360 01 f Casestudy Hilti VomBrocke Petry Schmiedel Hilti Case

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Abstract

In 2000, Hilti launched a major business transformation project bringing all eight production plants, more than

50 sales organizations, and over 20,000 employees into one single global ERP system. The project was one

of the biggest transformation projects of its kind for the company and it substantially changed the way Hilti

is doing business today. In this study, we report on the transformation project referred to as “the Hilti Case”.

We begin by presenting relevant background information and specically dening the need for action along

with the goals, vision and strategy. We then report on the project’s realization, its major results, and also the

lessons learned as reected by the managers involved in the project. We base our study on interviews and

intensive document analysis conducted between 2009 and 2010. The results are presented in the form of a

case narrative to allow for different perspectives of analysis in future studies. We very much encourage fellowresearchers and practitioners to engage in the discussion in order to contribute to the body of knowledge on

global business transformation management.



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CASE STUDY

Hilti is a global corporation in

the construction industry. It pro-vides tools, systems and ser-vices to customers worldwide.With an annual revenue of 3.9billion Swiss francs in 2010,Hilti employs almost 20,000people around the globe, ofwhich roughly 1,700 work atthe headquarters in Schaan,Liechtenstein. Two-thirds of allemployees worldwide work di-

rectly for the customer in salesorganizations and in engineer-ing, which means a total ofmore than 200,000 customercontacts every day. Hilti has itsown production plants as wellas research and developmentcenters in Europe and Asia.Hilti launched its transforma-tion project called “Global

Processes and Data” (GPD)in 2000. The objective wasto overcome local data andprocess silos by introduc-ing global standard businessprocesses and standardizeddata structures supported bya global system solution andone globally managed IT func-tion. The project was coordi-nated centrally from the head-

quarters in Liechtenstein. Bythe end of 2010, over 95% of

by Jan vom Brocke, Martin Petry and Theresa Schmiedel

HOW HILTI MASTERS

TRANSFORMATION

Hilti’s revenue, more than 50

sales organizations, and alleight production plants wereoperated in one global sys-tem. This means more than18,000 users working withSAP Enterprise ResourcePlanning (ERP) software and6,000 users also working withSAP Mobile solutions and ap-plications.

Call for Action

The idea of a globally integrat-ed work system rst surfacedas early as 1963 accordingto Michael Hilti quoting hisfather. Although it was notfeasible at the time, the ideahas been in the Hilti genes for

quite a while, resulting in sev-eral efforts to achieve a moreglobally integrated corpora-tion. In the 1980s and in the1990s, Hilti tried to move inthis direction but the solutionwas only being sought in theIT function, resulting in too lit-tle effort on the business side.In order to pursue a globalpath, the initiative needed to

be broader, including a globalbusiness application land-

scape, global processes and

global process owners.In 2000, the Hilti Corpora-tion’s business strategy in-cluded overall targets suchas customer satisfaction andproductivity being achievedthrough operational excel-lence and a consistent, globalimplementation of strategicinitiatives. Based on this strat-egy, Hilti IT derived a new

strategy considering the localand global business initiativesat that time. It became obvi-ous that many of the globalinitiatives were hindered bynon-harmonized process anddata structure landscapes.Furthermore, different IT sys-tems in use were adding todifculties in global initiatives.

However, the main reasonsfor the transformation projectwere process landscapes thatresulted in slow, inconsistent,and not necessarily globalways of implementing opera-tional excellence initiatives.So Hilti IT decided to imple-ment globally harmonizedprocesses, data structures,and system landscapes, and

with this approach, the GPDproject was launched.



