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    Case Study Family Business Strategy General Management
    Raya Holding: What is the holding really holding?
    On 7 October 2020, the employees of Raya, an Egyptian holding company, received an email that sent shockwaves across the entire firm. The board had just announced that Medhat Khalil, Raya’s co-founder, primary shareholder and long-serving CEO, would be stepping down after 21 years, leaving the position to his son Ahmed Khalil, who was just under…
    By Niccolò Pisani Anel Alsenova Amira El Ebrashy Danila Rudenka and Reny Thomas
    Case reference: IMD-7-2390 ©2023
    Case Study Sustainability Family Business
    Grundfos (B): “Solved in a better way”
    Without much family discussion, PDJ put majority ownership of Grundfos into the Poul Due Jensen Foundation in 1975. His family would receive a 15% stake in the company. This ownership stake was important, since by Danish law, the company could be sold if family ownership fell below 10%. The 8-member foundation board would oversee the company’s l…
    By Peter Vogel and Colleen Lief
    Case reference: IMD-7-2375 ©2023
    Case Study Sustainability Family Business
    Grundfos (A): “Be, think, innovate”
    Poul Due Jensen (PDJ), the son of a Danish workhouse manager, had seen first-hand how harsh life can be. He understood early on that he needed to stand on his own two feet. After being orphaned aged 17, he worked as a machine operator, but soon founded his own water technology company, Grundfos Holding A/S, in 1944. He responded to a customer’s …
    By Peter Vogel and Colleen Lief
    Case reference: IMD-7-2374 ©2023
    Case Study Sustainability Diversity and Equity and Inclusion Family Business
    J.M. Huber Corporation: Testing the limits of resilience capabilities
    As circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic continued to shift and evolve, J.M. Huber Corporation (Huber) remained focused on protecting its employees, maintaining business continuity, and on advancing its multi-year sustainability strategy. The efforts of Mike Marberry, the President & CEO, the Huber Management Council (HMC), the family sharehold…
    By Sameh Abadir and Marta Widz
    Case reference: IMD-7-2412 ©2023
    Case Study Entrepreneurship Family Business Leadership Sustainability Diversity and Equity and Inclusion
    Maria Ahlström-Bondestam: Together everyone achieves more (Video case)
    This case presents the unique approach to philanthropy of the Ahlström family. A group of 25 fifth-generation female Ahlström family members founded the Eva Ahlström foundation in 2010, in the name of the family matriarch Eva Ahlström (1848–1920), who was a big contributor to society in her time. This led to the establishment of the Ahlström Co…
    By Peter Vogel and Malgorzata Smulowitz
    Case reference: IMD-7-2414 ©2022
    Case Study Family Business Sustainability Strategy Diversity and Equity and Inclusion
    Firmenich: Juggling the short and the long term (Cartoon case)
    Formatted like a comic-strip, this case showcases how Firmenich achieved resilience and strong sustainability commitments thanks to its family ownership. The case investigates how family ownership spanning across four generations and 125 years, has influenced the company’s core values and brought a long-term perspective to its strategy, which al…
    By Sameh Abadir and Marta Widz
    Case reference: IMD-7-2308 ©2022
    Case Study Sustainability Family Business Strategy
    The VELUX Group: The path to lifetime carbon neutrality
    The case explores how the family-owned VELUX Group – inventor and manufacturer of roof windows since 1941 – took incorporating sustainability in its business operations to heart, leading to its pledge to become lifetime carbon neutral by its centenary in 2041. In its early days and at the behest of its founder, the VELUX Group adopted its “Mod…
    By Sameh Abadir and Marc Chauvet
    Case reference: IMD-7-2367 ©2022
    The VELUX Group: The path to lifetime carbon neutrality
    By Sameh Abadir and Marc Chauvet
    Case reference: IMD-7-2367 ©2022
    Summary
    The case explores how the family-owned VELUX Group – inventor and manufacturer of roof windows since 1941 – took incorporating sustainability in its business operations to heart, leading to its pledge to become lifetime carbon neutral by its centenary in 2041. In its early days and at the behest of its founder, the VELUX Group adopted its “Model Company Objective (MCO),” a charter for how the business should be run. The case illustrates how the MCO set the company on a course toward sustainable operations, allowing it to spearhead such efforts in an industry often reluctant to engage with the topic.
