A case study

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chosen are three key talent initiatives. They each illustrate different aspects of the talent work in the organisation.

The first case is the People Strategy Session, which is a talent review of the global pool of Damco leaders. The second case is IMPACT, a 2-year development program for strong commercial talents. The third and final case, is the Customer People Strategy Session, which is a talent review of customer facing employees carried out by the leadership in Damco in corporation with a particular large and global customer. The three cases share the fact that the customer focus is represented in the talent work in one way or the other. Below the three cases are elaborated on:

People Strategy Session (PSS) was in 2009 a newly introduced talent process in the APMM Group, and it represented a radical shift in the focus of talent management away from a largely individually focused talent program, covering the ‘elite’ 1 % of the employees, towards implementing a ‘talent process’. Each business unit implemented the PSS in a slightly modified version, including Damco. The PSS is a talent review carried out by the GLT, in which they review and discuss people at the top level of the organisation. It is in reality a one-day meeting where the GLT members sit down and discuss and review the approximately 75 top leaders in the organisation. As part of this review, they consider the companies major needs and required capabilities, which is subsequently translated into key strategic positions. They look at this in the context of the business strategy of Damco.

The top 30% of the positions are labeled as mission critical, the middle 60% as impactful, and the last 10% as less impactful. Next, the individuals in these 75 positions are reviewed, and the GLT discuss who are the people, who have performed outstandingly? And how have the done it? And what is the future for these individuals? Then the individuals are categorised into the top 30% high performers, 60% successful performers, and 10% less successful performers.

Finally, the two reviews are matched, and the GLT evaluate whether the best employees of the company are in the most critical positions, and reflect on actions for potential talent gaps (Groysberg & Abbot, 2012). Then the management team agrees on actions plans, be that development, new positions, etc. for the individuals and mapping if new employees are needed from the outside. With this initiative the organisation addresses ‘talent as leadership’, and evaluates internally

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who the key players are (considered as leadership). As such the PSS represents the

‘traditional’ way of working with talent in Damco, which means that it is mostly a talent identification/deployment process, and less emphasis on talent development.

Observing this talent initiative, provides the project with an internal perspective on what is important and why, what is appreciated, and what is really difficult in talent management as evaluated by the GLT. Lastly, as data collection takes place through subsequent years, it illustrates a variety in how the customer focus is staged and visible in the organisation.

IMPACT is the second talent initiative. It was launched end 2010. The aim of the program is to develop individuals, who act as enablers of the commercial journey the organisation has set out for, by driving commercial excellence and creating customer value. Impact was intended to further the company’s brand aspirations of: passion for customers, dedication to service quality, energised people and differentiation (Yonger et al., 2013). These brand aspirations are consistent with customer expectations and reflect market trends (Gyorey, Jochim, & Norton, 2010). IMPACT is a 2-year global development program designed to develop the commercial capabilities of selected individuals with commercial potential. A total of three workshops are held during the first year of the program, with each workshop focusing on a specific theme. The first workshop focuses on ’A strategic perspective, insight and outstanding commercial leadership’. The second focuses on ’Building a culture of service excellence and innovation’, and the third focuses on ’Developing high performing commercial professionals and teams in Damco’. Each of these weeklong workshops are structured with a blend of both internal forums hosted by various Damco regional leaders, external consultant training, and customer presentations. Observations and interviews were carried out at these weeklong workshops. IMPACT as a talent initiative addresses the midlevel of the organisation, and the aim for the organisation is to drive a new strategic priority of being commercial and customer focused through people development. In the people development DAMCO seeks to include the external perspective of the customer. In this way, IMPACT represents a changed way of working with talent development, as the customer is invited into the actual talent development. The data from IMPACT provides the project with an opportunity to study an external perspective on talent management-in-action, and this is also where it is possible to study the relationship between company, talent and customer.

Customer People Strategy Session (CPSS) is a similar process as the PSS, and in reality it is also a one-day session. It is a talent review of the Damco people working on a key customer - carried out in corporation between Damco and the key customer. The review is across level, geographical locations, and job tasks.