CASE STUDY

Goals, Vision & Strategy

The vision of the GPD trans-

formation project was toachieve global and integratedprocesses, data structures,and system landscapes to re-alize business opportunitiesbeyond the level reached atthat time. In the rst phase ofthe transformation, the projectteam focused on the 25 topsales organizations, all plants,and the headquarters, this

phase being concluded in May2006. Building on the successof the program, other salesorganizations were includedin the project in the secondphase in order to create “oneHilti“. As Hilti continues togrow as a global corporation,it has now reached phasethree of the transformation,which aims to also include, forexample, new sales organiza-tions at the corporation.The IT strategy has been dis-

cussed and communicated ona large scale in the manage-ment team and even beyond

as senior managers at Hilti ITwent to the sales organiza-tions themselves to communi-cate and discuss the vision ofa globalized IT. In a very earlyphase of the transformation,

before and after the strategyapproval, communicating thevision was very important toensure that everybody under-stood the strategy of Hilti IT.The longer the project con-tinued in this direction, themore important it became todeliver tangible outcomesrather than “new slide sets”,otherwise people would have

become nervous. So intensecommunication at the begin-ning needed to be followed by

clear visible progress in termsof the content. The more inline with the communicationthe deliverables were, thegreater the credibility the proj-ect acquired.

Apart from the overall goalsof standardized processesand data and an integratedIT system, Hilti aimed at avery smooth implementation,namely compromise insteadof confrontation. Specicgoals of the transformationproject related to optimizingthe logistics performance, forexample. This included tar-

The project “Global Processes and Data”

was the opposite of an IT cost-cutting

strategy.



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CASE STUDY

gets such as a 95% customerperfect order (cpo) or threedays repair cycle times. It is

important to notice that all tar-gets were dened includinga target value. Furthermore,new initiatives such as eetmanagement, consistent pric-ing, or consistent denition ofcustomers were launched aselements of GPD. The latterwas necessary to be able toimplement global customerinitiatives. Generally, it is inter-

esting that most KPIs arisingfrom the project are business-related rather than IT-related.To actually create addition-al business value and alsohave a reliable infrastructure,Hilti decided to spend a hugeamount of money on imple-menting the IT strategy. SinceGPD was the opposite of anIT cost-cutting strategy, busi-ness value and a reliable in-frastructure needed to com-pensate for the money spenton the GPD project.

Realization

Gaining Support for aTransformational Project

The GPD project was commu-nicated in an open and honestway with clear targets. Despitethe huge impact of the trans-formation, the managementteam tried to downplay thescale of the project somewhatin the beginning so as not toscare people but to calm ev-eryone down to a degree thatis helpful and necessary in

the early stages of a project.Knowing about the revolu-

tionary character of GPD, themanagement team decided tohandle the transformation notby fueling consternation butby supporting the perceptionof a major change in the rightdirection. The awareness ofthe change needed was avery important factor in thesuccess of GPD, especiallysince the transformation wasnot forced by the company’seconomic situation.Looking at general manage-

ment and plant managers,there was an overall highlevel of supportiveness, un-derstanding and willingnessto be part of the project. Oneor two were naturally some-what more hesitant in thebeginning but typically regret-ted later that they had notbecome more involved in theearly stages. On the whole,

GPD received enormous sup-port thanks in particular to the

backing of the top three peo-ple in the company.The main sponsors of theGPD project were the HiltiCEO and two more membersof the Executive Board (EB)who had all been with thecompany for over 25 years.Support for the project fromthe corporation’s senior man-agement was a rst funda-mental factor in its success.Still, it needed an idea on howto launch a project leading in

this direction. In fact, it wasthe former and present ChiefInformation Ofcer (CIO) pre-senting the idea of GPD thatwas basically derived out ofthe IT strategy development.

Building a ProjectManagement TeamFor the rst three to fouryears, the GPD project man-

agement team consisted ofthe chief process ofcers,



CASE STUDY

their counterparts on the ITside, representatives of the ITinfrastructure, as well as theformer and present CIO. Theweekly meeting was relatively

large because it served as amultiplication point where,especially in the rst coupleof months, fundamental is-sues were claried. Everyoneinvolved brought ideas fromtheir teams to the meetingand took the results of the dis-cussions back to their teams.

