfortunately, there is no patented for-mula for a successful culture of innovation; otherwise, we would have long since achieved the unconditional enthusiasm capa-bility of a Silicon Valley structure in combination with a solid “Made in Germany”. Nevertheless: the framework conditions are decisive. Above all, well-trained experts lead us into a high-frequency data landscape, into the competitive Industry 4.0, and the broad field of big data. That is why we need a healthy mix of education, research, and support for new ideas. More-over, innovation capability is rooted in customer satisfaction and quality of service. The corporate culture must support this connection. We need a positive mistake culture in place of a defensive search for security in our companies. People should be allowed to display more courage in making gut decisions. Exter-nally, customers should become involved in developments at an early stage. Panels such as a business customer advisory board or a field representative council are important for the formation of opinions at the management level. I don’t mean here that customers should evaluate products and services which have al-ready reached the stage of market maturity. It is important for customers to consider a period of two to five years and to articu-late their expectations and needs for their company. Everything extending beyond this time period belongs to the sector of re-search and development. Moreover, management board and top management should take their role as models seriously. From the overall perspective, the image of a transmission containing large and small gear wheels is accurate. The various gear wheels have different functions, but they all interconnect with one ano-ther. When I was a management board member, I always saw myself as one of the gear wheels in a large transmission and let myself be driven by market developments and trends, but I also passed them on to the company. In this context, there were of course some decisions which would not be made in the same form today, one of them related to the subject of the qualified electronic signature as a counterpart to a personal signature. So much is dependent on signatures in the world of a tax accoun-tant. In the paper world, the personal signature on tax returns had always been a “must”. At that time, I believed there was no choice but to realize the paper-based processes with signatures on a one-to-one basis in the digital world. But I later had to acknowledge that this approach did not have much of a future

Michael Leistenschneider studied business administra-tion at the University of the Saarland. He runs his own tax accounting firm and was a member of the DATEV Management Board in Nuremberg for 20 years, where

he was responsible for production, purchasing, and finances. He holds positions on a number of manage-ment boards, supervisory boards, and advisory boards today and is currently vice-president of the Chamber

of Tax Accountants Saarland and a member of the Management Board of the Deutsches Wissenschaftliches

Institut der Steuerberater (DWS); he also serves on the IT Committee of the Bundessteuerberaterkammer.


DMR: What role does management play in this context, and what qualifications does it require?

M. Leistenschneider: Today, irrationality is the norm. The de-mands on all managers have risen enormously. They must think internationally while feeling German at the same time, yet act efficiently as well. Modern companies often resolve this issue by pursuing a new leadership culture of working together wi-thin their organization. Transparency is an important factor here. But management must also look beyond its own limited horizons and consider the political establishment and society. Managers’ activities must be 90% strategic and, at most, 10% operational; they must be both models and motivators for their employees. They must have the very best connections to the world outside their companies. As important as professional skills are, good knowledge of human nature and a reliable gut feeling are also needed so that the decisions which are made are ultimately good ones.

DMR: Large telecommunications corporations operate with fairly rigid structures and a large workforce in a highly dynamic compe-titive environment. How can they find a way to greater agility and flexibility?

M. Leistenschneider: By employing modern work concepts which create a powerful framework, enhance communica-tion internally, and foster interchange and the idea landscape. Customers and partners must actively participate in process development. The severity of the competition today demands improved efficiency which, as a rule, comes at the customers’ expense, especially in the area of service.

DMR: What role does the subject of partnerships play in this en-vironment?

M. Leistenschneider: A very important one – strength and new opportunities come from working together. A solid partnership can lead to the highly desired “win-win situation” for both sides. However, it is not enough for innovation and market strength to find each other; it is necessary to develop a common culture. Partnerships of this quality enhance innovation capability. Wor-king with system partners heightens flexibility and encourages a return to core competencies, a sensible distribution of tasks, and the integration of subjects. Objectives can be meshed with one

when the tax authorities suddenly began accepting tax returns without any signature at all. But we developed other products in this field which were just not placed at such a high level, inclu-ding the advanced signature or mIdentity sticks. In this respect, DATEV continues to follow a “possession and knowledge po-licy”. A password, the knowledge component, is not sufficient by itself; there must always be an additional physical possession component such as a smart card or a stick.

DMR: Can you give us some concrete examples of ways to secure innovation capability?

M. Leistenschneider: A look at our automotive industry and its new proximity to telco services is exemplary. We are in an out-standing position in the international context when it comes to interconnected vehicles. The foundation for future solutions is a fast data network. A number of scientists in Dresden have just joined with the telcos, i.e., network producers and providers, to create a common basis for driving forward 5G. This is a case of industries strengthening each other mutually, and that is an important key for a “gigabit society”.

DMR: What can we learn from examples we find in other cultures such as the USA, India, or China?

M. Leistenschneider: National boundaries are a relic of the past in the world of IT. There are no more island solutions. One ex-ample is the sharing trend. In the USA, the micro-entrepreneur, who automatically appears with the sharing sector, was a wel-come alternative from the economic crisis and is becoming es-tablished. In Shanghai, a different example, the city administra-tion is strongly supporting social sharing because this gigantic city has determined its structure has resulted in social deficits. Both of these points are opposed by a social network in Europe, but sharing is nevertheless a trend. We must learn to understand the mechanisms behind it so that we can exploit it on behalf of our customers and for our services. Generally speaking, we must be open to unconventional solutions and perspectives. The in-novation culture in the USA differs from that in Europe. There are a lot of startups in the USA; they come and go because it is a simple matter to obtain venture capital. The security culture propagated by the banks makes that more difficult in Germany. However, crowdfunding is becoming a serious competitor for banks here as well.


another. A competitive situation with partners must be avoided at all costs. And the focus must be on services and less on hard-ware. Drivers make far greater demands on the driving service than on the equipment. Telecommunications corporations play a decisive, major role in this area. We often hear on the radio, for instance, that the real-time measurements of the radio stati-on indicate that traffic congestion on a highway means a delay of ten minutes on this route. These data are naturally generated by telco providers, not by the car’s own on-board hardware. DMR: What is important for the success of partnering?

M. Leistenschneider: Every partnership is a tightrope act. The parties must merge their strengths, yet allow corporate cultures to remain in place so that both sides can continue to develop. In the long run, whether a healthy partnership is successful de-pends on the customers’ acceptance of the joint service, the pro-duct, or the efficiency which develops from it. Important factors are the common interests over the long term and the equality of the benefits for all of the involved partners.

DMR: Let’s look ahead to the future. What do you believe will be the challenges on the telecommunications market over the next five to ten years, and what does this mean for the positioning of the players?

M. Leistenschneider: We are in the midst of a monumental in-formation revolution. Industry 4.0 will enable us to produce in fulfillment of precise needs in the future, big data will expand our knowledge enormously, and we will develop new techno-logies on the basis of fast data networks. But we are also grow-ing into a “gigabit society” which assesses and tests new trends and technologies, and social acceptance is dependent on what

is determined here. This is exciting and is a source of plenty of material for discussion. Anyone familiar with the innovati-on power of telecommunications knows that a period of five, much less ten, years is a very long time frame for predictions. A certain amount of caution is advisable. But we can be certain that every player will be well advised to maintain a high level of flexibility and lean processes. In addition, it is important to regain customers’ trust in ICT, especially with respect to IT se-curity and data protection. Data protection itself is in a state of flux. Establishing data protection laws for all of Europe is an extraordinarily difficult affair and will take a very long time. Great Britain, for instance, has a completely different approach than the one we pursue in Germany. The German Federal Data Protection Act follows the principle of economy of data collection – no one should collect more data than is absolutely necessary. But when we examine the subjects of big data and big data analysis, we discover that they are irreconcilable with this principle. We have to find a rule here. If we take a look at data collection from an evolutionary theory perspective, we clearly see a disadvantage. Facebook, dating websites, Amazon, and all the rest do not offer friends and products unless they are a fit with my profile. But this narrows my field of vision and experience because I interact only with people who are more or less just a reflection of myself. This does not further evolution in any way because everyone who comes together is the same. I see the risk that creativity, intellect, and knowledge will be left by the wayside. There is a direct comparison available in the ana-log world. According to the rules of Rotary Club, for instance, any professional group may have only one representative in each chapter. The aim here is to encourage social diversity as means of disrupting the limited thinking patterns resulting from the ex-ercise of a profession. People must continue to develop socially and intellectually – humankind lives from this.

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Transformation@Detecon

Detecon’s business fields put us right in the

middle of one of the most exciting sea changes of our time: Transformation competence is the critical success factor.


Digital Transformation Calls for a New Culture of Service

He Who Serves, Wins

CU S TOMER

SUPPO R T

POS I TIVE

FRI E NDLY

INNO V ATIVE

PRE C ISE TIM E LY

Services represent a decisive factor for competitiveness and growth in the digital age. This simple fact calls for a new culture of service,

one which is characterized by direct proximity to customers and interconnected collaboration based on ICT.


he sentiment once postulated so succinctly by Mahatma Gandhi has lost none of its relevance today: “A customer is the most important visitor on our premises. He is the purpose of our work. He is part of it. We are not doing him a favor by serving him. He is doing us a favor by giving us an opportu-nity to do so.” These valuable opportunities are the subject of the competition among companies. Web 2.0 has fundamental-ly changed the position of consumers – they have today more power and freedom to make decisions and can consequently be more critical, selective, and flexible in their actions.

Serving customers: anytime, anywhere, efficiently, and eventfully

Where markets are largely saturated, where seemingly infinite supply is confronted with limited demand, customers can confi-dently expect fulfillment of their specific needs. There are fewer new products which attract consumers’ interest; they are far more concerned with obtaining services which satisfy without exception their performance expectations. Material goods are losing importance as they become increasingly standardized – access to services is taking their place. That is why even innova-tions concentrate more today on the simplification of life’s cir-cumstances and everyday situations than on the improvement of products.

It is becoming more difficult for companies to serve constantly and ideally the rising demands made by their customers, forcing profound changes in their ways of thinking. “The product wants to be finely dressed. The buyer wants to be a part of the fine ap-pearance. And so he is pleased by what he accepts as pleasing.” The philosopher Ernst Bloch summed it up nicely decades ago. In other words: Whoever serves his customers best has a jump on the others. More than anyone else, saturated industries are absolutely dependent on the best service for differentiation. This awareness is old hat, but the path to long-term, successful “ser-vice” is a rocky one. What is needed is a comprehensive chan-ge in perspective which is not restricted to the reorientation of strategies and business processes, but must be understood as a cultural transformation within the entire value creation process: stepping into customers’ shoes, internalizing their viewpoint, and shaping the business relationship from this angle. It is a challenge which is proving to be a complex one in our digital age because of the rapid pace of innovation.

Touch is trumps 1

A culture of service should be understood as the sincerity of behavior when performing services for customers.2 But what characterizes service and a culture of service in today’s world? The economist Peter F. Drucker recognized what was fun-

T damental long before the onset of digital transformation: “Nobody ever pays for a product. What they pay for is satisfac-tion.” The decisive point is to create an experience and a positive moment of truth in conjunction with a long-lasting sense of amazement for the customers. There is no other way to generate customers’ enthusiasm and secure their loyalty to a brand over a long period of time when the level of prosperity is high. The material product assumes to an ever greater degree the function of a “vehicle” or hub. For instance, anyone who buys a running shoe from one of the world’s leading sellers of sports equipment will simultaneously obtain access to a multimedia platform of-fering a variety of services ranging from a running coach app to individually compiled playlists of music specifically for sports activities. This list of examples could be continued indefinitely. What they all have in common is that the experience, and not the utilization per se, is decisive. Experience has something to do with touching, experience comes from the positive stimula-tion of the senses – which is where the term touch point comes from to designate the point of contact between customers and company. Digital transformation has created innumerable new touch points such as Web services, social media platforms, and mobile apps where customers can experience performance and its provider in a real sense.

It must be the vision of a modern culture of service to touch the customer at any and every freely available touch point – positively, individually, and with that certain something that generates the moment of truth, the “fine dressing” as Bloch un-derstands it.

A culture of service starts in the company

Guidelines and objectives can be drawn up quickly. But how can a new, long-lasting culture of service be effectively realized in an age when customers have become unpredictable and ready to move on at the drop of a hat? One important key is to make service and serving an experience for the employees within the company and not just for the customers. This means that the service strategy proclaimed for customers must be implemented in identical fashion within the company itself. When the busi-ness units and employees see one another as internal customers who are treated with respect, there is a very good chance that a culture of service will be created on the inside as well and be-come a part of the very fiber of their being. Serving others is no longer limited to customers; it starts with one’s own colleagues. The experience which customers are supposed to have must come from the company’s inner organism.

One outstanding example of this is “Fish!”, which originated at the world-famous Pike Place Fish Market in Seattle. One day, the fishmongers here decided to have the most fantastic job in

1 Kühne, Study, Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute, 20112 www.4whatitis.com


the world. They impressively demonstrate how to excite custo-mers by whole-heartedly offering dynamic, motivated, and joy-ful service. The “Fish!” strategy3 outlines four simple rules for conveying a spirit of service from the inside to the outside:

1. Have fun doing your job! 2. Seek to make things fun for others! 3. Be aware of every moment! 4. Choose the attitude you want!

The difference to the past: this free program has today turned into the compulsories!

From the value creation model to the digital service network

What framework does a culture of service require? In the tradi-tional value creation model, customers are the terminal point in a series of single production process steps. It is not at all unusual for the appreciation of their position and the way they are treated to be just as technocratic as the value creation model itself. The Age of the Internet has definitely consigned this model to the mothballs. Today, we no longer speak of value creation chains, but instead understand companies to be digital service networks in which customers are regarded as the central hub. The digital dimension plays a major role here. Thinking in terms of processes gives way to the interconnection of companies, customers, and products. Every business unit collaborates with every other unit in ongoing business so that they can provide ideal service to customers. Interconnected cooperation is the fundamental condition for anchoring a culture of service throug-hout the entire company. Whereas customer care was once the exclusive domain of marketing, sales, and service, it is today a priority for virtually all business units. Project- oriented orga-nization in dynamically changing constellations has replaced traditional hierarchies. However, one maxim has remained con-stant: serving the customer best. Information and communica-tions technology acts as an enabler in this interaction.

Source: Detecon

Figure: From Traditional Value Creation Model to the Digital Service Network

MarketingOutgoing Goods Logistics

Production

PersonnelCustomerSales

ServiceProcurementIncoming Goods Logistics

www.youtube.com/watch?v=xI1MYdmlbvM

3 Fish! An exceptional motivational book, Lundin, Paul, Christensen, 2003

Culture of Service

Interconnectivity

Infrastructure

TRADITIONAL VALUE CREATION MODEL DIGITAL SERVICE NETWORK

Personnel

Technology Development

Procurement

Incoming Goods

Logistics

Produc-tion

Outgoing Goods

Logistics

Marketing and Sales

Customer Service


The content making up the culture of service is as individual for every sector and every company as the customers themselves. Nevertheless, three key principles are important as they are the pillars which bear cultures of service today and in the future: interconnectivity, sharing, and collaboration.

Interconnectivity: The natural boundary between company and customer is yielding to a virtual connection. This phenomenon encompasses the product world as well – for instance, in the form of mobile devices as interaction platforms. It is giving rise to a service network in which customers are incomparably more deeply involved than was the case in the previous value creation model. Contact is sought at every possible opportunity with the aim of getting to know customers better, obtaining more know-ledge about them as well as from them. Their subjective feed-back is the decisive yardstick which determines the success of a particular performance. All of the business units are a part of the network so that valuable information flows into the company and can be exploited as broadly as possible. As a consequence, customers, along with their preferences and special features, be-come more transparent and understandable over the course of time. Services are adapted throughout all of the units in a con-tinuous improvement process to achieve specific goals. There is a continuous transfer of the customer perspective into the DNA of the entire company. The interconnection with customers is based on the spectrum of digital and personal service channels while social intranets and team communities, for instance, se-cure the communication flow internally.

Sharing: Modern cultures of service live from the circulation and sharing of information. Comprehensive knowledge and opinions are the engines driving the evolvement of relations with the clientele and the maturing of a culture of service. Needs and preferences cannot be met with adequate precision unless the specific target groups share their special wishes with the provider – the greater the detail, the greater the promise of success. The ultimate goal is to utilize continuously the know-ledge gained about customers to benefit them and to optimize service for them even further. At the same time, the feedback in the direction of customers is improved, serving their desire for simplicity, speed, and transparency.4 Feedback communities and social networks are examples of platforms which can be used for sharing with customers.

Knowledge must be managed at a central point in the company rather than allowing it to be hoarded on the islands of the indi-vidual business units. The organization as a whole profits from

faster solutions to problems and more efficient cooperation re-sulting from the breakdown of interface barriers. For instance, internal sharing can be organized in the form of team rooms or project communities.

Collaboration: Marketing, sales, and service strategies appropri-ate to our age foresee a fundamentally new role for customers. They are no longer simply the recipients of standard products and services in the sense of the push principle, but are involved directly in the performance of the service. This has been made possible by the new touch points created by digital transforma-tion. Customers do more than request performance; they make their own contributions as service experts to other users in C2C forums. Or they take care of their concerns themselves with the aid of digital self-services. Thoroughly familiar with the pro-ducts, they place innovations in product forums, realizing the permanent access to services which is required.

The same applies to the collaboration within the corporate or-ganization. Collaboration within projects nullifies thinking in silos and hierarchies, working with centrally stored documents and many-to-many communication accelerates work processes, results can be obtained faster.

Conclusion: a culture of service starts in the company, not with the customers. Only those practices which are self-evident within the organization can be successfully conveyed to the out-side in the long run. Digital technologies are the enabler for service networks in which boundaries disappear and coopera-tion moves in many different directions. Yet the future is not to be found in radical digitalization, but in balanced, harmonious interaction of people and technology. The successful result was described by a Roman writer more than 2,000 years ago: “He who knows how to serve well is halfway to being a master.”

4 Customer Self-Services. Efficiency and Customer Loyalty in the Age of Digital Transformation, Penkert, Eberwein, Salma, Krpanic, Detecon Study 2014

A highly sophisticated culture of service in a five-star hotel does not just fall like manna from heaven. It is founded on good management

backed by a clear vision and a goal-oriented concept. Thies C. Bruhn, general manager of the Kempinski Hotel in Portorož, gives us here

insights into his philosophy and the challenges he must master in establishing a culture of service.

„The Fundamental Prerequisite for Me is the Personality of the

Individual Employee“

Interview with Thies-Christian Bruhn, General Manager, Kempinski Palace Portoroz


DMR: One question just as a matter of curiosity before we be-gin: You frequently find German managers in the hotel business, especially during the initial phase of hotel openings. How did you happen to find yourself in this position? T.-C. Bruhn: I have been working at Kempinski Hotels for 23 years, so when it comes to company seniority, I’m one of the old-timers. When we signed the management contract here in 2008, the Kempinski CEO gave me responsibility for the opening of the hotel because I am familiar with the Kempinski standards. It was clear to us from the very beginning that we would have to start by bringing our internal experts and specialists from Germany and abroad to this hotel if we were to implement the concept of service that was demanded.

