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avoiding job cuts for short term performance” in the down times. He emphasises that Hilti has a long-term vision that public companies are often unable to maintain. A culture of coaching permeates the entire organisation, starting with sales. On a regular basis, sales managers sit side-by-side with salespeople in the field, working together to discuss what tactics are working and identify areas for improvement. In fact, all managers undertake professional coaching training and are adept at asking open-ended questions to spark insight and progress. Gui dedicates every Monday afternoon to coaching his team, but says, “for me, it is teaching how to fish, instead of fishing.” It is common for Hilti to receive hundreds of applications for every job opening in Asia, and they remain highly selective. “Our philosophy is to choose the right people rather than hire a lot of people and see who performs,” says Gui. Given the firm’s heavy investment in training, this makes sense. During onboarding, new hires are sent to a Hilti training center in the Philippines for a week to experience a Hilti ‘Culture Journey’, and, most importantly, experience the tools firsthand, ideally falling in love with Hilti products. This is the same for engineers and sales as it is for the administrative personnel in finance or HR. New hires are not just given detailed handbooks, but are informed what skills need to be mastered by a given day and what assessments will be required. There is ongoing onsite and offsite training so employees are supported to be increasingly more capable in their roles. Still, attracting top talent in Asia is not always easy. To counter this, executive leaders from the Chairman and CEO level on down work collaboratively with top business schools, from Tsinghua University in Beijing to the Asian campus of INSEAD, to guarantee a pipeline of future leaders. An ‘outperformer program’ fast tracks top graduates with high potential to be business unit (BU) heads or general managers (GM). Gui is himself an example of how Hilti grooms talent. Initially brought onboard as Hong Kong GM three years ago, the path was laid out for him to take on the leadership role in Southeast Asia he has today. All this investment in people gives Hilti remarkable control of its culture – and helps to back up its expectations of integrity. “We have very high standards of integrity about the way we do business in emerging countries,” says Gui. “Sometimes we have to walk away from the business because of our high standards.” While Hilti is inflexible on integrity, there is recognition that Southeast Asia is a diverse territory – a combination of different cultures, different markets all at different stages of development – and there is some flexibility allowed in strategy. For very emerging markets with lower construction standards, Hilti has been known to get a foothold with distributors. This is how they first entered Vietnam, before switching over to direct sales a few years ago, and is the approach they are taking in Myanmar and Sri Lanka. “We have to differentiate market to market,” says Gui. “We keep our strong culture, that should not change, but we utilise our strengths. Each market differs depending on the stage. There is no single Asia strategy.” tHe latest trend in direct sales: e-commerce Although the direct sales model has over 200 years history, it has not changed much since the advent of the catalog, that is until its latest iteration, which promises to be highly disruptive: e-commerce. Hilti has not failed to make this aspect of the direct sales model work for them as well. In some markets, 25% to nearly 50% in revenues come from online. But selling online is not intended to replace the all-important customer relationship or the physical demonstration of product superiority. It has been designed for the convenience of loyal customers, to keep up with product innovations and to make repeat orders, enhancing productivity and efficiency. The next step will be to use technology to pay greater attention to a customer’s unique needs and provide more tailored one-on-one services online. So even for the people-intensive business, – e-commerce beckons. “Digitisation is the future for our company,” says Gui. n IMA AsIA CEO DIAlogues Autumn 2015 6
JLL’s secret weapon: diverse teams Angela Newby Most people will agree diversity is a good thing. It is clearly the right thing to do, and there is plenty of research to support that it leads to better business results. But how many firms move past the platitudes, dig deep and really start to do the often messy work of implementing change? where they are chasing the rising local firms as much as MNC clients. And MNCs, whether they are in Singapore or Mumbai, are also largely comprised of local employees. This has meant the composition of JLL’s clientfacing teams has also had to change. IMA AsIA CEO DIAlogues Autumn 2015 7 Last year, JLL Asia Pacific decided it was time to commit to moving the needle on diversity. “The challenge for us is that we do make progress, and not just talk about it,” said Angela Newby, JLL managing director of transaction management, Asia Pacific This has meant dedicating resources, and “getting some of our best-in-class people in working groups to effect change,” added Anthony Couse, managing director, East China for JLL. “To try and say we are going to crack diversity in a year is not realistic. This is a very long journey. It is changing culture and that does not happen overnight.” For Jll, which has over 250 years history behind it, diversity has become more than a strategic priority; it is an integral part of their value system. They face a tougher uphill battle than most. Diversity in the corporate real estate industry has, in Asia Pacific and elsewhere, lagged behind other industries. Property owners have historically been male, and in some places mostly white, and so have the business people who sought real estate services. Of course, this is no longer the case. JLL’s customers have changed, particularly in markets such as India, China and Japan, “It is interesting how quickly diversity has gone to the top of mind of a lot of people,” said Couse. “We are seeing much more diverse pitch teams. We look at what the client wants and put diverse teams in play.” Diversity shakes up the status quo, strengthens creativity Beyond having a greater understanding of the client, diverse teams are a great way to burst groupthink and the stultifying status quo that occurs when too many like-minded people get together and ‘sing to the choir.’ “When we put diverse teams, male, female, local, expatriate, whatever in front of our clients, we get a much higher performing team with different opinions and different views. We get much more creativity and innovative solutions out of diverse teams,” says Couse. This corresponds with the research. In terms of sales, the American Sociological Association found that for every 1% rise in the rate of gender and ethnic diversity within a sales team, there is a 3% to 9% increase in sales revenue. But getting to the stage of having the talent available is a big part of the challenge. On the one hand, there is a need for diversity – which is saying the right people are not there and going
Page 1: ISSUE 5 Autumn 2015 Gap’s O2O Edg
Page 4 and 5: COVER STORY Abinta Malik GAP’S O2
Page 6 and 7: COVER STORY online or wherever,”
Page 10 and 11: out and finding them. On the other,
Page 12 and 13: Are you ready to prioritise agility
Page 14 and 15: JEBSEN & COMPANY’S BLUE GIRL BEER
Page 16 and 17: did a lot of ‘soul-searching’,
Page 18 and 19: Celebrating 25+ years of Guiding CE

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