About 15 people usually at-tended the meeting, although

there was a certain amount ofrotation over the years. Alto-gether, there were around 30to 40 people in this meetingduring the project.The weekly coordination teammeetings were perceived asthe engine of the project andinvolved discussion of thegeneral proceedings, includ-ing the design of common

terminology. This has beenextremely important in being

able to address an audiencethat is not used to projects in-volving major technical chang-es. Furthermore, the technicalcourse of action needed to be

dened and explained to theaffected persons, includingquestions such as “What isan integration test?”, “Why dowe need a unit test before theintegration test?”, “How longmight it take and why doesit take that long?”, and “Canwe do that earlier?” The proj-ect management team wentthrough a lot of discussions in

their regular meetings in orderto get everybody on board.In the rst few years, theGPD project was more abouteducation than execution be-cause it was necessary to in-troduce the IT team to the SAPsystem, to integrate the entirebusiness environment com-ing from various different ar-eas, directions and functions,

and to integrate new peopleinto the IT team. At the same

time, it was necessary for theproject management teamto amalgamate as a peoplespeaking the same language,which is very important due to

the confusion that can arisefrom ambiguous terminologyand procedures. So it wascrucial to get this type of align-ment.The project managementteam was basically led by theformer and present CIOs, whopromoted their idea abouthow to run the project smooth-ly by providing detailed expla-

nations and thinking aheadwhich enabled them to alwaysstay one step ahead of theteam. This way, they man-aged to persuade people bypresenting valid ideas. Sothe project was clearly led bythese two, although not in anauthoritarian, dictatorial waybut in a way that encouragedpeople to support the sugges-

tions based on sound argu-ments.



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CASE STUDY

example, an enthusiastic be-ginner requires support andattention that is different fromthat given to an experiencedexpert. This simple rule pro-

vided very effective supportto the leadership in the GPDproject.

Implementing the GPDProjectIn addition to the project team,approximately 120 peoplewere involved in the imple-mentation process in Vaduz,Buchs, Schaan, and in thelocal organizations. Through-out the project this resulted inaround 150 full-time equiva-lents at any one time after

the start of GPD. The numberof people involved shows a

“If we start voting,

I will leave

immediately.“

In fact, the idea of a culturewhere the strongest argumentwins was agreed upon in thevery rst coordination teammeeting: “We had a major dis-

cussion and we couldn’t nda common denominator. Oneperson said ‘We do it the Swissway and just vote’. Someoneelse said, ‘If we start voting, Iwill leave immediately.’” In theend, they agreed that deci-sions should be based on thestrongest argument. The ideaof the strongest argumentalso concerned the project

management. Still, it was ob-vious that certain argumentsneeded to be pushed to pre-vent the project from becom-ing too complex.The general managementstyle at Hilti is one of a cul-ture of situational leadership,which means that a manageradjusts his style of manage-ment to the skills of the spe-

cic person to whom he isdelegating a certain task. For

clear commitment and dedi-cation of resources to theprogram. Even in tough timessuch as 2001/2002, when theconstruction industry was not

so strong, Hilti further pushedthe project despite of costpressure.In terms of implementation,the project team decided tohave one release as a dry runat a very early stage to syn-chronize everything beforegoing live. So one releasewas used to develop all pro-cesses, process documenta-

tion, systems, and test pro-cedure. A clear advantage ofthis strategy was that the ac-tual implementation was veryquick.Developing the process land-scape and the system as wellas implementing them wasalmost awless. A huge road-map helped to visualize theimplementation. It was also

decided that GPD should belaunched and qualitative im-



CASE STUDY

provements added during theglobal roll out, which includedboth geographical and func-

tional improvements. The pro-cess and system landscapeswere augmented from coun-try to country, adding differentlegal requirements and alsofunctionality since it is not pos-sible to implement everythingfrom eet to contact center atthe beginning. So to avoid de-viations from standards anddifferent set-ups in organiza-

tions, it is necessary to keeprolling forwards and back-wards, which poses a chal-lenge to the project and putsconsiderable pressure on theproject team.