Germans are especially good in the automotive industry and the hotel business. If you look at the five-star hotels around the world, you will note that 60% to 65% of them are managed by German hotel directors. This has to do with the vocational training here – young people learn the business from the ground up during the three-year program. During the first two years here in Portorož, colleagues from Germany and Austria were especially helpful to me in implementing the Kempinski stan-dards and training the new employees. Little by little, we pro-moted local employees who had quickly embraced this concept of service to executive positions. Now I am the only German working here. DMR: You brought up the subject of a culture of service and stan-dards. How is this organized at Kempinski? T.-C. Bruhn: We are a European hotel group founded in Ger-many, the oldest hotel company in the five-star segment in the world. Naturally, we have cooperated with our specialists over the last several years to develop common standards such as those in the “Food & Beverage” sector or in the “Rooms Divi-sion” sector. However, headquarters in Geneva did not dictate everything to us. We determined a lot of things at the hotel and general manager level. Our philosophy is that we are, in the sense of “hardware”, a group of individual hotels. The ar-chitecture and furnishings of the Adlon are distinct from what we have at my hotel here in Portorož, my hotel is different from the Four Seasons in Munich, the Four Seasons is in turn un-like the Atlantic in Hamburg. Nevertheless, our arriving guests must have the feeling that the standard of service is the same everywhere, and naturally it must satisfy the expectations for a five-star hotel. We ensure this standard by measures such as the internal quality checks which are conducted twice a year. A “guest” checks in and evaluates arrival, room service, spa

treatments, gym area, housekeeping, the service in the various restaurants – simply everything from A to Z. After three days, he or she reveals him-/herself to me. We then go through every single point and analyze them constructively.

My department heads and I evaluate this regular feedback; it is always extremely helpful as we work to improve our standards even further. It is of course an advantage that I live here on the premises because I see a lot with my own eyes and can speak to my team and react immediately. DMR: To what do you pay special attention? Have you established any specific criteria defining how you see good service? T.-C. Bruhn: The fundamental prerequisite for me is the perso-nality of the individual employee. That is why I want to meet personally everyone who applies to work for our hotel. Thanks to my years of experience, I can determine within only a few minutes whether someone will be a good fit for our team or not. This policy has proved its worth. When the members of the staff are friendly to our guests, half the battle has been won. Anyone can learn the standards, but a certain emotional intelligence to-ward guests is a trait which either God or the parents give to people in their early, formative years. People are no longer able to learn this after they reach a certain age. DMR: So you ascribe to the approach of “hire for attitude, not for skills”? T.-C. Bruhn: Yes, attitude is very important to me. That is why I don’t do telephone interviews; I want to meet the employees personally. DMR: Fluctuation tends to be quite high in the hotel business. What is it like at your hotel? T.-C. Bruhn: Fluctuation is almost unknown here. My expe-rience has been that employees from countries which were once under the rule of socialism are not as mobile as employees from the former West Germany or Austria. A person from Munich will naturally ask at some point what prospects there are for him or her. It was almost impossible for me at one time to con-vince employees from the new German states [the former East Germany] to come with me to Slovenia. Only one of the ten employees I asked to come with me back then took me up on my offer to join us in opening the hotel. The others were very strongly rooted in their families and their homeland. I am now experiencing the same thing here in Slovenia. The Slovenians are almost never willing to go to China or the Middle East for a longer period of time.



But since our season is only five months long, from May to September, I send a lot of employees as a “task force” at the end of our season to other Kempinski hotels like St. Moritz or Kitzbühel where the high season is just starting. The occupancy rate in our establishment declines in November, December, and January, and in February we even close the hotel for the whole month. But this “task force” support is no problem for our Slovenian employees because it is a limited period of two or three months. They return here in April or May. But at least this gives them an opportunity to become familiar with other Kempinski hotels and to gain experience. DMR: Do you offer this seasonal job rotation program throughout the entire Kempinski group? T.-C. Bruhn: Yes. This is the advantage of a hotel group, much like that of a large corporate group. You can take advantage of synergies to keep personnel expenses at a reasonable level and to give the employees a chance to learn more.

DMR: You touched on the subject of employee recruiting earlier, a popular HR subject. How do you handle its management? Are these employees who have grown up within the framework of your hotel and consequently know the operation in its entirety, or are they more likely to be people you have brought in from the outside who bring some fresh air with them? T.-C. Bruhn: I have the advantage that I know a lot of depart-ment heads or executive members from other hotels. Naturally I picked out the best from the pool for the opening (which was accomplished in only 7 months, really fast work) so that this hotel could be positioned properly on the market. Continuity is very important in a small country like Slovenia, which has a po-pulation of only two million, the reason why I myself have been here for six years. The same can be said about many of my em-ployees. Guests also take delight in seeing the same good service employees every time they come here. This is very important. Of course there are also destinations where we change the hotel director every two or three years, just as there are departments

Thies-Christian Bruhn has been the general manager in charge of the Hotel Kempinski Palace Portorož since 2008. In his position, he is responsible for sales of eight million euros and operating profit of €1.9 million. His mission: to take the hotel to a profitable “high-quality” level and simultaneously to develop the future positioning of the establishment. His social responsibility: to secure the jobs of his 160 employees and acquire new talent for Kempinski.


such as sales and marketing where it is advantageous to bring in some fresh air every two to three years. Of course I take special note of the previous position and the letters of reference in new applications. But we fundamentally prefer internal employees who can point to a certain seniority at Kempinski. DMR: So you try to maintain as much continuity as possible in the areas close to the customers? T.-C. Bruhn: Yes, I try to maintain continuity in operations. That is less so in sales and marketing, in part because I want to make new contacts. Every sales director who comes in as a new employee for us has new and different contacts. DMR: You said that your employees must be a good fit with the team. What characterizes a good team? T.-C. Bruhn: We have just prepared next year’s budget for our Management Board. Since I don’t believe that the budget dis-cussion is a “one-man show” for the hotel director, I invited my executive team to take part. Together, we determined our objec-tives in a number of long, constructive meetings. It is important for every single team member to have the feeling of sitting in the same boat and of having a say in the decisions.

I also have the philosophy that it is always better to make any decision, even if it sometimes proves to be the wrong one, than not to make one at all. To this extent, my employees are enabled to make decisions. Since I live here on the premises, the recep-tion frequently called me at the beginning and asked what rates they were allowed to offer to certain guests. I always turned the question around and asked what they would recommend and assured them that I would stand behind their recommendation completely. This was a learning process for my employees – that I would give them free rein in this matter and that they could make their own decisions. I am in the same situation. The rea-son I work for Kempinski has to do with the so-called “unshared bottom line responsibility” that I have for this establishment. Our president and CEO are very clear in stating that every hotel director is responsible for his or her hotel. I think that’s great! The structures are completely different in many American cor-porations such as Ritz Carlton or Four Seasons; everything at these companies has a very strict corporate orientation and must be approved through the appropriate channels. Our orientation here is highly entrepreneurial; I personally enjoy this very much, and I am glad to pass it on to my employees. I have a great team here and I am very proud of the employees. If you look at the ratings at Trip Advisor or Booking.com, you will see that we are one of the best Kempinski hotels.

DMR: So can we say that your personnel management focuses more on allowing your employees the greatest possible degree of freedom and on giving them the opportunity to decide themselves on the style of service they provide? T.-C. Bruhn: Yes, but of course that all has to take place within a certain framework. For instance, every employee has a certain amount of funds at his or her disposal. Even the doorman. If someone has the feeling that a guest is unhappy, he or she can spend €150 to make the guest happier by presenting him or her with a small gift. DMR: Let’s return to the subject of new media and rating portals such as Trip Advisor. What do you believe to be the primary diffe-rentiation traits you can select in the hotel business? There are as many hotels as grains of sand on the beach ... T.-C. Bruhn: We have a clear vision and mission: we want to become the leading lifestyle resort on the Adriatic. I think that in terms of value for money we are virtually unbeatable. Moreover, we have a clear concept of service. But rating portals such as Trip Advisor or Booking.com are becoming increasingly important for us. We also notice this in the number of reserva-tions. More and more guests are making use of these portals for bookings because it is very simple. In addition, I have an inter-nal program called iFeedback where guests can enter positive or negative comments about the hotel. I receive this feedback on my cell phone within a minute and can immediately assess the comments in consultation with my front office manager and guest relations manager or follow up on them right away. There is an iPad with iFeedback at the reception as well – we know immediately, without any time delays, whether guests are satis-fied or not. DMR: What is the service level behind this? T.-C. Bruhn: We respond immediately. If a guest writes that he or she would like to be contacted because (for instance) there has been an issue with housekeeping, the responsible depart-ment head will respond immediately. DMR: While on the subject of services: Is this the subject of discus-sions on your management team at regular intervals with the aim of drafting concrete actions? Is it standardized? T.-C. Bruhn: Yes, we have a training manager who belongs to my department head team. I meet my department heads for a briefing at nine o’clock every morning and we go through all of the day’s work: which guests are arriving and leaving, our


IT manager and spa manager report on possible technical pro-blems. Our training manager makes suggestions for training programs that need to be conducted. We talk about all of this on the team and implement our decisions as quickly as possible. DMR: Speed is also a major factor, especially in view of the online portals. Do you check the entries on these portals right in your hotel, or is this handled by headquarters? T.-C. Bruhn: Both. I check the entries daily and evaluate them. This is good feedback, but always with a certain time delay be-cause the guests have already left. I introduced iFeedback so that our guests would have an opportunity to report issues immedi-ately and expect a response. Nevertheless, Trip Advisor is im-portant, especially for guests who have never been to Slovenia. DMR: When it comes to incentives for your employees, are there any performance management KPIs against which the employees are measured? T.-C. Bruhn: Yes. For example, there is an Employee of the Month Program here; the department heads discuss perfor-mance with the executive team and me in deciding who to ho-nor. We also use results from the iFeedback program where em-ployees are mentioned by name. Moreover, we have an internal Kempinski Satisfaction Survey which we analyze in detail.

The Employee of the Month receives a small bonus as well as a certificate. In addition there is a GM’s Breakfast every month when the employees of a department join me for breakfast. The departments rotate in their participation. This gives employees the opportunity to speak to me while I have the opportunity to feel the pulse and the atmosphere within the staff. Everyone is welcome to submit suggestions for improvement to me at any time. No one has to make an appointment to see me about this; I prefer the open-door philosophy. DMR: So this Employee of the Month program is a key component. Do you otherwise look at the overall feedback that you collect from all of the employees? T.-C. Bruhn: Exactly. Our worldwide Kempinski Employee Sa-tisfaction Survey is conducted in August of every year. It consists of 120 questions. Every employee receives an anonymized code word for the login. The questionnaire contains questions about various topics, e.g., how is the food in the canteen, how well do the departments cooperate with one another, what condition are the dressing rooms in, whether there are personal meetings with the hotel director, and what is the overall level of employee

satisfaction. We have a very high employee satisfaction rating of 86%. This is substantially above the European mean in our group. DMR: How important is it to have a vision for the company or your team? Thies C. Bruhn: It is extremely important to have a vision and a strategy. When I came here in 2008 and introduced myself to all of the hotel directors, they all said that Portorož would run by itself because vacationers from Italy always come here. But it has never been my strategy or philosophy to rely on one single market. If there is a crisis on this market, you are really in trouble. So we decided at a very early point that we would have to concentrate on German and Austrian guests as well. Since co-ming here by car is no trouble, that is a sensible idea. And what happened? Italy also went into recession in 2008/2009, and the business from Italy here in Portorož plummeted by 35%. For-tunately, we were able to compensate by 45% growth among Austrians and an increase of 30% among Germans because we had chosen the right strategy long before. That is why we are the hotel with far and away the best profits in Slovenia. DMR: Is your vision statement based on one from Kempinski? T.-C. Bruhn: Of course, we are the oldest five-star luxury group, founded in Europe. However, we very clearly say that we don’t want to have more hotels than the group is old. In other words, we don’t want to have 500 hotels like Hilton because you very quickly lose the overall perspective and then you are no longer operating in the luxury segment. Luxury for us is limited to and defined in Europe. While we want to offer a certain quality and variety in the architecture of the buildings, the service concept in all of the establishments should be the same. DMR: Have you anchored this in specific missions? T.-C. Bruhn: Yes, Kempinski Corporate has anchored this in the form of mission statements. We also have an internal DNA. We would like to be a hotel group which is guided by the entrepre-neurial approach of “Passion for European Luxury”. Moreover, innovations and traditions should be created (“Creating tradi-tions”), employees should be “straightforward”. We try to find employees who stand behind these principles. I would like for employees to tell me when they see things differently. If a sales director always seconds everything I say and nods his head vigorously in agreement, that is the wrong approach. It’s good to hear what employees are thinking, to listen to their opinions, and perhaps to implement these opinions as well. I’m in favor of an open culture.


DMR: You mentioned the subject of innovations. What form does the subject take in the hotel business? And what innovations would you expect to see in the hotel business in the future? T.-C. Bruhn: A couple of decades ago, the minibar was an im-portant innovation in the hotel business; today, the greater con-cern is about what can be realized in terms of IT technology. We have an innovation team in the hotel, and it meets month-ly. During these meetings, new ideas are presented and talked about, and there are discussions about what could be developed to make our hotel even more efficient and better.

The selected ideas are forwarded to Kempinski Corporate as well. I write a quarterly innovation report to our president and CEO. Then the best ideas are selected and, as appropriate, im-plemented in other hotels as well. DMR: Are these ideas distributed internationally? T.-C. Bruhn: Yes, absolutely. DMR: Are the guiding principles you mentioned earlier set down precisely, and is there training in their application? T.-C. Bruhn: Yes, they have been set down in concrete form and there is training in their application. We also try to incorporate them into the hiring criteria by asking specific questions, e.g., we describe a situation and ask the applicant how he or she would deal with it. DMR: How do you deal with the subject of “making mistakes”? Do you have a mistake culture? T.-C. Bruhn: We work with people, and people make mistakes. I would rather see my employees make a mistake than not make any decision at all! Of course, everyone should learn from mistakes and try not to make the same ones again. That is why I don’t have a problem when employees make mistakes, provided that they learn from them. DMR: What is your best and your worst experience that occurs to you with regard to the subject of service? T.-C. Bruhn: When I fly on Lufthansa, for instance, I am al-ways delighted to be addressed by name, although there are 300 passengers on board. We try to do the same in our hotels. I don’t like it when employees in the service sector are inflexible. Employees must be able to respond quickly to problems, and they need a certain freedom to make decisions if they are to do

so. An experience I had during a skiing holiday in St. Moritz is one of my negative memories. There was a wonderful lodge with a beautiful view over the valley and three rows of roofed wicker beach chairs. When I indicated that I would like something to eat, a woman informed us that she would apply a surcharge of 150 Swiss francs for the chairs in the first row, a surcharge of 100 francs for the second row, and a surcharge of 80 Swiss francs for the third row. I couldn’t understand that at all. It would be better to set a minimum charge for food and drink and, for instance, charge a minimum of 50 Swiss francs for food and drink in the first row of chairs. I didn’t like the idea of adding a surcharge. DMR: Where do you want to be with your hotel in five years? T.-C. Bruhn: I would in any case like to be here, because I feel really comfortable here. I could work here for the next 20 years. However, we must work on the infrastructure here in Portorož. My vision includes putting in a golf course. This would help to extend the season and attract more guests because you can play golf all year round here. Golfers spend money, of course, and not only for the hotels; the shops would profit as well. If greater purchasing power came here, the shops would improve; unfor-tunately, they are not yet at a five-star level. Everyone in the community is also in favor of this golf course. I always thought that in a country of only two million like Slovenia decisions would be made very quickly. That is regrettably not the case; the decision-making processes here last longer than in Germany. We have been working for four years to obtain the final signa-ture from the Ministry of Agriculture in the capital so that we can build the golf course. A strategy determining how the coun-try should be positioned, particularly in the tourism sector, is often missing. Nevertheless, I see a positive future in this beau-tiful country with its great potential.

DMR: Thank you for this interview!


Emerging markets and developing countries are mobile – a good foundation for development work. Cell phones and laptops are a gateway to information,

knowledge, and services. And that promotes the level of development worldwide.

ICT4Development

How Communications Technologies Can

Save the World


T he information and telecommunications industry (ICT) is changing the way we live. Seven billion mobile lines worldwide mean (statistically at least) that every single person on the face of the earth has his or her own mobile device, and five billion of them are in use by people living in emerging or developing countries, making them more mobile today than the Western markets.

ICT can act as a catalyst for radical economic and social change in emerging and developing markets because they now have the opportunity to catch up with technological developments, reduce the digital gap within their borders, and utilize commu-nications technologies to alleviate poverty. Everyone benefits, whether the small farmers who obtain the latest price infor-mation in a text message, mothers who receive medical reports on their pregnancies on their cell phones, or workers who take advantage of mobile bank transfers to send their wages from the cities to their families in the country. Elections are monito-red by wireless services, and even social networks are playing an increasingly vital role in the democratization of nations.

>> REVOLUTION Through ICT4D

For the first time in history, millions of people around the globe can be connected thanks to access to modern communications technologies. For many, owning a cell phone is also the first contact with communications technology. Whereas the Western industrialized countries have climbed the various technology steps in sequence from fixed networks to fax, from cell phones to today’s smartphones and tablets, emerging markets and deve-loping countries can more and more frequently be seen to skip over the one or the other technology phase.

Omnipresent connectivity is revolutionizing access to the chances offered by information, knowledge, and services. Stu-dies reveal how mobile technologies are impacting the status of human development worldwide, how mobile services help individual users to gain greater independence and offer new opportunities for business and gainful employment. The result is frequently an enhancement of the livelihoods in broad sec-tors of the population, people who were previously cut off from the mainstream economy, thereby furthering the growth of the economy as a whole.

>> HEALTH CARE (MHEALTH)

Communications technology is more and more capable of brin-ging about far-reaching improvements in health care services – even in the most remote and most poverty-stricken regions of the world. That is why health authorities, companies, and NGOs are glad to employ mobile technologies for the impro-vement of local health conditions and for the required medical care. These mobile services aid in giving preventive care, provi-ding information about specific diseases, and generating aware-ness for a healthier life style. But they also help in acute cases of illness by managing and analyzing data for the treatment and by making it possible to coordinate the necessary medical treat-ment more precisely.

As part of their initial public-private-partnerships in this sector, governments and NGOs are sending out vouchers in text mes-sages to pregnant women so that they have the means to pay for a hospital stay during delivery and can avoid the high risks of home births. Even more recent pilot projects have gone a step further. The MDOT project conducted by the NGO “Danya”, for instance, is taking advantage of video-capable cell phones to supervise the medical treatment of tuberculosis patients. Pati-ents can carry out their treatments from their homes and save the money which would otherwise be required for hospital stays. mHealth is in a position to offer medical care despite relatively limited resources. This is advantageous for users as well. For in-stance, expensive trips from remote villages to the nearest me-dical care facilities can be eliminated by the use of tele-consul-tations.

Humanitarian OpenStreetMap, another example, applies open source principles and makes all of its data public so that volun-teers can use GPS to map areas which have not been cataloged geographically. This type of information can be of service in re-cording, analyzing, and limiting the scope of catastrophes and crises such as the outbreak of the Ebola virus.


>> EDUCATION (mLearning)

A good education is a key factor in securing greater opportuni-ties in life and in strengthening economic power because, stati-stically speaking, a person’s income rises by 10% for every year of schooling which is completed. The use of ICT in education can have a major impact on the way students are taught and what information is available to their teachers, thereby heighte-ning the quality of the education. Mobile learning makes it possible to study independently of physical location and time. Learning can take place in a number of different ways: some people use their mobile devices for digital educational services, connecting with other people or generating content. But mobile learning also makes it possible to support broader educational objectives such as the effective administration of school systems and improved communication between schools and families.

