We have been working for a large number of medium-sized and internationally grown companies
for more than 20 years.

Extract from our industry experience:

With locations in Hamburg, Mülheim and Shanghai, CONBEN supports customers in Germany, China and Southeast Asia. In addition, CONBEN has an international network and collaborates with close co-operation partners in the following countries for many years:

Challenge "re-location of production in China"

Re-location of production site within China and highly diverse management team with five different nationalities lead to tensions and conflicts.

CONBEN interventions

• Workshops with management team: enhance mutual understanding of the actual situation, develop common future picture and work out path from the actual to the target situation
• Team building and leadership development for management team and 2nd level managers

Challenge "set-up of R&D centre in China"

R&D centre was set up in China in order to develop innovative products for Asian markets. However, alignment between this new entity and existing production/sales entities was challenging to reach. This let to conflicts and fluctuation of talents.

CONBEN interventions

• Internal analysis through interviews and workshops
• Workshops including key people from new R&D centre and existing production/sales entities to clarify common objectives, roles and responsibilities
• Leadership development program for the newly set-up R&D management team

Challenge "manage sales growth in South-East Asia"

European headquarters had high expectations regarding fast sales growth on South East Asia. Six different countries with various maturity levels and market situations needed to be prepared for the aggressive growth.

CONBEN interventions

• Alignment workshops with General Managers from six different South-East Asian countries
• Leadership program for 2nd level managers from all six countries to ensure an aligned leadership approach (e.g. performance management) throughout the whole region

Challenges

• lead and manage fast growth in different Asian markets given mega trends in automotive business (e-mobility, autonomous driving, urban mobility, intelligent connected vehicles…)
• drive Asian localisation within a complex worldwide matrix-organization
• enhance speed and strengthen responsiveness to customers’ needs in Asian markets
• winning Chinese OEMs
• attract and develop talents

 CONBEN Interventions

• Facilitation of continuous improvement initiatives including workshops, sensing journeys, stakeholder interviews and peer coaching
• Facilitation of upwards feedbacks to allow higher level leaders to understand their local team members’ views and ideas for improvement
• Guided group coaching over three months between key players from various plants and customer teams to enhance trust as basis for smooth cooperation and win valuable time
• Soft skills trainings for all project managers in Asia to strengthen their capabilities to successfully lead and motivate a project team without having the disciplinary responsibility
• Leadership and talent development programs for different levels of managers and leaders throughout the organization
• Workshops to develop a common understanding of the leadership culture within the leadership team after the transformation of a Joint Venture into a 100%  company subsidiary

Challenge "company culture"

• Managing 25 diverse sourcing offices throughout Asia with more than 30 nationalities
• Digitalisation brings disruptive change to the traditional supply chain of the sourcing business
• Long-term success lead to a people-oriented, however almost complacent, culture in which performance thinking took a back seat 

CONBEN interventions

• Defining ‘Winning Principles’ for the organization as cultural basis to leverage the organization to next performance level
• Getting regional directors’ buy-in for the new Winning Principles through workshops and through combination of various communicative approaches (e.g. moto weeks, case studies…) and HR related adaptations (e.g. align performance system, upwards feedbacks, talent identification according to new Winning Principles)
• Roll-out leadership development program on how to live the Winning Principles throughout all Asian offices

Challenge "continuous improvement"

• Keep the ‘flame burning’ of above mentioned culture related changes
• Instil a sense of ongoing improvements in an era of constant change of fashion sourcing business

CONBEN interventions

• Workshops with Regional Management team to reflect how to re-invent own business model in digital sourcing world and how to drive culture change further in order to stay successful in competitive market
• Support Regional Management team in initiating, implementing and following-up on projects to drive the change