As they implemented GPDaround the globe, Hilti devel-oped the concept of cross-fer-tilization, where people from

different sales organizations,for example, synchronizethemselves. This peer sup-

port proved to be more effec-tive than sending global pro-

cess experts to try to convincesales organizations how toconduct their business. It wasfelt that it would be better topush transformation by havingpeople learn from peers whoactually use data structures,processes and systems thanhaving someone from Schaan

The concept of cross-fertilization through

peer support proved to be more effective

than having someone from Schaan trans-

lating theory into practice.

translating theory into prac-tice. In terms of shared ser-vice ideas, the cross-fertiliza-

tion concept even intensiedin the last two to three years.

Concerning the systems im-plementation, intensive col-laboration with SAP was es-sential for the project success.Having SAP as a strong ITspecialist, Hilti was able to fo-cus on their unique businessneeds. Thanks to a strong in-volvement of SAP also on the



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CASE STUDY

Key Learnings

ᐅ Have a clear vision of the va-

lue contribution for business.

ᐅ Aim high and be persistent. ᐅ Involve dedicated and ca-

pable people in the project

team. ᐅ Build a management team

with a common language

and skill set. ᐅ Gain senior management

support.

ᐅ Push the project with forward

thinking. ᐅ Establish a culture of “the

strongest argument wins”.ᐅ Communicate in an open

and honest way with clear

targets.ᐅ Build on a strong corporate

culture.

ᐅ Strike a balance between

a strong vision and smooth

implementation. ᐅ Visualize the implementation

through a comprehensiveroadmap.

ᐅ Have a dry run very early on. ᐅ Establish cross-fertilization

through peer support.

ᐅ Earn credibility by delivering

tangible results step by step.

EB level, a very productivecollaboration was achieved.Today, Hilti has an outstand-

ing relationship with SAP re-garding support and respect.Even though the GPD projectwas characterized by a verysmooth implementation, it isobvious that a project of thissignicance also faced someresistance. Generally, this re-sistance was overcome withthe support of the Hilti EBwhich helped the manage-

ment team to promote certainfacets. Today, Hilti is actuallyconducting its business in ac-cordance with global stan-dards initially dened throughthe GPD project. In practice,it is not an option to do thingsdifferently. However, not allprocesses have yet beenstandardized. So the globalprocess owners and the linesof business are still in the pro-cess of establishing whichlocal options to omit andwhich local best practices toimplement globally. At pres-ent, there are no difcultiesregarding a deviation fromthe standard, but rather ques-tions about how to furtherstandardize. In this respect,

everybody understands theextra effort associated withlocal options that prevent theoverall company from push-ing on and making more im-mediate changes.

Auditing in terms of processreviews is important whenit comes to maintaining thestandardized processes. Soglobal process owners and

the IT function review pro-cesses based on insights

gained, for example, from HiltiKPI reporting and SAP sys-tem statistics, thus enabling

weaknesses to be identied.These process reviews arecalled “business process ap-proval processes“ and help tooptimize operations.

Results and Achievements

The GPD project resulted in atransformative change in the

way Hilti does business. Eventhough this was clear to themanagement team at the verybeginning, there were still as-pects that remained unfore-seen. At the start of the projectin particular, the managementteam did not have full clarityon shared service centers, forexample, and these have onlybeen discussed in the lastthree years. Considering theoverall development of theproject, the more GPD pro-gressed, the more the entirecompany became involved.Globalization of the IT func-tion, common data struc-tures, processes and the ITsystem is today perceived asa springboard for the entire

company undergoing trans-formation. Global businessapplication landscapes pro-vided opportunities to opti-mize logistic structures in amulti-national way. Similarly,new ways to organize salesand customer services arose,using opportunities to com-bine sales organizations intohubs or shared service cen-

ters to optimize the sharing ofknowledge and execution of

marketing and sales activities.Today, integration of the busi-

ness process organizationinto the overall line of busi-ness is permeating throughthe entire company.So the most important ben-et of the transformation ishaving laid a major founda-tion for the future: the avail-ability of global processes,data structures, and systems,as well as a skillful global IT

team that is aware of how tofurther improve and build on



CASE STUDY

this. Furthermore, reliability inbusiness process executionis another signicant achieve-

ment at a more detailed level.On this basis, great oppor-tunities can be harvested inthe future regarding structuraloptimization and process ser-vices.Further achievements relateto customer satisfaction. Dur-ing the project, a managerfrom Austria came up with theidea of faxing all customer

data to the customers them-selves, asking them to pro-vide feedback on their data.Many customers very muchappreciated this because theyrealized that Hilti cares aboutthem and Hilti also receivedfeedback from the customersexpressing their satisfactionabout orders and repairs.