Nokia, for example, collaborated with UNESCO to launch the initiative “English Teacher” in Nigeria. Educational content and pedagogical support for use as aids in teaching English are sent to the cell phones of participating teachers every day. The messa-ges are categorized as thematic modules and include images and exercises for the students.

The better-known project “One Laptop per Child” conducted by the foundation of the same name in the USA has set itself the goal of providing laptops to as many children in the world as possible so that as a minimum an elementary school education becomes available. The 100-dollar laptop was developed speci-fically for the project. It is especially sturdy and oriented to the needs of children and is designed for use in school instruction in emerging markets and developing countries.

>> BANKING (mMoney)

For many people in emerging and developing countries, access to mobile payment systems is their first experience with an ac-count or a bank. Extremely low transaction fees for bank trans-fers per text message open the door to the participation of even the poorer population groups in formal economic life. Mobile payment systems are becoming an important infrastructure which can be used to pay for education, to receive salaries, to obtain insurance policies, or even to conclude loan agreements. Mobile money transfer services such as M-Pesa, a cooperative effort between Vodafone and Safaricom, are spreading at a rapid pace in emerging and developing markets. In Kenya, over 80% of the adult population now uses the mobile payment system. This means that more than one-third of the Kenyan gross domestic product is transferred through the popular mobile payment sys-tem. Even though the average amount of a transfer transaction with approximately US$30 is lower than in Western countries, M-Pesa recorded 56 million transactions in an average month even back in 2013.

>> AGRICULTURE (mAgriculture)

A growing number of studies document economic added value for smallholder farmers who take advantage of digital services to improve their productivity and income from their farms. Worldwide, more than 2.3 billion people living in poverty are dependent on the crop yields from about 500 million smallhol-der farmers. But these farmers often lack access to relevant and up-to-date information such as weather forecasts and to know-ledge about planting techniques, harvest management, and pest extermination, putting the efficient cultivation of their land in high jeopardy. Innumerable service providers such as Farmerline in Ghana or mFarm in Kenya give smallholder farmers better access to market data and message services which are available as paid subscriptions per text message or app. Price transparency helps these farmers to bypass expansive middlemen thanks to updated market prices and the opportunity to contact custo-mers directly, realizing higher prices as a result. Moreover, the chance to work together within groups gives smallholder farmers the chance to profit from better prices for ancillary agricultural products and to negotiate regular supplies to large customers.


>> POLITICS (mGovernment)

Improved access to communications technologies can also in-tensify the relationship between governments and the populace when citizens begin to play a more active role. All around the world, citizens are making increasing use of mobile applications to demand greater accountability from their governments and heightened transparency thanks to contact opportunities which have never existed before. For their part, governments are using mobile technologies to create interactive services and opportu-nities to create a dialog for interested citizens. The new aspect from mGovernment is that governments become digitally acces-sible at any time, from any place, to anybody. Simultaneously, innovative products and services in this sector are contributing to a reduction in crime and support for democratization.

In India, for instance, a country where citizens spend one-third of their income for bribes, the cell phone app “I Paid a Bribe” is attracting increased attention because instances of bribery can be reported quickly and brought to light. In Bangladesh, the government worked with the World Bank to launch a pilot pro-ject: a cell phone survey in various villages about the solar home facilities which are subsidized by the government.

There are Internet platforms (such as Abgeordnetenwatch.de) in Germany as well which are institutionally independent and not beholden to any specific party. They provide a chance for citizens to publicly question German representatives in various parliaments.

>> OUTLOOK

Today, more than 4 billion people live under the poverty level of US$9 a day as measured by purchasing power parity, and 1.2 billion of them live in extreme poverty of less than US$1.25 a day. These circumstances led to the joint definition of the Mil-lennium Development Goals by a partnership among the UN, the World Bank, the OECD, and a number of NGOs in 2001. This program describes eight worldwide goals for 2015 aimed at cutting extreme poverty in half by that time. Even though enormous progress has been made, it is clear even now, shortly before the deadline, that not all of the goals which were set can be reached.

Just as before, 1.8 billion people suffer from malnutrition, and more than 800 million people worldwide do not have enough to eat. 2.6 million children die from malnutrition every year. About one billion people lack access to sanitary facilities. Even today, about 300,000 women worldwide die during pregnancy or while delivering their children. Pneumonia and dysentery illnesses are among the most frequent causes of death for infants.

The communications and technology sector will certainly not be able to solve all of our global problems. But it will for sure play an increasingly significant role in the battle against poverty in the future and have an impact in the areas of use described above.


Pro Bono Project with Afrika Rise e.V.

How Digitalization Can Further

Education in Africa

As part of their work on a pro bono project, a team of young consultants designed and implemented a

fundraising concept and a digital communication and interaction platform for the non-profit organization

Afrika Rise e.V.


hile digitalization certainly opens up a broad range of new opportunities for companies, it is not restricted to business. Charity organizations which are dependent on the broad sup-port of an interested public and donors as well as close inter-connections with their partners can also benefit. Wanting to do more to take advantage of such opportunities, the non-profit organization Afrika Rise e.V. contacted the Volunteers & Ven-tures (V&V) team at Detecon. Afrika Rise supports many diffe-rent initiatives in Uganda, generating donations and motivating volunteer supporters for its work in Germany, the organization’s core market.

The desire to exploit potential to the full led to the need for a more modern fundraising concept and a platform which would facilitate communication between the association, the initiatives and on-site non-government organizations (NGO) in Africa, donors, and people interested in the association’s work. In addition, the organization wanted to lay the foundation for the social tourism planned for the future when interested visitors will be able to make active contributions to the projects right on the sites.

The complexity of fundraising

Fundraising is a minefield of contradictions and complexity, especially in Germany. The donation volume in Germany rose

W by 13% to about €4.7 billion between 2012 and 2013, but it was distributed among more than half a million associations and foundations. More than 30% of the volume went to the 100 lar-gest organizations. Moreover, an increase in volume is rarely, if ever, noted unless dramatic events with broad media coverage such as massive flooding or epidemics occur. Fundraising efforts are also hampered by the uncertainty on the part of a majority of the population about the way their donations are actually used.

Fields of action and optimization of efficiency

In awareness of these issues, the team working on the project came up with five strategic fields of action for fundraising which would optimize efficiency and reveal new areas for development. These factors were also taken into account during the design of the digital systems for the project.

• The first priority was to enhance the professionalism of the activities across the board. This covered the establishment of new fields of action alongside the ongoing application of methods which had proved to be successful in the past, including the build-up of networks and partnerships, the use of crowdfunding platforms, and the utilization of e-commerce systems for charity shopping.


• Memberships serve alongside the fundraising activities themselves as a second important pillar for charitable organiza-tions. A structured and efficient recruiting process facilitates the acquisition and integration of new members.

• The growing number of tourists to Africa in conjunction with the rise in German donation volumes leads to another im-portant field – social tourism. Over the course of tours lasting between two and four weeks, interested parties are guided through the country and its culture; moreover, they become in-volved in social projects on location.

• The presence and reach of the online sites have a massive impact on donation and membership drives. Modern design which stands out for its simplicity and the concentration of its information presentation is absolutely essential. When coupled with search engine optimization (SEO) methods, it can signifi-cantly extend reach and the addressed audience.

• Appropriate management of the relationship with donors can be decisive for the success of repeated donation drives. In this sense, even simple elements such as personalized thank-you letters and newsletters have substantial influence on the satisfac-tion of the donors. Maximum transparency must be guaranteed at all levels so that uncertainties are kept to a minimum.

From theory to practice

An analysis of potential and portfolio performed by the team determined two decisive obstacles; the results were carried over into a systematic representation of the fields of action. To start with, there was a need for an integrated system which would connect the NGOs with one another and provide an external interface to the general public. Next, the selection of the system had to concentrate on finding the solution with the lowest pos-sible cost which would ensure a high net flow of the donations to their intended purpose. The team worked with the client to select a system mix of three platforms which are so intercon-nected that they can semi-automatically collect, process, and prepare information as appropriate to the interested groups.

As the first step, Detecon was able to convince Salesforce.com to become an important partner for the client. The capabilities which became available through this partnership included the creation and management of projects, but went even further to secure maximum transparency; social-communicative elements offer an outstanding channel for dialog among the NGOs. Donors, interested tourists, and volunteers can be entered in databases, and contact with them is maintained by newsletters and thank-you letters generated by fully automated elements.

Quelle: Detecon

HOMEPAGEConnecting element and gateway for interested parties and NGOs

FORUMPlatform for interaction between NGOs and Afrika Rise

SALESFORCEDatabase to collect all needed information

Arising Challenges

Solution

Assessment Initial Situation

Research

Potential Fields of Action for Afrika Rise Bedeutung

Enhance fudraising activities and take chance on new online possibilities and further trends

Develop community based tourism

Upgrade homepage with recognitation value and assignment as an information pool

Develop and suistain recruiting strategy to reach new volunteers

Motivate donators to recure


A home page was designed as a central interface to the general public so that current activities and projects can be presented externally. Visitors to the site will find an overview of the most important NGOs and their projects. In addition, they can sign up for donations, projects, or tourism activities by entering the relevant data. The data are entered centrally in Salesforce.com and read out of Salesforce.com so that they can be presented on the home page.

The interconnection of the NGOs with the general public was promoted further by the integration of a forum based on phpBB3 as a platform on the home page. Registered members can communicate with one another on general subjects, pro-jects, products, or services in a moderated environment.

Simplicity assures the expansion of the concept

During the selection and implementation of the systems, the team paid special attention to a simple, understandable, and scalable realization which did not require users to possess any extraordinary specialist knowledge. New actions can be added to the system within only a few minutes, so the concept can be expanded to include other African countries with a minimum of effort.

Supports suggested activities from the fundraising analysis: Professionalize Fundraising and Recurring Donors: Campaigning via Salesforce enables the creation of donor profiles and individual contact to donors

Social Voluntourism: Creating Database for tourism via Salesforce with up to date information NGOs

Improve Homepage:One central entrance for all interest groups

Volunteer Recruiting:Attracting volunteers with up to date informatione and easy access via homepage


In cooperation with the student initiative “OFW Organisationsforum Wirtschaftskongress GmbH”, Detecon International GmbH supports the driving forward of innovative ideas

and subjects. Its activities here include the creation of a network joining international students and companies. This work is making an important contribution to the

encouragement of “entrepreneurs of tomorrow”.

onsulting companies face many different challenges which drive them to continue evolving their business models unceasingly. The development of innovative subject areas, the identification of new trends, internal and external knowledge transfer, build-up of a stable network, and the recruiting of new talent – all of these are factors which have a major influence on the success of a corporate consulting company.

The OFW is a unique initiative run by dedicated volunteer students from the University of Cologne. Since being launched in 1984, it has taken on the challenge of testing theoretical fin-dings and student visions against corporate reality. The primary project of this “high-performance association” (Der Spiegel) is the internationally renowned World Business Dialogue, formerly the Deutscher Wirtschaftskongress. Decision- makers from busi-ness, academics, and politics join 300 selected students from all over the world at this forum to discuss economic subjects currently at the center of debate with more than 60 interna-tional speakers such as Dr. Rüdiger Grube (2012), Herman van Rompuy (2011), Dr. Axel Weber (2010), Dr. Joseph Acker-mann (2005), and Bill Gates (1995). The initiative, which was the recipient of the “Landmarks in the Land of Ideas” award in 2010, prepares its members for their later professional careers in a number of ways.

The starting shot of the cooperation between Detecon and OFW was fired during the past 17th World Business Dialogue in March 2014. During workshops and a “Talk” with Francis Deprez, CEO of Detecon International, on “Mobile First Strategy – Lessons from Silicon Valley”, Detecon provided a platform for top students and corporate congress participants from around the world to promote an exchange of information.

“This past Business Dialogue was the start of a successful and inspiring collaboration for us. I am looking forward very much to its continuation,” said Marc Wagner, Partner at Detecon.

Francis Deprez became a member of the OFW Advisory Board only a short time ago and now supports the students in the realization of their ideas. His role gives Detecon the opportu-nity to become more closely acquainted with the active team as well as to play a role, in cooperation with representatives from other leading companies, in shaping the long-term strategy of the OFW.

In 2015, the theme of the World Business Dialogue will be “Power to the People – Redefining Interdependencies in a Trem-bling World”, and participants will examine the changing power constellations in today’s society. The overall theme of the con-gress will be subdivided into three dimensions:

C

Consultants and Students Look for Answers to the Challenges of the Future

World Business Dialogue


1. In the field of Business vs. Politics, the relationships between politics and business will be reviewed from a macro-economic perspective. The participants will delve into the question of how the relationship between politics and business is being rede-fined. Do politicians succeed in promoting business with an eye on specific goals, or do they essentially do no more than chase after trends such as the growing startup sector?

2. The area Companies vs. Consumers will be taking a closer look at power itself, especially as wielded by giant digital corpo-rations. Does Google have the power to manipulate elections? Do companies have any chance of survival without the favor of search engines? Must giant digital corporations be subjected to democratic control mechanisms? What power do customers have?

3. Detecon will have a decisive role in determining the direc-tion of the third area, Employers vs. Employees. What demands from the labor market will students have to meet in the future? What general conditions must employers offer if they want to be successful in the “war for talent”?

In addition to the content of the framework program, there will be various networking formats, the first “Public Panel”, and exclusive live pitches for cooperation projects between students and companies.

Detecon has appointed a team of Juniors, Seniors, and the Corporate Communications Department which is currently involved with the preparations and organization of the 18th World Business Dialogue so that current and past experience can be integrated as well as possible into the various formats and contents; we are looking forward to yet another exciting time at the congress.

Are you interested in becoming part of this event? If yes, please visit the 18th World Business Dialogue from 12 to 13 March 2015! Please log on to www.world-business-dialogue.com for more detailed information or get in touch with: Hanane Bouzidi ([email protected]), Tugba Akyazi (Tugba. [email protected]).


The Manager as a Brand – Competitive

Advantage in the

Digital Age

Can the brand concept be transfer-red to leadership figures? “Yes,” says Frank Dopheide, managing director

of the Verlagsgruppe Handelsblatt, “brands always function according to

the same formula.” Dopheide spoke to Marc Wagner, Partner at Detecon, about stereotype managers, the cruel

difference between the way we see ourselves and the way others see us,

and the importance of the initial contact with a brand.

Interview with Frank Dopheide, Managing Director of Verlagsgruppe Handelsblatt

Interview:


DMR: The subject of “brand” with respect to products and services is a major topic of discussion in the business world. In this setting, the idea of transferring the concept to people is highly interesting. What has been your experience regarding the transfer of this con-cept?

F. Dopheide: Brands, regardless of whether we are talking about corporate brands, product brands, or celebrities as brands, always function according to the same formula: “Ability + Character x Continuity”. The essential foundation for brand success is qua-lity: What can the brand do? But this alone is not enough to make a difference on the market. Stiftung Warentest determines that the washing machine from Miele washes clothes just as well as the one from Bosch, but it costs twice as much. The decisive added value from a brand comes from the character and the values, the continuity, a brand promises to deliver. People have concrete expectations about a brand which are fulfilled. This is what makes the great difference in value. There is not a single person in the world who can distinguish different coffees during a blind taste test, but a pound of Melitta Feine Milde costs €3.49, a pound of Nespresso €23.00. And people are willing to pay the difference because of the character of the brand. When I buy Nespresso, I’m not buying the coffee itself; I’m getting “La Dolce Vita” with George Clooney and Italian design.

This principle of “Ability + Character x Continuity” can be transferred to people without the slightest adjustment. For example, there are innumerable fashion designers who under-stand their business thoroughly. But there is only one Lagerfeld. He understands his business, but he also stands for German discipline, seriousness, and wealth of ideas. When I close my eyes, I see him most clearly out of all of the fashion designers in the world: slender figure, ponytail, dark glasses. The same works equally well for politicians, athletes, managers.

DMR: But continuity is missing in most companies, forced out by their need to act quickly in their competitive environments. How can an image of continuity be generated for a personality who must convey this constant change to the outside world with his or her statements?

F. Dopheide: The drama starts with character. When we look at the CEOs from the DAX 30, we quickly note that they are all men, all in their early fifties, all slender, all clean-shaven, all run marathons as their hobby, all of them have been well trained in rhetoric. It’s impossible to tell them apart. We don’t have the slightest idea who belongs to what company or what any one of them stands for. Where is one who wears an earring? Where is one who says, “My hobby is eating meat.” [laughs] This is when you realize that there is obviously a cliché image of a German manager which dictates: You are a man, you are slender, you are disciplined, you represent continuity. But it also means that you

lack a distinct profile. Mr. Zetsche, the CEO at Daimler, has a distinguishing feature: his distinctive beard. His recognition score of 40% makes him the highest ranking manager. There should be a lot more managers who are recognized by 40% of the people interested in business! But the elite of the business world are interchangeable – visually, at any rate.

Yet recognition is becoming more and more important because the world is becoming increasingly complicated and complex. We see this happening in politics. Many people say that they cannot see any differences in the party platforms, so when in doubt, they vote for the person who is most familiar to them: Angela Merkel. The system of simplification kicks in, and we project a lot more on the person who is at the head. And this person must see him- or herself as more than just a manager and understand that he or she is a brand name product of the company.

DMR: ... and do something to stand out?

F. Dopheide: ... and stand out in the sense of being recogniz-able, of being associated specifically with something. This is a great help.

DMR: This has a lot to do with visual appearance, of course. What can managers do to set themselves apart long-term through their character?

F. Dopheide: Whenever you conduct a brand analysis, everyone – and the higher a person’s position, the harder it hits – makes a cruel discovery: there is a difference between the way we see ourselves and the way others see us. I regard myself to be an entertaining and cheerful person, a team player, someone who makes a great effort to be fair. If we now compare this with the way others see me and also consider a wide range of dimen-sions – people who know me; people who work for me, but have never had any personal contact; people who know me only from the media; or people who do not know me at all, but have only seen my picture – we will determine that there is an equally broad range in the values ascribed to me. Things that are self-evident for me get lost in communication because I look like a cliché banker: the same tie, the same monogrammed shirt, the same cuff links. And I also say the same standard phrases that all bankers use. Absolutely nothing of my character is left over. That is why it is so very important to ask certain questions. What do I truly stand for? What makes me who I am? And where exactly in my communication does this character trait get lost? It’s like being at the optician’s: the fuzziness that results has to be brought back into focus so that you communicate to others what you really stand for. And of course, this has to be a match with the company.


Frank Dopheide is Mana-ging Director for Customer

Development and Brand Management at the Verlags-

gruppe Handelsblatt. The well-known brand and commu-nications expert is responsible

for the sectors Sales and Marketing, the communica-tions consulting 360°, and

the event sector Face-to-Face. Dopheide first made a name

for himself as chairman of GREY. Under his leadership, GREY won the first Lions in

the agency’s history and rose into the ranks of the Top 10

of the most creative agencies.


DMR: What do I do now if my career and development have turned me into this kind of “slick stereotype”?

F. Dopheide: In the initial phase of your career, you start with product quality. For at least the first 15 years, you have to prove one thing: I can do this. During this period, you remain fairly consistent in your character – the cheerful salesperson, the overambitious, disciplined aspirant, whatever. The abrupt shift comes at the moment someone is promoted to CEO. This is when the person says to himself: I can do my job, I was on the management board for a long time, but being CEO is some-thing very different. The pressure is enormous, and no matter how much you communicate, it is always wrong. Either the shareholders or the employees, the politicians or the opinion leaders, are against it. Most counter this pressure by trying to take themselves out of the line of fire and saying that these com-ments are not directed at themselves personally, but at the chief executive officer. And then they slip into the accepted role of a chief executive officer. But the longer they keep this job, the more their true character will begin to show again.