    Reference IMD-7-2367
    Copyright ©2022
    Copyright owner IMD Copyright
    Organization VELUX
    Industry Manufacturing
    Available Languages English
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    Case Study Family Business Corporate Governance Sustainability
    J.M. Huber Corporation: Leadership succession in the face of two economic crises
    J.M. Huber, one of the largest and oldest family-held companies in the US, had strategically repositioned itself several times since it was founded in 1883 as a dry-color business. Visionary family leaders and a committed senior management team had transformed the group into an international player with operations in more than 20 countries and a…
    By Sameh Abadir and Marta Widz
    Case reference: IMD-7-2133 ©2022
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    Dachser (B): Putting intelligent logistics to the test
    This brief B case dives into how the governance model withstood the COVID-19 crisis.
    By Benoit F. Leleux and Marta Widz
    Case reference: IMD-7-2314 ©2022
    Case Study Family Business Sustainability Supply Chain Strategy Operations
    Dachser (A): Intelligent logistics
    The case, based on extensive interviews with top executives and two generations of Dachser family owners, documents the genesis and spectacular growth of the global logistics specialist, a group that now has close to 400 locations on all five continents and employs 30,000+ people. Despite its global footprint, Dachser stayed loyal to both its co…
    Selected for the 2023 Schlesinger Global Family Enterprise Case Competition
    By Benoit F. Leleux and Marta Widz
    Case reference: IMD-7-2313 ©2022
    Case Study Family Business Diversity and Equity and Inclusion Strategy Sustainability Value Creation
    Brown-Forman: Nothing better in the market
    London, UK, July 2020. G. Garvin Brown IV, the chairman of Brown-Forman Corporation and 5th generation family shareholder, was preparing to celebrate the firm’s 150th anniversary. Despite its current global footprint, a turnover in excess of $3.3 billion and over 4,800 employees worldwide, Brown-Forman had remained in Louisville, Kentucky, close…
    2021 EFMD Case Writing Competition Award – Family Business
    By Benoit F. Leleux Marta Widz and Marc Chauvet
    Case reference: IMD-7-2259 ©2021
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    The Sika takeover battle
    The longest corporate takeover battle in the history of Switzerland – and possibly the world – pitted Sika, a Swiss chemicals manufacturer, against Saint-Gobain, a French conglomerate. At the heart of the dispute was a family business. Sika was a very successful family-controlled firm whose fourth-generation descendants decided to sell their sta…
    By Peter Vogel and Anouk Lavoie Orlick
    Case reference: IMD-7-2227 ©2021
    Case Study Strategy Family Business Sustainability
    Villeroy & Boch: Tradition, innovation and 270 years of a Franco-German alliance
    Villeroy & Boch is one of the oldest manufacturing companies in Europe, still controlled by the founding families, though with a public listing. Its specialty is ceramics, divided into bathroom fittings and tableware. At the time of writing the case study, demand was falling for traditional ceramic dining sets, but the business was continuing to…
    By Denise H. Kenyon-Rouvinez and Philip Whiteley
    Case reference: IMD-7-2100 ©2020
    Case Study Strategy Family Business
    Lee Kum Kee’s five generations of growth (Abridged)
    This Overview case summarizes the story and development of the LKK food and health products company, from its origins as a small provider of oyster sauce, to a thriving multinational firm in the early 21st Century. Since 1980 it had grown from a small specialist provider of oyster sauce with just 25 employees to a large multinational firm offeri…
    By Denise H. Kenyon-Rouvinez and Philip Whiteley
    Case reference: IMD-7-2045 ©2019
    Case Study Strategy Family Business
    Lee Kum Kee Co. Ltd (D): Governance reforms start to show rewards as the fifth generation matures
    Lee Kum Kee Co Ltd, producer of LKK oyster sauce and a range of food and health products, reached its 130th year in 2018. The fifth generation comprised cousins mostly in young adulthood who were beginning to assume leadership roles as owner-governers. Senior executives were non-family specialists. At the time of writing, the fourth generation w…
    By Denise H. Kenyon-Rouvinez and Philip Whiteley
    Case reference: IMD-7-2044 ©2019