Lessons Learned

At the beginning of GPD, itsoverall impact was thought tobe considerable for the IT or-ganization and beyond, but itsactual impact turned out to beeven greater than expected.The transformation affected

day-to-day work in the mar-kets but also managementprocesses and structuralchanges, and today, changinga service or allocating it to an-other country is much easier.Many opportunities that GPDentails were not fully appreci-ated 10 years ago because,despite their awareness of theimpact on business, people

were more focused on the IT.In the GPD project, Hilti did

It is important to have diversity in theproject team: people who can deliver and

fix details and people who give directions

and see the bigger picture.

not standardize completelybecause one of the goalsset at the start was to have

a smooth implementation.Pushing the implementationof further standards wouldhave meant facing more con-frontation and risking peopleno longer supporting theGPD idea. So Hilti managedto nd a balance between fullstandardization and smoothimplementation, and this bal-ance will have to be kept in

mind in the future too.For the overall success of theproject, it was very importantto get the full support of se-nior management and othermanagement levels. It is alsoessential to have a dedicatedand capable set of people inthe transformation team. Andnally, it is necessary to de-liver results step by step, con-tinuously implementing the vi-sion of the project.Since GPD was a majortransformational step, manydetailed aspects needed tobe considered, especially interms of combining the IT sys-tem and business processes.

This means it was importantto address a number of minorissues in order to achieve theoverall vision. It is interesting

to learn that small details canfundamentally challenge an

initiative like GPD. In 2003,a critical incident occurred asthe newly built Data Centre

North suffered a power out-age. At that time, the GPDrollout was about to start inBeNeLux and had alreadybeen completed in Austria.Following the incident, it wasunclear whether the entiresystem needed to be recov-ered or whether data wascorrupt. This could have ledto several days of down time,

severely ruining the project’scredibility in terms of reliabledelivery.Even though such an incidentwould not mean the end ofthe project, it can still do con-siderable harm to its reputa-tion since it was built on trustthat needed to be honored,otherwise difculties weremore likely to occur despitethe support of senior man-agement. So it is important tohave different types of peoplein the project managementteam: those who can deliverand x details and those whogive directions and see thebigger picture.

Even though there was sub-stantial communication atthe start of the project moretangible training at all lev-

els would have been help-ful since a number of people



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CASE STUDY

Service Box

FURTHER READING

ᐅ vom Brocke, J., Petry, M., Sinnl, T., Kristensen, B. and Sonnen-berg, C., 2010. Global processes and data. The culture journey

at Hilti corporation. In: Handbook on business process manage-

ment. Strategic alignment, governance, people and culture, J.

vom Brocke & M. Rosemann (eds.), Vol. 2, Berlin: Springer, pp

539–558.ᐅ vom Brocke, J. and Sinnl, T., 2010. Applying the BPM-Culture-

Model: The Hilti case. ACIS 2010 Proceedings. 21st Austral-

asian Conference on Information Systems, 1-3 Dec 2010,

Brisbane, Australia. ᐅ Holler, S., 2008. Unternehmensporträt: Hilti-CIO Martin Petry in

den CIO-Videonews. CIO, http://www.cio.de/knowledgecenter/

erp/856177/

AUTHORS

Prof. Dr. Jan vom Brocke

Hilti Chair of Business Process Management

Director Institute of Information Systems

University of Liechtenstein

Vaduz, Principality of Liechtenstein

jan.vom.brocke[at]uni.li

Dr. Martin PetryChief Information Ofcer

Hilti Corporation

Schaan, Principality of Liechtenstein

martin.petry[at]hilti.com

Dipl. oec. Theresa Schmiedel

Hilti Chair of Business Process Management

Institute of Information Systems

University of Liechtenstein

Vaduz, Principality of Liechtensteintheresa.schmiedel[at]uni.li

Two comments on the Hilti Case: see following pages

underestimated the impactof the project. GPD requiredcompetence at all levels, yet