DMR: What does this mean for the manager brand?

F. Dopheide: There are five major added values for the manager brand:

1. I am an identification figure for the company. My employees know me and feel they have a solid relationship with me.

2. I am an anchor of trust in the public eye. People know me, and they believe me when I say something.

3. I am a value driver for shareholders. Even when it is a question of cold facts and figures, investors orient themselves to the person at the head of the organization, to his or her personality. They ask, “Will he or she make it work?”

4. I am a magnet for talent.

5. I am a turbocharger for communication. When the press and other media know who I am, they are more likely to pay attention to my messages, I don’t have to spend as much money for expensive advertising.

And these five added values, which are backed by amounts in the millions, are not generated when the manager is a functio-nary who happens to sit at the head of the table during board meetings.

DMR: Speaking of trust: What does it really mean when we talk about creating trust?

F. Dopheide: Trust is dependent on familiarity. I must be wil-ling to reveal something about myself personally. Employees and the general public must know what I look like, what is im-portant to me, what I get upset about, what makes me happy. If I am nothing more than the name at the bottom of an email, I am vague, intangible. Then things become difficult. The age-old principle of “management by walking around” is still just as va-lid as ever; I must encounter people in their daily lives, in the corridor, on the job. Then trust and credibility will develop over time. You have to work at that. What it does not mean, however, is that everyone will find me likable or think that the things I say are good; it simply means that others will grasp what makes me tick. And that must be consistent with my conduct and my decisions.

DMR: So you have to break out of the confines of the role and just be yourself?

F. Dopheide: That’s the point – it is not easy to just be yourself. There is no such thing as an ideal model for a manager; there are legitimate reasons for the jovial, approachable types as well as for the “muscle man”. But ideally, there must be a fit with the company.

DMR: But then a company makes an investment in full awareness that the manager brand, the character, will perhaps be around for no more than three or four years or is the right man only for a spe-cific phase. How can the investment pay for itself in the company’s mind?

F. Dopheide: I am repeatedly surprised that the risks are deemed to be so high [laughs] and the profit is expected to be so low. In terms of a manager as a brand, the case of Linde AG is in-teresting. Mr. Reitzle did an excellent job as a manager at Linde. But more than that, his personality gave the corporate brand an aura of glamor and raised its awareness level. That has nothing to do with managing per se. There is something about the man which imparted a new perception to Linde, making Linde in-creasingly attractive as an employer, saving millions in expen-ditures for employer branding – suddenly even women wanted to work for a gas producer. Reitzle has moved on, but that has not harmed the company. Linde is now setting the parameters to determine what person as a brand can ring in the next stage. In this sense, the possible gains are always much greater than the risks of losing something. Unfortunately, people always see it the other way around.

DMR: That would mean that, in your view, there would really have to be an additional position in HR which is concerned with the long-term positioning of the company’s top managers.


F. Dopheide: Absolutely. It works the same way as with brand name products. You can see what Henkel stands for by looking at the top management figures. And when it comes to a large cosmetics corporation, it is important for a woman to be part of the perception because that creates a coherent image. Another example: There is a problem in Germany finding enough young engineers. The best ones all want to go to Audi or BMW. The “hidden champions” are in jeopardy, even though they are the world market leaders. Why? Because no one knows the compa-ny and its management, there are no fascinating stories to be told, no one even knows what to associate with the company, and the cities where the companies are located are unknown. That demands exploiting your personality to tip the scales in your favor. This will be essential for the survival of family- owned businesses in the future.

DMR: So the CEO is an especially critical figure. But what does that mean for a company as a whole and its management? Wouldn’t it be better to lay a foundation for the brand which goes beyond the CEO alone to include the entire management board and its direct reports, firmly fixing the idea of continuity on the market?

F. Dopheide: There are always lots of identification figures who go completely unseen. They can well be the porter or the custo-dian. These employees are actually below the awareness horizon, but they carry many of the company’s core values within and exercise a powerful identification effect. One of my favorite sto-ries in this respect comes from a visit to Porsche. A presentation, setting up the stage – I was standing at a lectern that wobbled. A custodian came by and I asked him for a beer coaster so that I could stop the lectern from wobbling. He didn’t say a word, just went on his way. But three minutes later, he returned with his toolbox, knelt under the lectern, screwed something on the bottom of it, and then said: “We don’t work with beer coasters here at Porsche.” Everything was done right. Mr. Krause, the custodian, had internalized everything that makes Porsche what it is [laughs], there is a lot of the identification figure in that. Of course, the CEO has a much larger stage.

DMR: Identification is dependent on the prerequisite that there is something people can clearly identify with.

F. Dopheide: The world’s largest advertiser, A. G. Lafley, CEO of Procter & Gamble, says: “It’s not what people buy, it’s what they buy into.” Meaning: Every brand that we buy needs a reason justifying its existence. And that reason is not: We produce diapers. Instead: We want children to grow up to be healthy and happy. Every company and every CEO must be able to put this reason into words. This also gives rise to one of the greatest drivers in employee recruiting: “I am a part of something that is greater than I am.”

DMR: What can a telecommunications company do, for instance, to make its meaning and purpose sound more exciting?

F. Dopheide: I would think in this direction: much to everyone’s surprise, I would pass over the technology and put communi-cation and understanding at the forefront. When people talk to one another, they have fewer problems because they know what motivates the others. So you could use words like these: We make sure that people stay close to one another. Spatially and emotionally. We can make the world warmer, closer, more hu-man, that is what we are working for. You need a fundamental truth which speaks to the deepest underlying needs and makes people realize: That’s true, it would be terrible if the people in the world could no longer speak to one another. An approach of this nature also generates a higher level of identification among the company’s own workforce. Management based on the idea of “I’m the boss here, and you will do what I want!” is no longer viable today.

DMR: So far, we have concentrated mainly on individuals. But can I apply all of these ideas to a team as well?

F. Dopheide: Yes, without exception! Let’s put the automobile manufacturers or banks next to each other and take a look. What does the Deutsche Bank stand for? For fame, status, pride, elite, assertiveness, strength. What does the savings and loan stand for? For quality, orderly work, reliability, and uprightness. Highly different values along the value spectrum, although the checking account is the same. It’s perfectly understandable that the people who are drawn to the Deutsche Bank differ from those going to the savings and loan. This works the same way for every company. There has to be a core value – e.g., dependability – which HR prioritizes when hiring employees. You can still add creativity so that it doesn’t become boring. But it is absolutely essential to have this one value. In my opinion, companies today do not think about this enough or value it as they should.

DMR: So companies need to attract high potentials who explicitly match the characteristics of the enterprise?

F. Dopheide: Exactly; otherwise there will be the famous “clash of cultures”! Things will go smoothly for a while before explo-ding at just the wrong moment. Someone who does not identify closely with a company’s core value will – sooner or later – cause harm to the brand.

DMR: Could you mention a company where following this prin-ciple has achieved excellent results over a number of generations?

F. Dopheide: Yes, Bankhaus Metzler. Bank crisis, everything falls apart – but not Mr. von Metzler and his bank. It has been


doing business for 300 years. Or the mail-order business Otto – built up by Papa and driven even higher by the son, using exactly the same system of values, to move into the e-commerce field. But the brand has retained its coherency.

DMR: Globalization and the significance of presence: How, in a global context, can the establishment of a person as a brand be achieved quickly?

F. Dopheide: The most important moment in the life of a brand is the initial contact with the brand. When I encounter a brand for the first time, everything about it is linked to this moment. How does it feel, how does it smell, how does it taste, what do I sense? Quite often, CEOs leave the initial brand contact up to the press, which writes: An outsourcing program is underway, the location will be closed. And that is the very first impression which the company’s own employees in Asia, Africa, Germany, wherever, have of their own boss. That is the worst possible solu-tion imaginable! The second-worst solution is an email. People underestimate the impact of that first personal encounter. Even if it is no more than a personal letter. You can write to 24,000 employees to introduce yourself: I’m Dutch, I have a dog, play tennis, and if you need to discuss something, get in touch! Loo-king forward to our collaboration! For €24,000, you would have an excellent and personal brand contact.

DMR: Is it a matter of symbols and images?

F. Dopheide: Yes. I know then that we have something in com-mon. The dog, for instance. You cannot imagine how forceful an American president can make his statements simply by the choice of a dog! Americans are much more advanced and better trained than we are in the art of communication.

DMR: But this also means that the highly reserved German mana-gers must go a lot further in revealing aspects of their personal lives.

F. Dopheide: Yes, but only the part that is characteristic of their personality. If I’m a reclusive engineer who shuns the spotlight, that’s okay. The dog can become the connecting element. This makes the personality tangible – a break in perception which ensures that I look more closely.

DMR: So this is Step 1: hold a mirror up to your face and see how others perceive you? Normally we tend more to think about how we want to be viewed and what we can do to make sure we appear that way.

F. Dopheide: Yes, but things don’t work like that. CEOs or other managers are not actors. You can’t put make-up on them, send them out onto the stage, and tell them, like Hamlet, “Speak

the speech trippingly!” People sense that immediately. You must have internalized the subject. If you do not do that, you will be better off finding someone in the company, putting him or her at your side, and saying, “The subject is continuity; it’s very important to us, that is why this person is now joining our management board.” That is much more effective! The person and the subject must be a match. And the subject has to be a match with the company as well. If continuity were the Number One subject for Deutsche Telekom, I would suggest: The longer customers have a contract, the less they pay. You must demons-trate how seriously the company takes the subject of continuity, then people will sense that there is a genuine added value for them.

DMR: The subject of brand development is then the equivalent of personnel development, and it could be anchored across all of the career levels in the HR department. Right from the employee’s first day in the company, you work on the personal brand of every single person.

F. Dopheide: Absolutely! You say: This value is what binds us together, we never forget it. But on the other hand, we need different ways of playing the game: we need the motivators, we need the creatives, we need the disciplined. And if you have that in you, we want to bring all of the capabilities in you to full fruition. You will grow as a person. In our publishing house, for example, we say that our editors become brand name products. We always show you with a picture and write your name below it, adding a little tidbit such as “Lived in China for six years and loves Peking duck”. We also make sure that you are pictured with the people you are interviewing. This creates credibility for the readers as well.

DMR: What role does the subject of social media play in the context of brand build-up and personality?

F. Dopheide: The more differentiated, the more complex, the more diversified, and the more international a subject is in a company, the more important social media become. After all, this is the channel that I can control myself. I can write: “Wag-ner, even if 5,000 other people are listening, I want to tell you: fantastic closing, Telekom is happy, I’m happy, keep it up!” Everyone who reads along will see what he has done. And there is not a journalist anywhere who can exaggerate the heading just to sell more copies. “Management by walking around” – social media play a grand, great role here.

DMR: Mr. Dopheide, thank you for this enthralling conversation!


Deutsche Telekom is ambitious to become the “Leading European Telco”, as market leader for inte-grated services in the European footprint. However, never before the concept of leadership has been so contested: customers demand integrated solutions and intelligent connectivity, while organizations and employees require incentives and guidance, yet freedom to act.

Culture Change at Deutsche Telekom AG

Lead to Win – Deutsche Telekom’s New Leadership Ambition

Lead to Win Starterkit


LEAD TO WIN’S MISSION

Consolidation in markets and growing technological and organizational complexity require pan-European mindsets and are adding a new cultural dimension to management. Disrup-tive innovation calls for technical transformation and changes to our traditional modes of communication. Collaboration is replacing hierarchy, encouragement is superseding commands, and virtual leadership is taking the place of an outdated culture of presence.

In order to react to those challenges Deutsche Telekom’s strategy is paving the way to the digital transformation of its business, towards integrated and convergent products, customer-centric services, based on state-of-the-art IP technology. The “What” is clearly defined, but to become the Leading European Telco, Deutsche Telekom must reach excellence in “How” to realize it. This is where Lead to Win comes in.

THE BASIS OF LEAD TO WIN

The goal of the Lead to Win initiative is to elevate the Group’s strategy into a compelling leadership culture. Because it goes without saying that a new culture of entrepreneurship and en-couragement must be driven by strong leaders. Thus Deutsche Telekom needs leaders who are passionate for more: who take responsibility, act proactively and anticipative, are willing to take risks, focus on performance, are T-minded, cooperative, and who act entrepreneurial. In short: leaders who know how to “Lead to Win”. Moreover, Höttges’ favorite quote from his stu-dies at Stanford nails down the importance of such an endeavor: “Culture without strategy is aimless. Strategy without culture is powerless“. DT needs both: a high-performing culture able to achieve the strategy, shaped by its leaders and employees.

The conceptual framework of Lead to Win consists of three Lea-dership Principles:

Collaborate: • We win and lose together in DT – we act as „dual citizen“ • We foster solution-driven dialog – we challenge decisions when we disagree• We accept and give feedback to improve together• … and we are not afraid to take responsibility when things are unclear

Innovate: • We constantly work on innovating – our customers’ experiences, our processes and our products• We constantly challenge the status quo and our own behavior and make problems visible• We are not afraid to make mistakes and we correct them quickly• We show courage for our ideas and fight for them with passion• … and we do so based on understanding our business in detail

Empower to Perform: • We strengthen our team and do not make decisions for others• We give responsibility to our teams and encourage risk taking• We support, develop and care for our people• … and with a clear vision we make our strategy relevant for our team and execute with discipline

Together with Deutsche Telekom’s well established Guiding Principles, they determine the corporate culture. Furthermore, the individual performance assessment, reward and develop-ment of Deutsche Telekom’s management is adapted in such a way as to support the principles and provide the right incentives for cooperation, more innovation, and a stronger focus on em-powerment.

To avoid the Leadership Principles remain only words on paper and are actually pursued to re-create a new culture with signi-ficant impact – new formats, tools and events have been deve-loped.

Empower to perform


Hans-Peter Günter: 18 years ago, Hans-Peter Günter started working for Deutsche Telekom AG and joined the HR-Department in 1999. Since 2012 he is the Vice President of Group Performance Develop-ment and the responsible Global Category Manager for Performance Management. In 2013, Hans-Peter Günter, together with a small team, developed the Lead to Win initiative and acts since then as the opera-tive project leader for the introduction of Lead to Win. Nowadays, Lead to Win grew to a global campaign, involving many people and departments of Deutsche Telekom AG.

Dr. Reza Moussavian: In his capacity as Vice President of Group Transformational Change at Deut-sche Telekom AG, he drives the Shareground initiative intended to create and promote a new culture with re-gard to collaboration, innovation, and implementation within the company. Shareground is a dynamic com-munity, which seeks to drive transformation and net-working with others as a means of establishing today the working culture of tomorrow. Activities include workshops and coaching programs for business teams, cultural partnership programs, as well as the implementation and communication of the guiding and leadership principles, and with that the support of the Lead to Win initiative with focus on activities regar-ding communication and transformation.

collaborate


INTRODUCING LEAD TO WIN

Supporting the Mindset-Shift

As Hans-Peter Günter, the operative project manager of Lead to Win, states: “The biggest risk of such an initiative is that it will be perceived solely as a new process or IT-tool – which are at most means to an end. Lead to Win implies more than fol-lowing new rules, processes or using web-based tools. It is an initiative to change leadership culture with the upmost target to create the necessary understanding and to provide supportive instruments to live it. Therefore it is important to start on the very top. Lead to Win was piloted by targeting the first ma-nagement level. Only if the top management is committed to transform leadership, other leaders will follow.”

Formats and Tools

As a kick-off, all 2,800 Executives of the Group received the Lead to Win Starter Kit, a tangible box including explanatory and supportive materials, developed by Shareground, Deutsche Telekom’s in-house unit for cultural transformation. ”Through its innovative design and hands-on configuration, Executives get in touch with Lead to Win in a playful and positive way, rather than linking it with additional work and effort.” says Dr. Reza Moussavian, Head of Shareground. The Starter Kit provi-des tools and approaches to tackle the leadership challenges that Executives may face in their day-to-day working life and leaves room for thoughts and ideas. Materials are based on recognized models and adapted to concrete challenges regarding the Lea-dership Principles.

Furthermore, Shareground developed specific workshops for Lead to Win, provided in the beginning of 2015 to the entire Lead to Win target group. To kick start the exchange about the Leadership Principles in an interactive workshop and to under-stand their sense and meaning, Executives are invited to join the Leadership Principles sessions. “Here, everyone has the unique opportunity to take the time for reflecting on his or her own role as a leader, formulating a leadership challenge as well as discussing ways to approach them in smart and small groups. It is about change of perspectives, trust and peer-to-peer exchange as well as sharing of personal experiences while acquainting the interconnection of leadership values and performance.” explains Dr. Reza Moussavian. Following the Leadership Principles

session, the Lead to Win Enabling Session provides more proce-dural and technical information on tasks to practice new tools and to get comfortable with the changed requirements. “To cre-ate commitment, Executives must have the chance to actively get involved with all upcoming activities, talk to the responsible persons and ask critical questions. Sending out a brochure or informative emails is not sufficient to take leaders on that jour-ney. Additionally, to tell the Lead to Win story in a consistent and holistic way, creative movies are used for the sessions.” says Hans-Peter Günter.

To keep people on track and commitment stable, many more inspiring activities will be provided next year, partly digital and tangible, but foremost interactive and involving.

TO SUMMARIZE…

All in all, Lead to Win establishes an integrated value and performance system. Assessment, reward and development of Deutsche Telekom’s management will be balanced in such a way as to provide the right incentives for cross-functional collabo-ration, more innovation, and a strong impetus on empower-ment to perform. “Cultural change is a long process and hard to measure. It is an unusual step for a multinational corporation to prepare, pilot and complete roll-out to all 2,800 Executives in only one year. If next year our employees experience first changes in how they are led, we are on the right track.” conclu-des Hans-Peter Günter.

In the words of Timotheus Höttges: “At the end, it is not about words and thoughts, but what we ventured and achieved. For me, this is leadership.”*

* Source: Lead to Win Broschure, November 2014

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„War is a chaotic enterprise“

Interview with Major James E. Mullin III, Tactics Instructor & US Exchange Officer

Getting an inside perspective of how the US Army works is certainly not an everyday event. We however had the honor and privilege to talk to Major James E. Mullin III, tactics instructor and leadership trainer, about exactly that and he patiently responded to all of our questions. Have you ever wanted to know what a US Army major thinks about great leaders, adapting to change and digital transformation? We have talked to him and were surprised that many aspects from the US Army can easily be transferred to the corporate world.


DMR: Do you think the foundation of great leadership is merely based on inherent talent or can you really teach someone to become a great leader?

J.E. Mullin: I believe there is a mixture of talent and learning that contribute to anyone becoming a great leader. Some leaders have an innate ability to inspire others to great heights, while others take longer to develop their own particular leadership style that proves to be effective. Whether a person is a “natural” leader or not, it’s important to understand that training, educa-tion, and experience all play a vital role in leader development. A good leader will continue to hone his skills throughout his career and constantly seek to improve his abilities to lead Sol-diers. It is only through a commitment to excellence, along with a lot of hard work that a person can grow and mature and be prepared to tackle positions of increased responsibility.

