Case Study

Royal Selangor: The evolution of a brand over four family generations

20 pages
March 2015
Reference: IMD-7-1542

KUALA LUMPUR, MAY 2014. Tan Sri1 Yong Poh Kon, managing director of Royal Selangor (RS), the world’s largest pewter company, was in a meeting with his son Yoon Li and nephew Chen Tien Yue, both executive directors of the company, to decide how to build on the brand’s current success. Since graduating from university, Poh Kon had led the third generation family members for 30 years. During that time, he had witnessed a complete transformation of the company’s branding strategy, from primarily focusing on mass communication to integrating multiple consumer touch points, including new and advanced ones like social and mobile media. It had been almost 10 years since Tien Yue and Yoon Li had joined the fully owned family business. Together with their family and employees, they had successfully grown the brand through innovative product design, frequent collection launches and intensified internationalization. To establish RS as a truly global luxury brand, the two cousins and Poh Kon knew that further growth and a rethinking of RS’s branding strategy was critical for the almost 130-year-old company. All three were aware that it was not the first time RS had repositioned itself. To define the next steps for RS, Yoon Li, Tien Yue and Poh Kon decided to first assess how the brand and the family business had evolved and how the family, through the generations, had adapted and upgraded the brand. And, during periods of change and transition, how did the generations learn from each other and develop the new practices and capabilities needed to build and reinforce the luxury status of RS’s brand?

Learning Objective
  • Role of the owning family in regards to branding and innovation
  • Trans-generational learning
  • Family business based brand identity
Keywords
Branding, Succession, Generational Transition, History, Family Constitution, Family, Identity
Settings
Malaysia
Royal Selangor
2012-2013
Type
Field Research
Copyright
© 2015
Available Languages
English
Case clearing houses
IMD case studies are distributed through case clearing houses. In order to browse the collection and purchase copies please visit the links below.

The Case Centre

Cranfield University

Wharley End Beds MK43 0JR, UK
Tel +44 (0)1234 750903
Email [email protected]

Harvard Business School Publishing

60 Harvard Way, Boston MA 02163, USA
Tel (800) 545-7685 Tel (617)-783-7600
Fax (617) 783-7666
Email [email protected]

Asia Pacific Case Center

NUCB Business School

1-3-1 Nishiki Naka
Nagoya Aichi, Japan 460-0003
Tel +81 52 20 38 111
Email [email protected]

Contact

Research Information & Knowledge Hub for additional information on IMD publications

Looking for something specific?
IMD's faculty and research teams publish articles, case studies, books and reports on a wide range of topics