some managers believedGPD was “a back-ofce typeof thing” that would not inu-ence business. In fact, GPDcompletely changed the waybusiness is carried out in or-der to be compliant with theGPD foundation.Having learned from this ex-perience, Hilti organizes peervisits for the current GPD

projects. This means that en-tire management teams visitanother market organizationthat has already implementedGPD and in one week theylearn how that market organi-zation is actually conductingbusiness in their environment.Hilti’s transformation can beperceived as a two tier change,with GPD as tier one, layingthe foundation for a globalHilti, and tier two building ontop of this, including smallerprojects such as contact cen-ters. These smaller projectsstill represent a major trans-formation for the departmentsinvolved because of the waytheir work and their interac-tion with customers is chang-

ing although the changes arenot as fundamental as GPD.Establishing contact cen-ters completely modies theway specic user groups or

job functions work, althoughit does not involve people inthe warehouse, for example.So tier two is between thefundamental change of GPDand an incremental change of

continuous improvement.



IT INNOVATION IS

A Comment on the Hilti Caseby Beate Brüggemann and Rainer Riehle

CASE STUDY COMMENT

common terminology that wascomprehensible to everyone,because the process charac-ter of this project – beyond thetechnical innovation – requires

a language that integrates, ex-plains, convinces, and above

all, embraces. A language thatmust be appropriate for “new“situations, for a “culture of situ-ational leadership“. In otherwords, the management stylemust be sensitive and exibleto cater for the employees‘responsibilities and abilities.“This simple rule provided veryeffective support to the leader-ship in the GPD project.“ The

ongoing exchange of informa-tion between the individualsubdivisions and the projectteam, as well as between peers(and not just through the seniormanagement) promotes andintensies the transformationprocess. An accompanyingevaluation at the various sitesallows to identify weaknessesas well as improvement op-portunities and to exchangethis know-how.

The Hilti case is an exampleof a successful innovationthat emanates not from ITbut primarily from the set ob-

jectives and the protagonistswho should reach these goalswith the help of IT.In the 1980s and 1990s, Hiltitried to coordinate and stan-dardize the data and processows in all areas of the com-pany with the help of new ITconcepts. It became apparentthat the basic issues relatingto transformation projects andIT projects are not primarily at

a technical and organizationallevel; IT innovations are socialprocesses with all and for allthose involved. Thus, in 2000,a project called “Global Pro-cess and Data“ (GPD) waslaunched. The current phaseaims to realize and optimizeglobal cooperation and trans-formation for further marketdevelopment.

The most important strategyin all three phases has alwaysbeen to continuously commu-nicate the aim and the vision,so that all people affected orinvolved understand, follow,and support the transforma-tion process. Consequently,the new IT strategies werediscussed not just by the se-nior management but in allsuborganizations. The lon-ger the project continued, the

more important the communi-cation about visible successand progress became. With-out questioning the vision orthe objective, the company

focused on cooperation in-stead of confrontation, on

smooth transitions, and onsmall steps, especially in thebusiness area. (For example,not all data has been fullystandardized yet.)The awareness of and readi-ness for much-needed change(not primarily for economicreasons) were important fac-tors for the project‘s success,and the support provided by

the senior management fora more decentralized com-munication structure was offundamental importance. Es-pecially in the rst few yearsof the project, the GPD teammembers, who came from dif-ferent levels of management,met on a weekly basis. These30-40 people were importantcommunicators and multipli-ers in their teams, providingreal “drive“. They devised a

The continuous communication of aim

and vision helps the people involved

to understand, follow, and support the

transformation process.



49

A SOCIAL PROCESS

the process with largely equalrights. This process requirestime, since it must avoid ex-cessive demand. But in themedium term, such a processis more effective and efcient

–last but not least also interms of operating prot.