Leader development is a constant theme in the US Army, and commanders at all levels dedicate a lot of time, effort, and re-sources to ensuring our Soldiers continue to improve their abi-lities to be effective leaders. This includes progressing through a series of professional military education courses throughout a career, as well as professional development and education programs at the unit level. These programs focus on reading, thinking about, and discussing a wide variety of leadership and values topics to stimulate thoughts on how to deal with making difficult decisions under uncertain circumstances.

In addition, good leaders continually learn from others, whether they be historical or contemporary figures, or those around them in their own organization. One of my cadet leaders at West Point once told me that you can always learn something from the leaders you interact with, whether it is positive or ne-


gative. You can either take away skills to use to effectively lead your Soldiers and inspire confidence in them, or you can learn lessons of what not to do in a similar situation and avoid pitfalls that can lead to an undesirable outcome.

DMR: What from your perspective are key characteristics of a “ great leader”?

J.E. Mullin: A great leader possesses high moral character, which includes living the Army Values: LDRSHIP (= Loyalty, Duty, Respect, Selfless Service, Honor, Integrity, Personal Courage). He constantly maintains a warrior mentality and is dedicated to mission accomplishment while simultaneously taking care of Soldiers – “Mission First - Soldiers Always,” which includes our families as well. Obviously, he needs to be tactically and tech-nically proficient. And he serves as a role model for others to emulate – meaning he does the right thing even when nobody is watching.

DMR: You are a leader as well – do you have role models that have influenced how you lead?

J.E. Mullin: I absolutely do. My Company Commander while a Lieutenant serving in Kosovo and Germany as well as my Bat-talion Operations Officer and Executive Officer from Ft. Hood, TX and Operation Iraqi Freedom I are my role models. Both of these men lived the Army Values on a daily basis and I reflect everything I do as a leader on their behavior. They provided the time, guidance, resources, and leadership necessary to properly train our units so that we were ready to not only go to war, but to win. They inspired me to be better and I wouldn’t be the per-son and certainly not the officer that I am today without them. They have been my mentors and role models, and I have tried to emulate these men throughout my career.

DMR: An important goal for a leader is to form “High-Performing Teams”. What are key success factors in your opinion?

J.E. Mullin: The “Team of Leaders Handbook” best describes the mindset of building high-performing teams in the US Army because it focuses on every member of the team being a leader in his or her own right, while still maintaining the chain of com-mand and following the orders and direction of the actual team

leader. There are four major characteristics of the ToL approach, which include a shared vision especially on the mission: What is our mission and why is it important to us? Second of all, it is all about shared trust – it is the basic ingredient of sharing and collaboration. Trust is solidly grounded in the shared Army Va-lues. Another aspect has to do with shared competence: Are we proficient in important individual and collective tasks? Do we have the competencies necessary to perform our assigned tasks? In the US Army, shared competency in those tasks required to be performed for successful mission accomplishment is a basic, routine expectation. Finally, shared confidence is crucial in order to accomplish what is expected of us. Confidence is the product of shared trust working as a team to execute a fully understood, agreed vision with a competent team.

DMR: What makes leadership so special in a military context?

J.E. Mullin: Leadership is so special in a military context because it permeates everything we do. It is leadership that helps to in-still the previously mentioned core values in the heart of every Soldier. We want our Soldiers not only to live these values, but to make them part of their character and demonstrate them in their behavior every day. A good leader will naturally display these values in his day to day life, setting the example for others to emulate and thus creating better, stronger, and more dedica-ted Soldiers within the organization.

The role of a Soldier in the contemporary operating environ-ment is difficult, complex, and ever-changing. We do not just expect our Soldiers to be Infantrymen, Tankers, Artillerymen, or Logisticians anymore. We also expect them to be states-men when they have key leader engagements and work with local leaders in Afghanistan; humanitarians when they deliver food and water to those in need around the globe; crime scene investigators when they gather evidence to identify suspected bomb makers in Iraq; and public affairs experts when they con-duct interviews with the media during training or deployments. It is only through strong, dedicated, and constant leadership that the Army can prepare its Soldiers to deal with these myriad tasks, duties, and responsibilities, and ultimately be successful in all of the endeavors that Soldiers find themselves involved with at any given time.


DMR: Every mission that the US Army accomplishes is very com-plex and critical to political developments. How do leaders handle the constant pressure and high stress level?

J.E. Mullin: Dealing with stress does play a very important role in the development of an effective leader. Effective leaders have to learn how to manage stress and not let it adversely impact not only their decisions, but the way in which they lead as well. The Army practices stress management on a daily basis, because war is such a chaotic enterprise. If a leader is unable to manage stress, he will not stand up to the rigors of combat and will ultimately make poor decisions that could have terrible conse-quences for his mission and his Soldiers.

Throughout a career, leaders are given a number of responsibili-ties based on their rank and position. Once a leader has proven he can effectively handle those responsibilities, he can be consi-dered for promotion or for other positions of increased respon-sibility. As a Soldier progresses, he learns how to manage the additional workload and responsibility, and the stress associated as well. In addition, professional military education, rigorous training during field exercises, and ultimately deployments will test a leader’s ability to manage stress and demonstrate to his superiors and subordinates that he has what it takes to lead Sol-diers on the modern battlefield.

DMR: How do you handle the challenges of globalization and an increasingly more complex environment?

J.E. Mullin: As the world becomes smaller and more connected, a variety of complexities will continue to arise and create unique and difficult circumstances for the US Army to operate under in the future. The Army must continue to adapt and change with the times to be able tos successfully execute missions in an uncertain world, while not forgetting the hard-fought lessons we have learned in recent years. This includes leader develop-ment and constant training for a number of different tasks, to include combat, peacekeeping, humanitarian aid, and disaster relief, to name a few.

In regards to globalization, the only thing that will be constant is change. Those changes will most likely occur rapidly, and the US Army must be prepared to contend with a wide variety of

contingency operations and asymmetric threats that can occur globally. Looking at the current operating environment, we are conducting operations in Afghanistan and Iraq; dealing with the Ebola outbreak in Western Africa; performing training with international partners in the Baltic States and Eastern Europe; and rotating units to South Korea, Germany, and the Middle East, amongst other training and contingency missions. Units train and deploy around the world to conduct operations while simultaneously dealing with shrinking manpower, which creates an added strain on our capabilities. Thus, we must continue to devise new ways to do more with less and prepare for future operations that might appear on the horizon.

DMR: How do you prepare leaders for these dynamic changes?

J.E. Mullin: The US Army is dedicated to creating leaders that can adapt to an ever-changing environment and be able to think at the tactical, operational, and strategic levels. Our lea-ders must become experts on the various types of operations the US Army is engaged in now and could be engaged in down the road. When there is a lack of knowledge, leaders have to make a concerted effort to read, study, and engage with others so they can become experts as quickly as possible. This does not happen overnight, though. Time, effort, and planning go into creating an environment conducive to learning and encouraging profes-sional discussion so that we learn, and then pass that knowledge down to the lowest levels as well so every Soldier has the requi-site knowledge needed. In order to create baseline knowledge of a number of additional skills, the Army will have to create new opportunities to train and educate its Soldiers. This could require changing the concepts taught during basic training for new recruits, and adding to the curriculum for different courses through the professional military educational establishments throughout the Army for NCOs and Officers.

DMR: How is leadership affected by a more and more complex environment?

J.E. Mullin: A more complex environment creates an increase on the demands of leadership and an expectation for leaders to be able to deal with a wider array of challenges simultaneously. In addition to the traditional differences between nation states that can sometimes be dealt with using conventional warfare,


Major James E. Mullin III, Jim holds a Master’s Degree in Public Administration from the University of Oklahoma and finished his Bachelor’s Degree at the United States Military Academy at West Point, USA. So far in his career, Jim has conducted hundreds of combat and peacekeeping operations. He has comman-ded Soldiers at the Platoon and Company levels and has been responsible for the mobilization and training of over 600 National Guardsmen prior to their deployment for combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Today, Jim is responsible for pre-employment training to British and Interna-tional Officers in the application of doctrine, staff procedures, and maneuver tactics at the United Kingdom’s Land Warfare Centre in Warminster, England. Amongst other decorations, he has been awarded two Bronze Star medals for meritorious achievement in combat.

leaders must now focus on an array of religious, ethnic, socie-tal, economic, cultural, and political differences that can breed conflict. These challenges can cause great instability in less de-veloped regions of the world, which can give rise to asymmetric warfare when the belligerents cannot face the conventional ca-pabilities of the US and its allies. Leaders must be able to deal with conventional as well as unconventional threats, which re-quire broader understanding, planning, and training to combat effectively.

Using the current operating environment as an example, the US has forces deployed to several continents simultaneously. We have Soldiers serving in Europe, Africa, and Asia, and the missions conducted in these locations can vary greatly. Dealing with so many threats across the globe continues to add additio-nal strain on our resources, and the US Army is constantly asked to do more with less. Thus, our leaders must be creative in how they train, deploy, and conduct operations with the Soldiers and equipment they have. In addition, they will be expected to make recommendations on how to implement changes that will increase the flexibility of our Soldiers, as well as purchase the right equipment that will suit our needs for future operations.

DMR: Can you handle complexity by engaging in collaborations?

J.E. Mullin: Absolutely – a part of how we mitigate the chal-lenges of an increasingly complex environment is to build coalitions to confront new dangers. As we continue to deploy to different locations around the world, we will continue to work with allies, international partners, and host nation forces to achieve our goals. These coalitions engage the international community to gain support and legitimacy. We increasingly rely on the help of our allies to prosecute missions and present a unified front as we contend with a number of threats around the world, and our leaders will have an even more important role in helping to build these coalitions in the future.

In addition to working with international partners, the US Army must be able to work with US governmental agencies, non-governmental organizations, and a host of international


groups that could operate within a unit’s battlespace. We have to understand how these organizations operate, what their “langu-age” is, and learn quickly how to create interoperability so that we can work together, and not against one another. This requires training, experience, and creating subject matter experts (SMEs) who have the requisite knowledge and skills to work with these groups successfully.

DMR: What kind of challenges does the digital transformation create in regard to leadership?

J.E. Mullin: The digital transformation in today’s world requires US Army leaders to contend with a number of cyber and infor-mational challenges and to think beyond the typical battlefield. No longer are we just concerned with fighting on land, sea, in the air, or in space. Now leaders also look at the cyber domain to protect US and allied networks. This allows freedom of actions throughout cyberspace and prevents the enemy from impacting our own information and capabilities from cyber attacks.

In addition, our ability to contend with the constant, 24/7 global news coverage is a large part of how we will be success-ful in future conflicts. We must deal with savvy enemies who know and use the media to their advantage while engaging us on mainstream news channels, as well as on social media. It is imperative that we win the battle for information and in the courts of public and international opinion. In order to do this, leaders have to be aggressive and proactive in addressing the

media and getting ahead of the enemy’s information operations. Our leaders must be well versed on how to deal with the media, and view the media as an asset and not the enemy. Additionally, leaders must stress the importance of media relations to their subordinates. They have to educate their Soldiers at all levels and create training opportunities for them, because the media isn’t always focused on what senior Officers think. They very often want to know what the Soldiers on the ground are doing and what their opinions are. Thus, it is imperative that we train and educate the entire force to be able to contend with the me-dia while understanding the importance of information opera-tions and their impact on our operations as the strategic level. Like any task in the Army, you have to practice to get better. Leaders have to train on how to conduct interviews and press conferences, and how to incorporate media sources into opera-tions so they can tell the Army story. Digital transformation has affected us in a variety of different aspects and handling these new challenges requires additional skills that we have to develop and train like everybody else.


High-performing Teams Support the Competitiveness of Companies

Interview with Prof. Dr. Irene López, Cologne Business School (CBS)

DMR: What can be done to ensure this sense of “we”?

I. López: Unfortunately, there is still no patent solution to this issue. Adam Grant is a scientist who has done a lot of research on high-performing teams. He has identified the following three personalities: first, the “giver culture”; second, the “taker culture”; and third, the “matcher culture”. This means that there are some people who, as personalities, are readier to give, are glad to help others, and do not demand anything in return, the so-called “givers”. Others are more concerned with making sure they benefit first and foremost and being able to attribute suc-cess intrinsically or to relate it to themselves, the so-called “ta-kers”. Then there are the “matchers”, who give something when they receive something – they make a trade. Grant has been able to show in his studies that the foundation of a high-performing team lies in the giver culture. Moreover, high-performing teams must persistently and uncompromisingly accept only “giver” personalities of this type within their ranks.

DMR: You say that the members of a team should be primarily “givers”, but how can I identify this personality type during a selec-tion interview?

I. López: “Givers” can be determined by using instruments of aptitude diagnostics and by examining the willingness of the candidate to cooperate. Research results clearly postulate that cooperation is much more promising of success, contrary to competition. Teams which value cooperation highly and deve-lop a sense of “we”, where questions can be asked and people help each other, i.e., “giver cultures”, achieve better results.

DMR: The topic of high-performing teams is experiencing an ex-tremely rapid rise in importance at the moment. How do you perso-nally assess the subject?

I. López: We currently find ourselves in a situation in which the competition has become significantly keener, the competi-tive pressures are massive and immense, and this is all coupled with extremely short innovation cycles. Reactions must come at an increasingly rapid pace. At the same time, the degree of specialization has also risen drastically, which is why individuals cannot match the services or demands of the market. The need to match these demands is exactly why high-performing teams are absolutely essential and gaining so strongly in importance in the sense of competitiveness.

DMR: Let’s clarify our terminology. How would you define high-performing teams and distinguish them from “normal” teams?

I. López: The distinction from “normal” teams can be based first on “hard facts”, i.e., whether, and how, the results or per-formance indicators differ between the teams. Team spirit in the form of a truly lived sense of “WE” and the related high sense of team responsibility is especially prominent in high-perfor-ming teams. However, companies frequently create cultures in which questions are not permitted because they could be a sign of weakness, in which people do not ask others for help because that might indicate that a person cannot handle the job alone, and in which information is kept secret because it could be ad-vantageous for its holder.

High-performing teams are characterized by a high level of team responsibility. Dr. Irene López does not have the slightest doubt that this strength reinforces the ability of companies to com-pete. During her discussion with Detecon, she talks about the challenge of putting together and leading these teams.


DMR: Are there any examples where the creation of a sense of “we” has functioned well?

I. López: You can take numerous examples from the world of sports. The Italian Ernesto Bertarelli, for instance, won the America’s Cup in 2003 and 2007, although he was in every sen-se an outsider. He has a passion for sailing; he never lost sight of his vision of wanting to race in this Cup. In essence, he took quite a traditional approach. He recruited excellent sailors from all over the world for his team, instilled his vision in them, gene-rated a strong sense of “we” on this team. When transferring this experience from sports, we must of course take the passion into account. Nevertheless, this is an outstanding example. DMR: And how does a leader succeed in forming such high-per-forming teams? What kind of leadership do high-performing teams need?

I. López: There are various ideas about how to proceed. Recent research results indicate that transformation leadership can cre-ate high-performing teams. Why? These team leaders rely on the capability of the team members to develop. This supposedly en-hances not only the individual’s sense of responsibility for him-/herself, but strengthens the aforementioned team responsibility as well. A lack of this team responsibility often results in failure in the end. Transformational leaders make use of visions and convincing goals to secure the commitment of their employees. They try to conduct themselves in such a way that they can be perceived as role models.

DMR: How could a leader of this type be identified concretely?

I. López: There is an instrument that measures transformational leadership, the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ). This test actually does provide valid measurements; it has been evaluated and validated in 40 follow-up studies. It reliably ac-counts for various factors such as team effectiveness, employee satisfaction, opportunities to assume responsibility, or possibili-ties to develop personality.

DMR: Are there other specific criteria for the leaders of a high-performing team, e.g., that they should not be too far above the employees in terms of the hierarchy?

I. López: This has nothing to do with fixing hierarchies in wri-ting on paper; it is more a matter of the individual and social le-vel of the people. There are companies which deliberately set up their management positions so that managers must start at the very bottom, e.g., in the management trainee programs. They must learn all of the processes in detail so that they learn about the requirements and cultures in all of the units. The pursuit of this strategy is an attempt to counteract the hurdles of the hierarchy. But this is strictly a human issue, not a hierarchical one. A person can be far away from the team in terms of the hierarchy, yet still have a mindset which is at the same level.

Prof. Dr. Irene López iis professor for business psychology and head of Business Psychology Study-

ing Program at the Cologne Business School (CBS), a private university in Cologne. She has been working

as a coach and consultant in leadership programs for a number of years. The focus of her teaching and research

activities is on communication, communication pro-cesses and optimization, knowledge management, HR

and executive development, and work and organization psychology. The CBS has an international outlook; it is

state- accredited and is one of the top German business schools.


Cologne Business School

DMR: How do you feel about instruments which are used to put together teams?

I. López: When staffing high-performing teams, there are of-ten attempts to find people who differ drastically from one another so that all of the characters, capabilities, qualifications, and personalities are represented in some form or other as far as possible. The MBTI (Myers-Briggs type indicator) is a very popular method. There are many other questionnaires. Ultima-tely, the instruments only inquire about facts which are initial-ly a match only in a theoretical sense. Quite often only actual practice makes it clear how well this really functions. I stand by the hypothesis that when all is said and done, team perfor-mance stands and falls with the people themselves! If they do not manage to create genuine harmony at the individual and social level, the results will not become better. In other words, everything which was examined beforehand using instruments certainly takes you toward your goal, but it is no guarantee for success.

DMR: There are differences between high-performing teams and “normal” teams. If the individual team members are equally “capa-ble”, is this harmony component the decisive element?

I. López: No, it is not the “capability level”, but the relationship level which leads to the development of trust. Trust develops in turn from a functioning relationship level which must be created on the basis of communication. And here is one of the primary crunch points of team performance: the greater the dif-ferences, the more heterogeneous the composition, the greater the differences in viewpoints and personalities will be, the more difficult it becomes to establish mutual understanding, and the more frequently misunderstandings arise – quite simply – as a consequence of divergent communication styles and, even more commonly, of a complete lack of communication. We still have a whole lot to learn in Germany. When we look at the engage-ment index from recent years for Germany, we see that a mere 16% of German employees have a sense of belonging to their company; the other 84% do not. The primary reason: a lack of communication with superiors.

DMR: To what do you attribute this low level of engagement among employees in German companies?

I. López: There are concrete findings about this. One of the primary causes is the communication with superiors, another the lack of appreciation – no praise, no recognition, and a low

level of inclusion in decisions. But since we know that praise is an essential instrument for motivation and leadership, it is prag-matic for achievement of our goals to make use of it. However, there appears to be a huge deficit here.

DMR: Are there organizational forms such as agile methods which are better suited than others to high-performing teams?

I. López: Our organizational forms as they generally exist are more likely to prevent the successful creation of a high-perfor-ming team. For example, companies offer bonus schemes to their employees. But who am I looking for? The best! There are promotion schemes. Who am I looking for? The best! There are awards. Who am I looking for? The best! What do I do when I am the selected employee? I point out that I am the best. It is difficult within this organizational form – which we have in almost all companies – to generate an honest and genuine sense of “we” for a team. It just won’t happen. We must find a system, an organizational form, and a form of reward which are appro-priate to a high-performing team.

DMR: How can we improve these systems so that they include aspects like cooperation?

I. López: Using aptitude diagnostics, reflected questions from other areas can be asked and the answers transferred to the work context. For instance, what sports a person does, whether she is a marathon runner or he is a field hockey player. Drawing on the answers to behavior-based, biographical, and situational questions like these, it is possible to determine certain tendencies in the sense of orientation to cooperation.

DMR: When it comes to performance management, it would be possible to make less use of financial aspects as incentive measures and to focus more on the cooperation with others and the verified sharing of information. These points would have to be much more strongly emphasized in general and a collective bonus, for instance, would need to be set.

I. López: Yes, that is a good and productive approach. Many performance management systems such as the balanced score-card tend to single out the individual and neglect aspects such as knowledge management or team capability.

DMR: My impression is that many people find it equally difficult to give praise and also critical feedback. What do you have to say about the subject of “dealing with criticism”?


Cologne Business School

I. López: Crisis management, conflict management, and a healthy feedback culture are also essential elements of a high-performing team. Any situation where people work together is dominated by a dynamic force; differences in viewpoints and conflicts arise. There is no such thing as a uniform reality. Human psychology allows us only to “perceive” something. This means that I see my subjective reality, but it differs from the reality of every other human being. It is only natural that con-flicts arise because people always start by believing their own perspective is the “right” one. That is why it is important to have a healthy feedback culture in which conflicts are regarded as po-tential so that everyone follows a constructive, solution-oriented approach. One problem is certainly that the impact of feedback is often not clear. It is frequently associated with “being put down”. In the end, the managers must also learn that they are reflecting only their own perception when they give feedback. That is only subjective as well. All in all, people learn too little about the effect that feedback can have and how feedback can be effectively utilized.

DMR: We had this discussion once before in the context of how a feedback system can be separated from performance management. What do you think about that?

I. López: Performance management is an instrument which must first and foremost be reliable, i.e., exact in its measure-ments. It must be used with caution because it can also have a retardant effect. When feedback is frank, transparent, and honest, it can be significantly more encouraging that hard facts and figures. Overall, this would also speak more in favor of separating these two subjects.

DMR: Do you have any future research questions related to the topics relevant for high-performing teams?

I. López: There is an entire spectrum of subjects which are lin-ked to the topic of high-performing teams – personnel selection, for instance. The objective here is to find a close match between the person and the organization, the so-called person-organiza-tion fit. This is an especially important point with respect to the building of high-performance teams, and its position should be examined in research projects in the immediate future. A look at the demographic transformation indicates as well that the subject of what position companies must take if they want to generate high potentials at all is of urgent interest – this is the question of developing the value of employer branding. Other

research questions will be concerned with how high-performing teams can perform virtually and, above all, how a sense of “we” can develop despite the virtual rather than personal collabora-tion. High-performing teams must also exist at the virtual level in the future.

DMR: What possibilities are there in a large corporation such as Deutsche Telekom to turn around completely the way teams are handled there – away from a focus on efficiency and in the direction of innovation and creativity?

I. López: There are those who take the position that a corpo-rate culture cannot be changed. I see that differently. But since you have brought up Telekom, I would say that bringing about change will probably be difficult because this is a company which is already firmly anchored and tends in the direction of large teams because of its hierarchy. A good size for teams, if you want a sense of “we” to develop at all, is five, seven, perhaps ten members. It becomes much more difficult to change attitudes and behaviors holistically when teams are larger.

DMR: You mentioned the trend to virtual teamwork and that the genuine difficulty is generating a sense of identification here. I would dare to put forward the thesis that there will be less virtual work in the future.

I. López: Generating a sense of “we” in spite of virtuality is undoubtedly a difficult task and demands a lot more effort – but it is not impossible. Companies will have to make the effort, or they will definitely put themselves at a disadvantage compe-titively. DMR: Perhaps the effort will be more in the direction of meeting one another more often in the physical world?

I. López: Yes, we will see. The knowledge transfer is greater in personal meetings. If information is needed from colleagues on a team whose members know each other well, appreciate one another, respect and trust one another, the interchange is definitely more effective.

DMR: Thank you for this fascinating conversation.

The management of project teams in Central and Eastern Europe by “Westerners” is subject to certain tensions because of the region’s history. The conduct of open dialogs, constructive sparring, total clarity of the project steps, and physical pre-sence all help to break down barriers.

Intercultural Leadership

Trust as the Basis for Successful Project Management in Central and Eastern Europe



1 perfectly normal scenario: A decision leading to changes in a national subsidiary in the CEE region is made at headquarters of a multinational corporation. A competent and experienced project manager from the Western head office is dispatched to the subsidiary to implement the decision. Right from the begin-ning of the project, the manager runs into resistance and aloof-ness, into obstacles which make it difficult to accomplish the objectives which have been set. Why is that? What is causing people to give the manager the cold shoulder? How can you avoid resistance and successfully manage a project in this region?

In addition to the usual cultural differences, history itself has had a lasting impact on the relationships between East and West. Most of the Central and Eastern European countries were not politically autonomous in the past, and after the collapse of the Warsaw Pact, they were dominated economically by power-ful Western European countries. For these and other reasons, the Central and Eastern European countries lagged far behind the West in terms of economic growth, financial resources, and political stability. The real-socialist ruling system anchored in these countries reinforced their economic dependency on We-stern European countries. Even today, “Westerners” are still per-ceived as trend-setters and “Easterners” as followers.

All of these aspects, historical circumstances, and stereotypes give rise to an inferiority complex and mistrust toward Western European countries. But virtually no one takes historical facts into consideration when establishing business relationships. Yet this would be a very wise idea – people in the CEE region con-tinue to be cool and skeptical toward Western superiors. They are very quick to feel a sense of oppression. Colleagues from the West must be prepared to counter this bias so that an open relationship among equals can be established.

A TRUSTING AND BEING TRUSTED Trusting is hard. Knowing who to trust, even harder.1

Western managers are frequently regarded as invasive authorities from the outside who want to set up new systems. Local com-panies can perceive this as a threat or an invasion of their “own little homeland”. Moreover, people in CEE are generally very emotional and often make decisions which are guided more by feelings than by facts and figures, and it can consequently be difficult to gain their trust.

When a manager is confronted with a situation like this, the first thing to do is reduce the aloofness and then, in the next step, to move on to the establishment of a working environment in an atmosphere of trust. By opening channels of communication in which the parties encounter each other as equals, you can de-monstrate that you and headquarters are trustworthy partners.

In CEE countries, there are many situations in which the local employees will feel dishonored if their counterparts from the West do not treat them as equal sparring partners. If the local teams have the feeling that they are being used solely for the rea-lization of the set goals without any consideration for their own perspectives, the project will be doomed to failure. If you want the local teams to commit to the achievement of the desired goals, you must ensure that they are given the confidence that they will also profit from these goals. The partners in the CEE region must be able to understand how the project which has been scheduled will increase value for the corporation as a whole, i.e., for each of the local branches as well as headquarters.

1 Maria V. Snyder, Poison Study, 2005


2 3 SHOW YOU UNDERSTAND Any fool can know. The point is to understand.2

Right at the start of a project, great care must be taken to ensu-re that commonly held local viewpoints are incorporated into the objectives and project milestones. Speak to your partners and listen closely to them; find out what they have to say about the local processes, customs, and corporate culture. Determine where their strengths are and how they can be developed fur-ther. Identify possible bottlenecks and ask your local partners how they deal with them.

If you listen carefully and incorporate the feedback you receive into the project, the local team will have the confidence that the project will actually satisfy their own needs. Western ma-nagers make a huge mistake when they arrive with the finished project plans in their briefcase and announce: “This is what you must do, and you must do it exactly this way, because these are the orders from headquarters.” Nothing demotivates partners in CEE more than for people in the West to have made all of the decisions affecting them over their heads.

Since people in CEE do not necessarily acknowledge the authority of Western managers simply because they have a high-sounding title, project managers must be experts in their field of knowledge and communicate it in such a way that they gain the trust and respect of the local staff. Professional expertise and competence in this sense mean understanding the reasons, ob-jectives, and results of the project. Without this attitude, project managers will not succeed in making rational decisions regar-ding budget, resources, and scheduling. Unrealistic estimates can put the project at jeopardy.

Prove that you have understood thoroughly all of the aspects of the subject. Show interest in learning more about processes and tools. An ideal approach in this context would be to involve local experts, to incorporate their knowledge, and to take their thoughts into consideration in your decisions.

COMMUNICATE TRANSPARENTLY AND BE RELIABLE Assumptions are the termites of relationships.3

Communication within a team which is spread over a wide geo-graphical area often proves difficult and demands additional ef-fort. Messages which have not been clearly expressed frequently get lost in digital communication. Your message can be incom-plete when it arrives, leading to misunderstanding.

One of the typical habits people in CEE have is to start specu-lating about the unknown. When employees receive only part of the information necessary for a particular subject, they start spinning various scenarios, many of them negative. Even more typical for CEE is that when people start to draw conclusions from incomplete data, they generally assume the worst. When combined with their emotional involvement, these precondi-tions can make it significantly more difficult to generate trust.

From the CEE perspective, the Western parent company is very often seen as a “black box”. This uncertainty leads to the wrong assumptions, and they in turn quickly take the form of generalizations. When you make a mistake or conduct yourself unreasonably, people in CEE often assume that your conduct is representative for all of the employees of the company. One way to nip speculation in the bud is to ensure that your com-munication is clear and direct. Make sure that the recipient un-derstands the background, content, and related implications of your message.

False assumptions also arise when the local partners ask a question which goes unanswered for a long time. Whenever you are asked questions, you should respond without delay. If you cannot answer these questions on the spot, tell your partners when they can expect an answer or recommend another expert who can provide the required information.

2 Albert Einstein George Finlay Simmons: Precalculus mathematics in a nutshell, 1981

3 Henry Winkler www.goodreads.com/quotes/41593-assumptions-are-the-termites-of-relationships


4 5 WIN THE HEARTS OF INFORMAL GROUPS Snide remarks during the lunch break can do you more harm than temper tantrums by management.

Informal groups have a major impact on a company’s perfor-mance. This can go in the one direction as well as the other and is dependent on whether the group resists or supports the desired objectives. Unofficial communication channels are fre-quently far more effective in getting results than formal power structures. An informal group which undermines your strategy can cause delays, even the failure of a project.

This phenomenon of the power of informal groups is not re-stricted to CEE – it is found in various cultures. However, the informal groups in CEE are different from those in other countries because in a majority of cases they exist across corpo-rate boundaries. Business relationships often develop into close friendships, and it is not at all unusual for people to introduce their colleagues from work to their families and to include them in their circle of close friends. This type of conduct implies a high level of emotional commitment. Members of an informal group protect and support each other in the same way that family members or close friends generally do.

For project managers, the key to success lies in gaining the trust of informal groups. Learn to understand the values and cir-cumstances that contributed to the formation of these groups. Display an honest interest in person-to-person contacts. One good opportunity is to arrange for a leisure-time activity with your partners after work – a meal in a restaurant is one good idea. During this meeting, you should avoid any discussions of business. The focus of the conversation is on getting to know the people you are working with. At the same time, you make it possible for your partners to see your personal side.

MAKE YOUR PRESENCE KNOWN

Don’t play the role of Father Christmas, who appears only once a year.

Communication is generally the key to success of a pro-ject. Traveling costs time and money – weekly phone calls to share milestones and updates are of course a good alternative. However, virtual communication should not gain the upper hand. When you are a project manager in CEE countries, you must regularly take the time to visit the team on location and to seek personal contact. This is the only way you can ensure that the information you have transmitted has really arrived in the form you intended. Variances in cultural and professional backgrounds as well as language barriers can result in the misin-terpretation of instructions. Personal contact gives you an over-view of how the transmitted information has been received and, if the feedback is negative, you immediately have the chance to respond and to act.

In the CEE countries, employees strive to achieve goals above all when they can trust management and receive in return the feeling that they are trusted. When you take into account the aloofness between West and East which has developed for histo-rical reasons, you note that special care must be taken in CEE countries to treat your partners here as equals. By frequently and regularly visiting your local partners, you demonstrate how important the personal contact and the interchange with them are to you. You will enhance your chances of developing a wor-king atmosphere which is characterized by cooperation, mutual respect, and support.


Virtual Collaboration in the

Entrepreneurial Context

Magenta MOOC, Deutsche Telekom AG


Establishing smoothly functioning procedures for virtual collaboration is critical for the success of corporate groups and midsize businesses engaged in international activities. Last year, Deutsche Telekom invited its employees to participate in a

group-wide Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) for the first time in its history. In this interview, Eva Strube, project manager for concept, content, and realization of

this first Massive Open Online Course, talks about her experience.

he inexorable advance of globalization, flexibilization of work structures, and mandates to optimize costs in companies are the driving forces for the establishment of new, virtual forms of collaboration. In the meantime, almost 20% of all German managers work on virtual teams on a permanent basis. Virtual cooperation is on the rise in midsize businesses, too. The Institut für Mittelstandsforschung in Bonn has determined that more than 5,000 German midsize businesses have invested in foreign operations or maintain permanent sites abroad. Virtual collabo-ration across national borders has long since become a part of daily business in these companies. The advanced development of tools used in the support of virtual teams is booming, and the technical infrastructure (such as fast Internet connections) is steadily improving.

Virtual collaboration connects flexible groups of workers who are defined by common goals and who work together on pro-ject orders independently of location and time, but with an orientation to results. Just as is the case for non-virtual teams, the members can differ from one another with respect to pro-fessional expertise, nationality, and hierarchical level. Support for this type of collaboration is provided in the form of new technologies for the sharing of information. They might appear as in-house social networks, virtual working spaces created spe-cifically for this purpose, or separate platforms. Over the course of their virtual collaboration, the employees are, whenever pos-sible, supposed to communicate, interconnect, discuss, share their knowledge, and learn from one another just as if they were all physically present.

Special challenges for virtual teams

The typical forms of cooperation, which employees can normal-ly use skillfully, do not necessarily function fully as accustomed in a virtual context. The sharing of information, communica-tion, and team building within the framework of virtual colla-boration are subject to conditions which differ from a situation of physical presence. Teams in this constellation face special challenges. New behavioral patterns, new rules, and the mastery of new technologies must be learned parallel to the challenging work of the project itself. One major aspect in this sense is the working environment. For example, the teams require a fast In-

T ternet connection and various devices such as smartphones and tablets which secure access to the virtual room from anywhere and at any time.

When in the virtual room, colleagues often concentrate on sha-ring their experiences at the professional level so that they achieve the goals of the (project) work. But because the personal level is often neglected on virtual teams, both the interdisciplinary and intercultural nature of the team can lead to a situation in which the individual team members pursue differing problem-solving approaches, working methods, and priorities, causing them to lose sight of the common goal. Moreover, decisive informa-tion often goes unmentioned because personal communication through non-verbal signals is missing and people are reluctant to clarify problems via email or on the phone. Furthermore, the-re is a risk that the social distance and anonymity of the contri-bution will obscure the quality of an individual’s performance, which can lead to demotivation of team members and put the joint success of the project in jeopardy. So the spatial, tempo-ral, and, in some cases, even the organizational separation of its members means that a virtual team requires more team spirit and leadership than a conventional team. The potential for con-flict must be anticipated well in advance so that disruptions can be nipped in the bud. The role assignment must be clear and transparent for every team member.

Making space for virtual collaboration Magenta MOOC

If more and more virtual cooperation will be required in pro-ject assignments, companies will be well advised to prepare their staffs for this type of collaboration and to familiarize them with virtual work environments. Last year, Deutsche Telekom invi-ted its employees to participate in the first group-wide Massive Open Online Course, the Magenta MOOC. Lots were drawn to select 700 out of the over 3,600 employees who answered the call to “share your entrepreneurial spirit”. The people in this group were then assigned to heterogeneous teams of five people each. The teams worked on concrete tasks related to Telekom from April to the end of June 2014. Another 3,000 employees, the so-called supporters, made contributions on the MOOC platform to the work being done by the virtual teams.


the group across all departmental and national borders. Corpo-rate MOOCs represent a suitable methodological approach for Telekom to support the achievement of these goals efficiently and effectively. The Magenta MOOC differs from many other MOOCs because we enable learning in the group as well as in-dividual, self-managed study and the open interchange of all of the participants and didactically link all three levels with one another.

DMR: How can we picture this in concrete terms?

E. Strube: When you conduct a MOOC simply by uploading videos to the Internet and adding a test, there is no difference from traditional e-learning. The participants sit alone in front of their computers and consume the content more or less passively. We told the employees that they would be working together with four other colleagues from other Telekom units, from diffe-rent countries and from different units, on a concrete issue. This was the primary motivating factor to take part in the Magen-ta MOOC for 83% of the participants. Out of the more than 3,600 registrations, we drew lots to select the 700 employees who went on the three-month voyage of learning as part of a team. The platform put together teams of five people each with a membership mix of nationalities, age groups, and functional units.

The virtual teams worked on six consecutive tasks. Concretely, the procedure was for each participant to watch the short video lectures on the various subjects which we had prepared with different Telekom managers and experts from international uni-versities and which were available in the online library anytime and anywhere; each of the participants read the relevant lite-rature and did research on his or her own initiative; and then the teams discussed the task together and jointly developed a solution in the specified time period. Parallel to this procedure, discussions and interaction took place within the entire MOOC community in the online forum. Moving forward from trends and challenges in the telecommunications industry, the teams examined future customer demands in an increasingly digita-lized and flexible society. They learned about creative methods which enabled them to develop, as a team, an idea for a new product which would satisfy these demands and to try out an initial prototype of their idea. Employees who were not assigned to one of the teams could take part in another way. All of the remaining registered employees, so-called supporters, had access to the online library, could take part in the discussions in the fo-rum, and, above all, provided support to the teams in the form of constructive feedback about their work results.

Eva Strube, Senior Expert HR Development in the group Transformational Change,

Deutsche Telekom AG, was project manager and in charge of concept, content,

and realization of the first Massive Open Online Course for Telekom employees. The unit Transformation Change (Shareground), which is driving forward the cultural trans-formation in the corporation, is headed by

Dr. Reza Moussavian. Reza Moussavian was the initiator and course leader of

Magenta MOOC.

DMR: What makes Magenta MOOC so special, and what sets it apart from other MOOCs from the perspective of virtual collabo-ration?

E. Strube: To start with, Magenta MOOC is special because we took an educational format originally found in a universi-ty context, transferred it to a corporate context, and utilized it for company training. We had two reasons for looking in this direction. First, we need new digital training methods in a working world which is increasingly virtual. Second, we were looking for a format which would best accomplish the goals we wanted to achieve: the strengthening of the innovative power and transformational ability of Telekom. A special challenge for us here was to design successfully the virtual collaboration in


DMR: Wasn’t that rather risky? There was no way for you to know whether the virtual collaboration would be a success and actually yield results at the end.

E. Strube: True. But I believe that it is the job of HR to create spaces within a company where people are free to think at odds with conventional wisdom – away from hierarchies and business roles. What better place is there for this than a small, heteroge-neous team in which intensive interaction and discussion take place and members jointly develop and create something? Be-sides, research into learning processes shows us that social lear-ning is the most effective form of learning for subjects such as innovation, entrepreneurship, or transformation especially. We wanted to give this a try. And when you are in charge of some-thing like this, you have to let go to some extent and put your trust in the process. We specifically did not want a “one-way street for learning”. The Magenta MOOC was not intended to do no more than convey existing knowledge; it was supposed to generate new ideas and realize them in product and service innovations. “The role of Telekom in the year 2020”, “future customer demands in the digital age”, and ideas and possible solutions to satisfy these demands – all of these topics were de-veloped and discussed in the entire MOOC community, but especially by the virtual teams. The participants learned from one another and were enriched by their encounters with dif-fering perspectives. The videos with the lecturers we prepared for the MOOC and the literature we selected were sources of valuable inspiration and stimulated good discussions between participants and lecturers in the forum.