Lessons learned:In retrospect, the past 10years have brought about asuccessful transformation interms of structure, organiza-tion, and habits. This trans-formation was and still issuccessful because rst andforemost the aims and vi-sions were clearly conveyed,resulting in transformationstrategies and operations. Itwas successful because con-siderations related primar-ily not to IT concepts but forthe most part to those who

were involved. Constant, in-tensive communication andthe exchange of ideas andexperiences about progressand setbacks, not only atmanagement levels, enableto strike a balance between

smooth transformation, tech-nical standardization, andeconomic optimization.

As a general rule, transfor-mations, i.e. technical and or-ganizational innovations, areprocesses that are alwaysassociated with more or lesspronounced changes to old

structures, habitual proce-dures, and established rou-tines and practices, and theyexist at all participant levels.They alter the patterns of day-to-day social relationshipsand affect the formal and in-formal hierarchical patterns,roles, responsibilities, andmutual expectations. Thus,established communicationrelationships, patterns of be-havior, and habits are deval-ued, questioned, and this canbe perceived by individuals orgroups as a threat and lead to

latent or open defensive pos-turing. This leads to the con-clusion, that business innova-tions and transformations areonly successful when changemanagement takes this intoconsideration in its process-

es, concepts, and strategies.Thus, a basic condition ofsuccessful IT innovations andtransformations lies in under-standing the implementationas a social process that de-pends on motivation and in-teraction, as well as activelyintegrating all protagonists in

Service

FURTHER READING

ᐅ Porschen, Stephanie

(2008): Austausch impliz-

iten Erfahrungswissens:

Neue Perspektiven für das

Wissensmanagement. Wi-

esbaden: VS-Verlag.

ᐅ Sauer, Dieter, Christa Lang

(ed) (1999): Paradoxien

der Innovation: Perspe-

ktiven sozialwissenschaftli-

cher Innovationsforschung.

Frankfurt/M.: Campus.

AUTHORS

Beate Brüggemann andRainer Riehle head the In-

stitute for International Social

Research (INFIS), whose

work includes studies into

conditions and requirements

for changes in operational

structures, from small work-

shops to large companies,

and also into problems of

regional, cross-border devel-

opment potential.

brueggemann[at]ins.eu

Transformations alter the patterns of

day-to-day social relationships and

affect the formal and informalhierarchies.



SLOWING DOWN SPEEDS

A Comment on the Hilti Caseby Paul Stratil

CASE STUDY COMMENT

was the “Swiss way” of tak-ing rm decisions by votingfor the best idea and refusinga different, more aggressiveapproach.Generally, this approachmight not be right if a compa-ny is stuck in stormy waters,when quick and tough deci-sions are necessary. But withthe secure nancial situationof Hilti, it created trust andcondence to accept chang-es. Taking into account howthis company struggled to setup its transformation initiative,

how long it took, with severalunrewarding attempts, andhow they nally succeeded,this case provides real in-sights in understanding whysome transformations suc-ceed and others do not.The CEO of Hilti set globalmeasurable business goalswhich could no longer beachieved with the traditional

way of doing business. Thushe challenged the entire or-ganization to get going in apre-dened direction. The ex-pectation of such an initiativeis to grow business, increaseprotability and to achieveadditional benets such asbusiness exibility, agility,stable business processes,robust IT infrastructure. In thecase of Hilti these expecta-tions were exceeded.

Vision is needed to plant theseed and reap the fruit butvision in itself is not enoughto get there, the seed needsto be watered and an orga-nizational vision needs tobe fostered. Organizationalreadiness is essential as thesoil to nourish and fuel a sus-tainable transformation overmany years.The Hilti case changed thebusiness of the company in2008. The idea of “One Hilti”was born by the founder al-ready and was woven into the

DNA of the company, but var-ious attempts at creating the“Globally Integrated System”had fallen prey to failure. Theimplementation of a global ITsystem was considered theright way of creating a glob-ally integrated corporation,not taking into account thatthe business owners had tobecome actors in this trans-

formation process rather thanbeing just the audience whileIT accomplished some “backofce type of a thing”.Success came when the ap-proach to implementing “OneHilti” was changed in 2000 bythe CEO and focus was puton the business processesbecoming truly global, withglobal process owners incharge and with overall tar-gets on productivity, custom-

er satisfaction and operation-al excellence. This acted asthe catalyst, which togetherwith the commitment from theboard were the starting pointof this transformation.