At the end of the process, we had 100 innovative ideas – from the development of the old-fashioned telephone cells into tren-dy charging stations for e-bikes, e-cars, and smart devices to an app and cloud translation service specifically for people with hearing and speaking disabilities to an intelligent fashion advi-sor. But above all, we had a MOOC community which conti-nues its vibrant existence on the Telekom social network even after the end of the course. And employees who have extended their social media literacy and feel enabled and encouraged to act innovatively and entrepreneurially in their daily working en-vironments.

DMR: You left it up to the virtual teams to organize themselves. How did the participants deal with this form of virtual collaboration and knowledge sharing?

E. Strube: In each of the six course modules, the teams received a concrete task which had to be completed within a specified time period. Within this structure, the teams worked indepen-dently and set up their own organization. Each team was guided by a tutor and also received qualitative feedback on every sub-mission from a mentor. In addition, there were peer reviews from other participants or from the supporters. Moreover, we had a moderator for the entire MOOC community who de-fined a structure and provided starting points for the content of the discussions in the forum. The course leader and the lecturers were also available in the online forum. A MOOC without the-se different roles, filled by specific people, was not imaginable for our objectives. Our experience has shown us that a highly personal approach is required, especially in a “mass” format like a MOOC, and that new points of contact must be repeatedly set for the participants. This increases the activity level of the individuals, which is in turn a prerequisite for social learning.

For the most part, the 140 virtual teams handled the joint work on the six assignments very well indeed. They acted on their own initiative to interconnect on the Telekom social network or other social media and had a secure area on the platform where they could collaborate on documents. One of the par-ticipants wrote to us: “It was very exciting to observe how our relationship within the team steadily improved as time passed. Honestly, I did not expect this to happen so quickly with an interdisciplinary team comprised of members who all differed from one another with respect to nationality, culture, and mind-set. You meet new people who come along with their own ideas and viewpoints.”

The virtual collaboration on a concrete task related to Telekom was not only regarded as a great experience by the teams; in view of the 100 ideas for new products and services at Telekom which were the end result, they also valued it as highly effective. One of the concluding statements in the forum noted: “The submissions of this first Magenta MOOC show the tremend-ous potential of putting different units together which normally would never get in touch. We believe that this is the blueprint for innovation within Deutsche Telekom.”

DMR: Thank you for this conversation.


No One is Really Good without a High Positive Energy Level!

Interview with Daniel Eckmann,Member of the Executive Board, Detecon International GmbH

Organizational Energy – at first glance, you might take it for the title of a science fiction film. Or the name of an energy drink. But in actual fact, it refers to a complex concept and revelatory instrument which can measure the performance potential of a company over the course of a transformation. Daniel Eckmann is the head of the consulting section Deutsche Telekom at Detecon. At his behest, the Organizational Energy Index was prepared this year for his section for the second time. He speaks here about his experience.


he concept of “Organizational Energy” was developed jointly by Bernd Vogel, Director of the Henley Centre for Engaging Leadership, and Heike Bruch, professor and director of the In-stitute for Leadership and Human Resource Management at the University of St. Gallen. Vogel says: “We propose turning to the concept of collective energy – the unmeasurable, soft success factors of human potential which form the heart, so to speak, in the relationship with transformation and the performance capa-bility of a company. The level of organizational energy reveals the extent to which a company, a corporate division, or a team has mobilized emotional, cognitive, and behavioral potential in the pursuit of its goals.”*

To begin with, the energy level of all of the employees in the selected unit is determined on the basis of a standard set of questions. There are twelve questions in total which employees answer anonymously by replying on a scale from “Not at all true” to “Completely true”. Aspects such as employee satisfac-tion, their motivation, identification with the company, and their (hidden) frustration play a key role here. The analysis of the survey results usually paint a clear picture about the general frame of mind in a company. Are the employees full of pro-ductive energy, and do they sense a drive to get things done (productive energy)? Or do they feel a little too comfortable in their present situation so that a tendency to take things easy dominates (comfortable energy)? These are the two energy states with positive qualities. On the other side, we find the energy states with a negative impact. Resigned inertia stands for disen-chantment of employees, a state in which their full performance potential is far from being mined to the full. This is also true for the fourth and last type of energy: corrosive energy, a very strong and counterproductive component which employees can spread throughout the company. Obtaining an energy profile for one’s own company or division can be very instructive. However, that alone is not enough; measures must be derived from the assess-ment results.

Detecon lived through an in-depth transformation in 2012, and the process left behind recognizable effects on employee spirits. This prompted Daniel Eckmann to have the Organizational En-ergy Index prepared for his section. A total of 265 employees were anonymously surveyed about their current opinion.

T DMR: What was the setting for your use of the concept of Organi-zational Energy? What concrete actions did you take?

D. Eckmann: Detecon went through an intensive transforma-tion process in 2012. At the end of the transformation, a new corporate structure with four primary sections had been imple-mented, and a great sense of uncertainty initially dominated the atmosphere. Our goals were twofold: on the one hand, to obtain a clear picture of the frame of mind of the employees, and, on the other hand, to find a means which would enable us to develop more strongly and shape more positively the energy we needed for our tasks. It is clear to me that there is no chance of our performing well in our projects without positive energy and that it is becoming increasingly important to generate this energy, especially with respect to our young employees.

Concretely, we measured the energy level by means of a survey for the first time in 2013; we also took advantage of the survey to ask about some of the points of the transformation which we would be able to use as jump-off points for further changes. The first part of our survey sought to measure the organizational energy; in the second part, we asked about the atmosphere with respect to general topics at Detecon such as communication, feedback behavior, and networking opportunities. This brought in feedback on aspects which also affect my section directly. Of course, the results must be interpreted so that relatively fast de-cisions can be made regarding the actions we should take to change these energy states. We began by discussing the results of the atmosphere survey with our managers. We identified fields of action and worked in teams to draw up measures based on the results. We conducted the same survey using an adapted questionnaire for the second part in this year and were able to see that we had taken a big step forward in some areas.

Essentially, my primary objective was to answer specific que-stions. How can I reach a relatively large group (i.e., well over 200 employees) and mobilize them as well? How can I moti-vate them, and how can we generate an environment for the colleagues so that they feel positive about their work and have the feeling that they are doing the right thing? I firmly belie-ve that exceptional performance can only be achieved through high motivation.

DMR: What do you regard to be the major strengths of this concept? What is especially convincing for you?

D. Eckmann: The concept’s strengths are that it is simple to apply and easily accessible to participants. Everybody has felt these energy states in him- or herself at one time or another and is familiar with their different qualities. The implementa-tion method using the relatively simple questionnaire is also practical.

* Cf. article in DMR Blue, June 2014, pp. 62–67, Organizational Energy – The Transformation of Companies for the Perspective of “Leadership and Human Energy”


In my opinion, this concept is a good fit with today’s situation and provides hints for how one should and want to work to-gether with Generation Y. In our case, this is emphasized very strongly by our CEO, Francis Deprez, who gives his employees broad opportunities to assume duties and responsibilities they really want to have. We are all convinced that no one is really good unless he or she is doing exactly what he or she likes and does it from intrinsic motivation. That is precisely the situation that releases the highest positive energy level.

DMR: Why do you believe that “Organizational Energy” is so im-portant for the cultural development of a company?

D. Eckmann: I think that we have to understand leadership in a different way in 2015. Leadership today means motivating and strengthening employees, steering their interests in a certain way. Managers can support employees in their development, but should also let them make their own autonomous decisions about how they will make the journey. In contrast to the leader-ship model of the last millennium – simply instructing emplo-yees to do things they do not really want to do at all – today we support employees in doing what is right for them, but making a strong commitment to their chosen activities. The result is a positive corporate culture, generating enthusiasm among talen-ted people and convincing them to remain with their employers for a longer time.

Daniel Eckmann is the head of consulting services for key accounts on the national telecommunications market, where clients include Deutsche Telekom and T-Systems. He is an expert for ICT services in the telecommunica-

tions sector and has had 15 years of experience in various management positions.


Self-leadership is the name of the game. We want to develop this and encourage people to assume responsibility at an early stage. I personally think that this is most likely to motivate people to stay the course. We have had our best experience with empowe-ring employees at an early stage so that they move forward with their fields with a relatively high level of self-responsibility.

In the past, our management was a lot more top-down, and the relevant topics came down from above as orders. Today we work with a bottom-up approach. This, in combination with instruments such as our feedback culture, makes the difference. Our leadership is based significantly less strongly on figures and oriented more to output.

DMR: What do you regard to be critical for success when applying the “Organizational Energy” approach?

D. Eckmann: There are of course certain basics; for instance, the survey must be conducted in strict anonymity. Moreover, management must be absolutely serious about the concept and stand behind it sincerely. There must be the firm conviction that energy generated from intrinsic form is more successful than action taken just because it has been ordered.

We present the results in various forms of communication. For instance, our next section event will be completely in line with the theme of Organizational Energy. Working with Bernd Vo-gel, we would like to convey the concept to the employees and persuade them of its value. We believe that we will be able to change the mindset of our employees in this way.

DMR: Detecon’s slogan for 2014 is “Lead Detecon” and leads to in-depth involvement with the subject of leadership at all levels. What role do you believe leadership plays with regard to “Organizational Energy”?

D. Eckmann: A major one! For us leadership means: We want to assume responsibility! We want to ensure that projects develop in the right direction, that we lead our clients in the right direc-tion – and I require tremendous amounts of productive energy to achieve this, of course! I have to be motivated, and that means I need plenty of freedom. We already give our young employees a lot of freedom, and we have had nothing but good experience with this approach. They appreciate the early assumption of re-sponsibility at all levels. This distinguishes us from some of the other corporate consultancies where interaction with clients is channeled to a large degree through hierarchies.

DMR: What is especially important for you here in the context of leadership, and what are the characteristics of good leadership?

D. Eckmann: A combination of a number of things. I like to use the example of a sports coach for this. Serious consideration is given to fundamental questions. What tasks do I have? How do I build up my team, and how do I assign responsibilities to its members to make use of each individual’s abilities? Another aspect: How do I motivate my team, and how much freedom do I allow its members? People need breathing space so that they can exploit their strengths, and there are certain rules which must be observed when people work together. In football, every-one has the obligation to defend whenever needed, but the one who is a little more accurate when he takes a shot on goal must be given the chance to use this strength.

A leader must be authentic, he or she must be a living example of his or her philosophy, and employees must feel that their lea-ders have their backs. A leader must bear the brunt of criticism when things do not go so well. He or she must not seek to place blame on anyone, but must protect and support the team. But he or she must also motivate others and give clear, impartial, and immediate feedback as a way to support employees in their development.

DMR: Do you expect the concept of “Organizational Energy” to gain in importance for organizations in the future?

D. Eckmann: I can very well imagine that happening! I think that Detecon, in its position as a corporate consultancy, is very much a future-oriented model because of its project-based work model. In the future, more collaboration will take place in pro-ject organizations and less in departments. Naturally, this means that, on the one hand, I will need employees who quickly and passionately learn about subjects, and, on the other hand, I must have a working atmosphere that provides total support for this. This is precisely the point where the concept of Organizational Energy has an important role to play. Moreover, it supports ma-nagement in coming up with the right messages and measures at the right time and place and giving the right stimuli.

DMR: What would you advise other companies who want to utilize the concept of “Organizational Energy”?

D. Eckmann: It is important to define clearly the mindset esta-blishing how I would like to work together with my employees. I must know how I want to lead, how I want to interact with my employees. Do I tend more to a hierarchical, authoritarian approach or more of a team-oriented approach? If I decide for the latter, Organizational Energy is an excellent instrument!

DMR: Thank you for this interesting conversation.


New technologies are revolutionizing our ways of communicating and our working methods. Agility, simplicity, and thinking in terms of networks will determine successful business actions of the future.HR management must prepare for the new era as well.

an you imagine a world without Internet, cell phone, Wikipedia, Google, Facebook, or Amazon? No? Less than 20 years ago, this was reality. Technological progress has revolutio-nized our communication behavior. It has turned market forces on their heads and given birth to new industries. International competition has become significantly more intense, and the bar-riers to market entry in these industries have been reduced to a minimum. Moreover, the concept of the “knowledge society” has been coined – a world in which the volume of information is expanding exponentially and one aspect is moving more and more to the forefront: people!

The changes extend deep into the structures and processes of companies, with the consequence that “people management” has become particularly important. It does not take a great leap of imagination to realize that HR departments will have to rethink their roles and responsibilities. How can I attract pro-mising candidates with the right talents (“war for talents”) on an international labor market which is becoming increasingly transparent? How do I keep my “top performers” on board when they are being lured away by job offers on XING, LinkedIn, and similar platforms? What actions must be taken to integrate and promote diversified cultures? How can I strategically steer my personnel to achieve optimal results? These are only some of the questions to which HR directors are now seeking answers. But what does this mean for HR as a function tomorrow? And what will this role look like in ten years?

The present situation in HR

HR today is driven by the aim to operate in an active role in clo-se cooperation with the business. This goal cannot be achieved

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Plan Strategically – Operate with Excellence

The Future of HR Management

without good know-how of internal business processes and a fundamental understanding of the market. Otherwise, concrete demands from the business side cannot be addressed. If HR intends to meet the standard of being “a sparring partner for business in terms of content and strategy”, it must act on the peer level with the business departments. The challenge for HR departments here is that they must have complete command of all of the details in administrative processes such as payroll and reporting, yet at the same time are expected to support manage-ment in the role of HR business partner.

Technological progress will be an important driver for the HR sector in future, just as it is today. HR work which is currently of a highly administrative nature will in the future partly be shifted to the responsibility of others such as executives, employees, or freelancers, and in some cases may even be completely com-puterized. These jobs will be replaced by new highly strategic tasks for HR.

In other words, HR departments of the future will be concen-trating on functions of high strategic relevance and high com-plexity. The HR product portfolio depicted in the illustration can serve as an aid for the clear identification of the envisioned tasks of personnel departments which will be future-proof. To put it succinctly: the HR department will concentrate on the performance of tasks above the waterline.

Activities characterized by minor strategic relevance and a low level of complexity can be conducted by any number of in-house or external actors or be automated. There is no funda-mental reason why a HR department cannot continue to offer these functions, but the tasks will in the future be “below the

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waterline” and can certainly be handled by external players if the company so desires to improve profitability or for other reasons. The job of the HR staff will be to coordinate and steer out-sourced services within the framework of effective and efficient program management.

Setting off into a new future

So the objective of HR will be to take possession of functions which are as far above the “waterline” as possible. These are functions of high strategic relevance and, in consequence, with a high level of complexity. “Corporate governance services” – HR strategy, social partner and vendor management, HR planning – and, even more so, “corporate enabling services” – a culture of entrepreneurship, transformation, decision-making, and inno-vation – fall in this category.

Every HR department will have to consider the situation in its specific industry and decide for itself what its main responsibili-ties will be. The propositions below could be used as the starting points.

Proposition 1: HR will support a sustainable culture of entrepreneurship.”

When companies are forced to change faster and faster, when technology and products become increasingly complex, the organizational forms of work have no choice but to adapt to these developments. Job descriptions, organizational manuals, and circular emails are no longer adequate to keep pace with the dynamics of transformation. The search is on for employees who think along the same lines as the company, i.e., who have, in the best sense of the phrase, an “entrepreneurial mindset”.

But how can this be accomplished? First of all, employees must be given complete information about corporate goals, requiring in-house transparency to a degree rarely seen in the past. Next, staff members must be instructed and supported so that the cor-porate goals can be realized at the work level. The corporate “tools” necessary for performance of their jobs must be placed in their hands, and they must above all be allowed the personal liberties which are the essential prerequisite for entrepreneurial action.

This “inner culture of entrepreneurship” must be backed up by a reasonable tolerance of errors which allows individuals a certain entrepreneurial liberty. Equally important are specific promo-tions and rewards such as bonus systems which recognize and honor responsible, entrepreneurial action. The tasks of creating the required transparency regarding the strategic asset of the workforce in the company and training the workforce so that they think and act in line with the company’s purpose must fall to HR departments.

Proposition 2: HR will develop into a recognized enabler for transformations.

The dynamics of transformations will continue to accelerate. Executives today are frequently inadequately prepared to handle this acceleration, both with respect to transformation manage-ment and to the creation of a positive attitude towards changes.

This is where HR can play a more pronounced role as transforma-tion enabler than has been seen in the past. Successfully playing this role in the future will be achieved when HR departments succeed in addressing all levels of cognitive processes, including subconscious defense mechanisms.

By being aware of subconscious fears, conflicts, and barriers experienced by the people affected by the transformation pro-cesses, personnel staffs can secure organization of the processes with less friction. Understanding that such awareness is necessa-ry is hardly a revelation. But applying it to situations of reality often fails because the ideal transformation enabler is missing. This presents an opportunity for personnel experts in compa-nies – ultimately, they can slip into the role of “transformation coaches” who guide employees through a continuous change process that never really ends.

The major significance of the subject from the HR standpoint has been recognized in some companies, and they are taking active steps. At Deutsche Telekom, for example, the department “Transformational Change” has been established within the HR division for the purpose of promoting and accelerating the company’s transformation capability. Essential instruments for the Telekom approach include a virtual platform available to all of the group’s employees as well as external stakeholders which is intended to serve as an opportunity to mold transformation. In


addition, formats which expand the virtual services are offered. Moreover, a building complex at the heart of Berlin is expected to serve as a physical anchor point within the innovative startup world of Berlin.

Proposition 3: HR will create a culture of innovation.

One thing has not changed even in the 21st century: ideas still come from people, whether creative individual inventors or from perfectly staffed teams.

For a long time, attempts were made within the framework of innovation management to plan, steer, and control innovations systematically. But creativity as a basis for innovation is hard to reconcile with aspects such as planning, steering, and con-trol. So companies must set themselves the goal of overcoming barriers to innovation – lack of ability, lack of commitment, lack of permission, lack of confidence – by establishing an open innovation culture.

HR departments can proactively contribute to this process by promoting the process, turning innovation and agile wor-king styles into the responsibility of all of the employees in the company. HR’s task here is to create instruments which enable company-wide innovations while simultaneously being innova-tive itself. So it can start within its own sphere by serving as an inspiration to others: providing breathing space for creatives, breaking away from hidebound ways of thinking, and initiating a culture of error in which mistakes are permitted and an open sharing of ideas, free of any competitive pressures, becomes pos-sible.

Proposition 4: HR will encourage a new decision-making culture.”

In many large companies, decisions are either obstructed or slowed down by complexity: complexity of internal structures and complexity of the actual content of projects, processes, and markets.

There are good reasons why a comparison of large corpora-tions with midsize companies reveals the dominance of a fast decision-making culture in the latter. The decisive elements here are flat hierarchies and greater freedom to make decisions gran-

ted to individual employees who can directly survey and assess the possible ramifications of specific decisions.

If a decision-making culture of this nature is to be established in large enterprises as well, decision-making authority must be transferred in the sense of subsidiarity from executives to employees. Simultaneously, the work units must be structured in such a manner that the individual employees can assess the effects of their decisions as precisely as possible. Necessary within this context are also the capabilities of the employees – key words: “acting as an entrepreneur” – which must be pro-moted more vigorously than in the past.

Another important task will be to overcome the inner resistance of managers to relinquish authority. All of these tasks can be addressed ideally by an HR department acting in its role as “people manager”.