All 20‘000 employees ex-pected changes yet nobodycould imagine the many tan-gible benets later achieved.Everybody who participatedin the project was proud ofbeing part of the team andof the results implementedon SAP ERP and on SAP´smobile solutions. Each pro-

cess owner taking ownershipof the changes was anotherkey success factor as wasthe fact that the results couldbe measured: shared andconsistent knowledge base,increased performance, abil-ity to relocate business easilyfrom country to country andstructural optimization.Going for the cooperative

rather than a confrontationalmodel eased the way to con-vince even reluctant processowners of the benets ofprocess standardization andharmonization, nally gettingtheir buy-in. “Standardiza-tion to the max” was not im-posed on anybody. Hilti as anorganization agreed on a setof rules about how to do the

job rather than what the naloutcome would be in detail. It



51

culture with everybody tak-ing pride in it. Many of theselearnings can be used by oth-er companies to accomplishsuccessful transformations.

Such an approach provesvery successful to get a com-pany prepared for the futurewhile it is doing well, insteadof being in a reactive modeduring an adverse econom-ic situation, under cost andtime pressures. Hilti did notchange course despite eco-nomic challenges and despitesome technical problems dur-ing the set up phase of thesolution.

Another intelligent move wasthe way the transformationwas managed in order to

achieve consistent and sus-tainable changes. It mighthave been due to the Swissmentality to care for demo-cratic decisions in the team,for open communication andpeer to peer learning amongall participants to promotethe re-use of solutions acrossbusiness units and plants. Atthe rst glance this seems

to reduce the speed and ef-ciency of a project imple-mentation, but in fact it es-tablished a stable foundationto execute decisions acrossthe entire corporation in highquality and with the desiredprecision expected.The GPD core team formedthe operational headquartersto prepare project decisionsand to set the speed and di-rection. They developed a

phased approach consider-ing organizational and tech-nical complexity, skills avail-able and resources as wellas the risks and benets ofeach step of the project. Thispaid off as the team was al-ways one step ahead anddriving the discussion. Theycould demonstrate good proj-ect results which increasedthe trust in their work and ac-ceptance across the variousbusiness units.Hilti did not do everythingright from the very beginning.

Nevertheless the companywas able to keep the visionon the horizon and implementa straightforward strategy ofmoving towards it. The man-agement of Hilti set the frame-work for a successful change,but it were the individual teammembers who accepted thechange and lived by it. Lastbut not least, it was a skilled

project team which managedthe transformation in a fo-cused and professional way,with empathy and respect fortheir colleagues as well asawareness of the organiza-tional needs of the global cor-poration.From that perspective Hiltidid many things right andwas rewarded by increasedeconomic success as wellas a strengthened company

AUTHOR

Paul Stratil

is Head of

Corporate IT

for Informa-

tion Manage-

ment of SAS

Automotive

Systems GmbH responsible for

IT Strategy, IT Operations and

Process Optimizations of thismultinational company.

Senior executive with 22+

years experience in the auto-

motive sector, across the entire

line of business of an automo-

tive company and Information

Technology with considerable

international experience. Prior

to the current assignment he

worked for various compa-

nies and divisions of Daimler,

Chrysler and Smart Car in

Europe, Asia and the Americas.

He is experienced in various

cultures and uent in German,

English, Spanish and Czech.

His core expertise is Business

Enhancement and Business

Transformations, Change

Management of global teams

and international projects. His

core focus is on Innovations,

Efciency and Value Creation.paul.stratil[at]sas-automotive.com

UP GROWING SUCCESS

360 01 f Casestudy Hilti VomBrocke Petry Schmiedel Hilti Case

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