Understand that change is an opportunity

Agility, simplicity, and thinking in terms of networks – these are the core attributes of successful companies in the 21st century. The core comprises as well the capability of every single employee to “reinvent himself/herself continuously.” HR departments which grasp the change in HR functions as an opportunity to redefine the scope of their tasks and to assume responsibility for functions of high strategic significance and great complexity will operate “above the waterline” and contribute to the success of their companies.



New Challenges for Strategic HR Development

Future business demands are of extraordinary significance for strategic HR development as it strives to maintain the employability of workers and the competitiveness of companies themselves

Future HR


ompanies must develop a seismographic sense for future trends and business demands if they hope to operate successfully on the market. As the shortening of innovation cycles accele-rates and the half-life value of knowledge continuously shrinks, predicting how the demands of doing business will develop in the long-term future has become a highly uncertain underta-king. HR development must respond to these fast changes in business demands with the appropriate qualification activities so that the employability of the workforce can be maintained, a major requirement for assuring the company’s competitiveness. An agile method is necessary so that the requirements of busi-ness can be fully satisfied. Challenges for strategic HR development

The influencing factors described above prevent any unambi-guous forecasts of what form business demands will take in the future. This forces HR development to take a proactive approach and, based on forecasts of personnel and skills requirements, ensure the availability of the requisite number of employees who also have the skills needed for the job. The challenge here is to come up with a forecast for future corporate development which will prove to be sufficiently accurate so that when it is used as a basis, the related business demands can be considered in specific ways.

Traditionally, business requirements are translated into posi-tions and job descriptions which are then linked with a skills and requirements profile; employees who are assigned to the position must be a match with the profile. HR development measures build on these skills profiles. In extremely fast-moving business worlds such as the telecommunications industry, where business demands change rapidly, this approach is too rigid and too slow to be able to respond adequately to change.

HR development in agile companies must therefore be oriented to a simple question: What qualifications in terms of content will be required to meet future business demands?

This seemingly trivial approach has the advantage that it can be applied even without the tie-in to position and job descriptions and to skills and requirements profiles. When using this method, strategic HR development pragmatically aims to transfer future business demands into a qualification matrix. The intermediate step of requirements and skills profiles along with position and job descriptions is deliberately skipped. Taking as an example Deutsche Telekom and the requirement of “Big Data” defined there, this means that the individual units are given the oppor-tunity to present their qualification requirements in terms of content (for example: “application of analytical tools in the area of data management /analysis (e.g., SPSS; Cognos BI, Hado-op)”) without having to justify themselves retroactively for in-adequately defined capabilities and skills or positions and jobs. But this does not mean that strategic HR development stops at the level of qualifications defined as content. Instead, this is the foundation for the later definition of capabilities and skills. This type of gap analysis enables an assessment of the required quali-fications with respect to content. Those qualifications which are particularly critical for the company’s successful business deve-lopment must be ranked especially highly. The gaps determined in this way can be closed by conducting the necessary qualifi-cation measures, thereby establishing and/or expanding capabi-lities and skills critical for success. The great advantage of this approach is that it is freed from the restraints of the company’s rigidly defined job catalog and becomes more flexible.

The dynamics of the specific market environment of a company are decisive for the approach to be taken in strategic HR deve-lopment. A combination of both approaches is recommended especially in the dynamic services sector: strategic HR develop-ment clearly oriented to qualification requirements in terms of content and a subsequent adaptation of position and job descriptions. This paves the way to a reasonable consideration of future business demands, and companies can respond agilely to future market requirements.

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DMR: What will be the business requirements of the future for Deutsche Telekom?

M. Lecke: Deutsche Telekom AG defines its future require-ments – known in Telekom language as top business demands – primarily as technological trends which result from customer, market, and infrastructure perspectives and consequently have major impact on the business development in our corporation. Their high-level significance is underscored by the fact that these business demands can be derived straight from the leading telco strategy. The topics currently at the head of the list are all-IP, big data, and privacy and IT security. Owing to their enormous strategic importance, these top business demands are of special relevance for the training requirements of our employees and for the structure and contents of the training programs.

DMR: What was your reasoning behind the consideration of future business demands within the framework of the corporation’s inter-nal training and advanced training schemes?

M. Lecke: Deutsche Telekom invests hundreds of millions every year in the training, advanced training, and academic educa-tion of its workforce. The reason for considering future busi-ness demands is found in the quality standards of an effective and efficient training organization we have set for ourselves. Maintaining these standards also means constantly questioning and reviewing whether the investments yield the expected out-put and whether the processes, contents, and methods match the company’s requirements. Since the telecommunications in-dustry must deal with short innovation cycles, but the creation of specific qualification programs costs a lot of time, good stra-tegic HR development is expected to evaluate future business demands at an early stage so that employees can obtain the qua-lifications they will need.

DMR: How are the business demands determined in this way con-cretely incorporated into training and advanced training? What measures build on them?

M. Lecke: It is of fundamental importance to distinguish here between short-term and long-term business demands, between demands which have operational character and those with stra-tegic character. The focus of strategic HR development is on group-wide business demands which are covered by qualifica-tion programs designed more for the long term, e.g., vocational training, a development program, or a course of study. The rule of thumb is that a time period of about four years is required for the creation and implementation of a course of study inten-ded to cover the qualification needs of a group-wide business requirement such as privacy and IT security, for instance, un-til the first graduates are available for employment. The same is true of vocational training. In general, we can say that the following questions arise for strategic HR development when a business demand has been identified. At what career level does the demand appear? Is this a strategic or operational business demand? Is there a short-term or long-term skill requirement? Will the necessary qualification measure be developed internal-ly, or must it be procured from outside sources? When we view these issues against the backdrop of the complexity involved in the implementation of strategic qualification measures, we see how important it is to deal with future business demands as early as possible so that action relevant for the objectives can be taken. Close cooperation with the business units and the various training units is absolutely essential.

DMR: You say that there must be a constant questioning of whether the measures yield the desired output. This brings us to the next question: Is there a general process monitoring the success of all of the measures?

M. Lecke: Here at Deutsche Telekom, we currently have pro-cesses related to the measures for the monitoring of a training program, a development program, or even a specific seminar. However, we have not yet implemented a general monitoring process across all of the Telekom units and training facilities in the group.

... with Markus Lecke, Group Performance Development, Deutsche Telekom AG

Interview...


DMR: At what intervals do you plan to repeat the assessment of business demands?

M. Lecke: The business demands and the related training requi-rements are assessed in a yearly cycle involving specific measures and programs, segments and training units, and the central HR development. The results of this analysis serve as the basis for the adaptation of the training program for the three training units at Deutsche Telekom: training, vocational training, and university.

DMR: What do you consider to be the greatest challenges for Deut-sche Telekom during the predictive determination of business de-mands?

M. Lecke: The greatest challenge is of course trying to forecast business demands as accurately as possible. However, these fore-casts are made more difficult by various internal and external influencing factors such as strategic management decisions, short-term market developments, or technological feasibility. Moreover, the build-up of effective and efficient qualification measures is an enormous challenge in a corporation comprising a number of business units, some of them with highly diver-gent orientations. This background makes a group-wide, accu-rate determination of future business demands difficult. That is why we must heighten our awareness in the individual business units as well for the demands which are relevant for strategic success throughout the entire group and differentiate more pre-cisely between middle-term, strategic training needs and needs of daily business, which tend to be of a shorter-term nature. It will then become possible to cover cross-segment training needs efficiently and effectively with the involvement of the corporation’s training providers. Our success in this endeavor will ultimately decide how successfully and dynamically Deut-sche Telekom can operate on the market in the coming years.

DMR: Thank you for this conversation.

Markus Lecke is the program manager in the unit Group Performance Development at Deutsche Telekom headquarters and is in charge of the programs for individual development. They include, for instance, the work-study program “Bologna@Telekom” and the development of training programs oriented to the top business demands of the corporation. Furthermore, Mr. Lecke is active on committees handling educational policies at the regional, national, and European levels.


Cloudy to Sunny?More and more cloud applications are taking the place of traditional IT solutions; HR is just one area where this is happening. Large corporations are making this move in response to new employee expectations, pressures to increase efficiency, and the trend to integra-ted applications. A modular structure which takes into account the special features of cloud solutions such as data protection is required for the planning, implementation, and operation of HR cloud solutions.

HR in the Cloud


nalysts predict that there will be more cloud IT projects than traditional IT projects in the field of human resources (HR) in 2015. Leading HR software providers such as SAP and Oracle have developed or procured extensive know-how in re-cent years. SAP took over SuccessFactors and Oracle acquired Taleo, two successful HR cloud providers.

The HR departments in companies are changing over to cloud providers because they believe that these solutions offer them greater flexibility, global standardization, a better user expe-rience, and cost savings. In view of recent events and the le-gal environment, cloud solutions are viewed critically from the perspective of data protection. In response (especially in Ger-many and in companies with a civil servant structure), compa-nies choose cloud providers who host the HR data stored in the cloud on German territory.

There are differences in the state of knowledge and expectations related to cloud solutions in HR and in IT departments. Initial experience has been gained with the phases of planning, im-plementation, and operation of HR cloud applications in the complex German-speaking countries. But practice reveals that HR cloud providers are themselves still involved in a learning and adaptation process.

Planning and analysis phase

The planning and analysis phase is the first component of any project. The special circumstances during the implementation of an HR cloud must be analyzed right here. The quantitative as well as qualitative aspects must be assessed in a business case. Besides determining the costs of the implementation itself, the business case must secure a realistic basis for cost calculations, and an inventory assessment of the existing architecture and systems in the relevant area must be taken. Systems which are no longer necessary will be shut down over the course of time based on a structured retirement approach so that savings can be realized and the costs incurred by the process can be quantified.

Moreover, the selection of the cloud provider, including negotiations, belongs to the analysis phase as well. Analysts like Forrester regularly offer objective appraisals and comparisons of the providers. However, the company must itself perform an analysis of its present processes, compare them with the stan-dard processes offered by the providers in question, and then de-cide on a provider with a good match. If an HR partial solution which has already been implemented has proved to be satisfac-tory (e.g., for HR master data), it may be recommendable and

less expensive to go for a hybrid solution and to shift only cer-tain HR components, such as talent management, to the cloud. Careful attention must be paid to the integration of the various components – it is often a good idea to select the same provider.

HR cloud solutions are typically offered as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). These are standardized solutions which are purchased as they are needed and are operated by the provider itself. This frees HR departments to concentrate on value adding activi-ties such as talent management and the required organizational adaptations.

Implementation

An integrated project approach is of major importance during the implementation phase because the various HR components such as recruiting and learning are tightly intermeshed. Syner-gies can be exploited by setting common milestones, interfaces, and data models.

The project management module for HR cloud implementa-tions demands a balance between conventional and agile project management methods because both traditional project control-ling and an agile roll-out management, as well asdevelopment steps in iterations should be elements of it.

The second module during an HR cloud implementation – com-pliance and data security – makes especially strict demands on compliance and data security in comparison with the operation of traditional IT solutions. If the fulfillment of these demands is to be guaranteed, there must be a closed chain of agreements regarding contracted data processing between users, their com-panies, and the IT service providers. Legal requirements (e.g., for civil servant data) may make it necessary to utilize a national cloud for data storage.

Delivery model and processes fall under the third module in an HR cloud project. The HR cloud operating model used in a company must be matched to the HR drive factors. pre-viously existing in the company. These drive factors can vary from one company to the next, from consistent master database to standardization of HR processes. The inclusion of these requirements is mandatory and must be implemented in ite-rations with HR, IT, and the cloud provider; otherwise, there is a risk that HR processes will not be correctly mapped in the cloud solution. If we look at the HR process design, we see that the implementation of HR cloud processes represents a shift in the intensity of the project work per module in comparison with

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traditional HR process design. When using cloud solutions, HR departments can roll out standard processes faster and with less work, but they must accept in return greater efforts and expense for a more complex organizational adaptation.

Another module in an HR cloud project is related to the HR or-ganization before and after the implementation as the HR cloud solution is the cause for change in the organization itself. Alt-hough a cloud solution enables the HR department to concent-rate more on its core business, the company experiences a grea-ter dependency on the cloud provider. For instance, new releases are managed directly by the cloud provider and no longer by the IT department. The use of the provider’s standardized processes limits the scope for design for specific companies and HR de-partments. Nevertheless – and these are only some of the drive factors – the utilization of an HR cloud solution offers compa-nies greater flexibility and comparability of the HR processes as well as transparency in the distribution of roles and responsibi-lities. Moreover, there must be a new understanding of the role played by the IT department. The maximum benefits from the cloud solution for HR and the employees will not be reaped until the IT side has come to a common understanding with the HR department and the HR cloud users. But the HR depart-ments must also change their attitudes toward their cooperation with the IT department. Cloud solutions give both of them the chance to concentrate exclusively on their business challenges because a cloud implementation renders the discussions about technology and interface complications largely moot.

Practice reveals that an agile and adapted change management approach should be taken during a cloud project. It is defined in the module change, training, and communication. In com-parison with a traditional project, the change activities during an HR cloud project are shifted towards the phase after going live. The reason for this is that cloud solutions have new releases featuring new functions at quarterly intervals; the impact of these functions must be analyzed, they must be communicated to users, and the training materials must be updated. Change management has a very special role to play here because the ac-ceptance of various stakeholder groups – on the HR and IT side as well as on the part of users – must be secured.

Operation

Guaranteeing a seamless transition during operation of the HR cloud solution requires securing the capability of both IT and HR departments, even before going live, to carry out future ad-aptations in the cloud solution or to assume responsibility for support. While there are external training programs available for this purpose, it will have a more sustainable effect if the re-quired knowledge is acquired internally (e.g., with a train the trainer approach) so that guidance can be given to users and administrators after the implementation. Successful HR cloud implementation and operational startup will not be possible without the creation of business and conceptual process com-petence within the company itself. Once this competence has been established, the company will be able to manage operation with its own resources.

Cloud solutions contain helpful “self-service functions” for sim-ple administrative tasks such as the modification of personal data, the completion of vacation leave applications, or direct booking of training programs. These functions relieve the HR department of some of its work on the one hand; on the other hand employees have greater opportunities, but they also have more obligations. Experience has shown that additional func-tions of this type lead to a higher level of acceptance by users. These changes for the various employee groups must be consi-dered appropriately in the change management approach.

Cloud solutions are operated by the provider, but practice ne-vertheless shows that a coordinated support concept must be established in both HR and IT and integrate as well the cloud provider.

In summary, it can be determined that the outlook for HR in the cloud in Germany is more sunny than cloudy, provided that a modular and agile approach is used.

Tugba AkyaziWorld Business Dialogue: Consultants and Students Look for Answers to the Challenges of the Future

Lars AttmerPlan Strategically – Operate with Excellence: The Future of HR Management

Giulia BlancoInterview with Daniel Eckmann, Detecon International GmbH: No One is Really Good without a High Positive Energy Level!

Karla BlankeInterview with Dr. Irene López, CBS: High-performing Teams Support the Competitiveness of Companies

Interview with Daniel Markwig, Chief Instigator und App-Hausmeister@SAP App Haus: The AppHaus

Interview with Thies-Christian Bruhn, Kempinski: “The Fundamental Prerequisite for me is the Personality of the Individual Employee”

Meike BosseKaizen – Beyond Process Re-engineering: Regarding the Mining of Kaizen Potential and Its Implementation in Daily Project Business

Hanane BouzidiWorld Business Dialogue: Consultants and Students Look for Answers to the Challenges of the Future

Magenta MOOC at Deutsche Telekom: Virtual Collaboration in the Entrepreneurial Context

Peter GereIntercultural Leadership: Trust as the Basis for Successful Project Management in Central and Eastern Europe

Dr. Julian GolovatchevInterview with Dr. Heinrich Arnold, Telekom Innovation Laboratories: To Boldly Go where Telekom Has not Gone Before!

Uwe Hafner HR in the Cloud: Cloudy to Sunny?

Alexander HardtPro Bono Project with Afrika Rise e.V.: How Digitalization Can Further Education in Africa

Monika KaczynskaIntercultural Leadership: Trust as the Basis for Successful Project Management in Central and Eastern Europe

Dr. Hana Nari KahleICT4Development: How Communications Technologies Can Save the World

Egbert Koentges-SimonHR in the Cloud: Cloudy to Sunny?

Dr. Christoph LymberskyInterview with Dr. Markus Müller, Deutsche Telekom AG: Telekom IT – More than Just an IT Service Provider

Julian ObeloerPro Bono Project with Afrika Rise e.V.: How Digitalization Can Further Education in Africa

Andreas PenkertDigital Transformation Calls for a New Culture of Service: He Who Serves, Wins

Thorsten PohlInterview with Dr. Irene López, CBS: High-performing Teams Support the Competitiveness of Companies

Elena Irene RabbowInterview with Daniel Eckmann, Detecon International GmbH: No One is Really Good without a High Positive Energy Level!

Interview with Dr. Heinrich Arnold, Telekom Innovation Laboratories: To Boldly Go where Telekom Has not Gone Before!

The Authors



The Authors

Michael RichterFuture HR: New Challenges for Strategic HR Development

Tina RiesterInterview with Frank Dopheide, Verlagsgruppe Handelsblatt: “The Manager as a Brand – Competitive Advantage in the Digital Age”

Guido SolscheidKaizen – Beyond Process Re-engineering: Regarding the Mining of Kaizen Potential and Its Implementation in Daily Project Business

Julia TrollLead to win – Deutsche Telekom’s New Leadership Ambition

Elisa VoggenbergerInterview with James E. Mullin: „ War is a Chaotic Enterprise “Interview with Dr. Bernhard Zünkeler: Molding the Workplace of the Future: A Fresh Breeze for Difficult Tasks and Innovation

Marc WagnerNew Working Worlds: Work Where YOU Want to ...Plan Strategically – Operate with Excellence: The Futureof HR Management

Interview with Dietrich Franz, CFO, DHL Supply Chain: „After the Transformation Is Before the Transformation”

Interview with Dr. Bernhard Zünkeler: Molding the Work-place of the Future: A Fresh Breeze for Difficult Tasks and Innovation

Interview with Michael Leistenschneider: “Telco Landscape with Inestimable Drive”

Interview with Daniel Markwig, Chief Instigator und App-Hausmeister@SAP App Haus: The AppHaus

Interview with Frank Dopheide, Verlagsgruppe Handelsblatt: “The Manager as a Brand – Competitive Advantage in the Digital Age”

Interview with Jens Bode, Henkel Laundry & Home Care: Ideas Come from Inspirationen and Interaction of People

Interview with Thies C. Bruhn, Kempinski Palace Portorož: “The Fundamental Prerequisite for Me is the Personality of the Individual Employee”

Interview with James E. Mullin: „War is a Chaotic Enterprise“

Marcel Widjaja Kaizen – Beyond Process Re-engineering: Regarding the Mining of Kaizen Potential and Its Implementation in Daily Project Business

Theresa Zeuzem Kaizen – Beyond Process Re-engineering: Regarding the Mining of Kaizen Potential and Its Implementation in Daily Project Business

Future HR: Future HR: New Challenges for Strategic HR Development

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INTERVIEWS WITH

Frank Dopheide, Verlagsgruppe Handelsblatt The Manager as a Brand

Dr. Markus Müller, Deutsche Telekom Telekom IT: More than Just an IT Service Provider

Dietrich Franz, DHL Supply Chain After the Transformation Is Before the Transformation

Daniel Markwig, SAP The AppHaus

Jens Bode, Henkel Laundry & Home Care Ideas Come from Inspiration and the Interaction of People

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