The common nominator is that the reviewed people are working for the particular global customer that the review is carried out with. The aim for the organisation with this talent initiative is to focus development initiatives on the people and talents that the customer finds create the most value for them (Appendix A, HR professional 2). At the time Damco provided a large percentage of this clients supply chain needs, and approximately 75 Damco employees were working on this account (Groysberg & Abbot, 2012). This evaluation is to a large extent an external evaluation, where the customer ‘decides’ who the key player is and how to handle this according to customer priorities. As such this talent initiative represents ‘a new way’ of working with talent as something evaluated and prioritised externally. Data from this initiative provides the project with an external perspective of what is prioritised, what creates value and is on the agenda for the customer. The global talent manager tells:

‘..end January 2011 DAMCO wants to do something to show the customer that we are doing something for the people that are working on their account, and Rolf (The CEO) promises them that we will do a PSS, and from there the PSS develops into a customer PSS’ (Appendix A, HR professional 2).

Like IMPACT, the customer PSS is a relatively new talent initiative in the business and was initiated in a period where from the Executive top was a strong drive to focus more on the customer.

The PSS is an internal perspective on talent management seen in relation to the external environment (the customer), the customer PSS is largely an external perspective on talent management seen in relation to the internal company (Damco), whereas IMPACT represents the intersection of the internal (Damco) and the external (the customer). The three selected initiatives build on each other and shed light on the talent management implications for an organisation introducing a strong customer focus from both an internal and an external perspective.

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The three single cases described above (PSS, IMPACT, CPSS) are rare and worth documenting and analysing. The single case study is relevant to use when the case represents a unique case, one that is rare and worth documenting and analysing (Yin, 2009). The cases encompass the ongoing work on talent in Damco, but also address the change of focus on talent as being purely leadership to also include a strong focus on talent in relation to the customer. In this sense, the three single cases in Damco are chosen as strategic critical cases (Flyvbjerg, 1991).

Traditionally, the quality of research is evaluated based on generalisability.

Generalisability is about, how the results can be replicated to other areas or situations. For case studies this differ, as the aim is not to provide statistical representatives. However, an intentionally chosen strategic critical case will increase the generalisability of a case study (Flyvbjerg, 1991).

As such these cases are chosen carefully for the reasons described above. Cases chosen randomly may be typical or average cases, and they do not necessarily provide the kind or amount of information looking for. Atypical or extreme cases often turn out to provide more useful information, as they activate more actors and more fundamental mechanisms in the studied situation (Flyvbjerg, 1991). The three single cases selected for this study have been strategically chosen, as they each address and encompass two important factors in relation to the research question of the PhD, talent management and the customer. The three single cases, studied in this dissertation, are what Flyvbjerg (1991) labels as extreme cases. An extreme case is very similar to what Yin (2009) labels a unique case. An extreme case serves the purpose of providing information on uncommon cases that either is particularly problem-oriented, or particularly successful (Flyvbjerg, 1991). The two out of the three cases selected for this dissertation are selected due to the fact they include the customer in the actual talent management work, which is unique for talent work, and it has not been possible to identify similar initiatives in other companies, while working on the PhD, and while planning for the research design.

Simultaneously, they reflect an emerging tendency of taking an outside in perspective in the work of the HR. The PSS itself is included as well, as it first of all is the most established talent initiative in the organisation, and second it provides an opportunity to study how the customer focus unfolds within the organization and over a period of time. Thus, for this study the cases are unique within the field of talent management, and they further seem to be very successful as evaluated by all stakeholders involved (Appendix A, Strategy document 8; PSS 2).

Instead the strength of the single example, the case, should be measured by the richness of information and problematic, including complexity of actors and mechanisms, rather than be measured on generalisability (Flyvbjerg, 1991). The Damco talent cases are rich both in terms of information and problematic. The context for this study is rich both in terms of information and complexity. First, Damco is a business unit that is part of a Group with a global reach, and which is a fortune 200 company. The Group further has, not only a solid societal position and culture, but also has strong traditions and future ambitions for investing in individual development and leadership. To add to the complexity and richness, since 2009 talent management both in the APMM Group and in Damco has been turned up side down (Groysberg & Abbot, 2012). The change of talent management within the APMM group is further elaborated in section 1.1.1. Each aspect adding to the complexity of actors and mechanisms in the context of Damco.

Second, Damco is a global company, with locations in more than 100 countries and it is a network business, in which interdependencies are strong. Third, Damco has been fighting an organisational turnaround and has set out for a change journey based on new economic conditions. Some of the key elements in this change journey are a stronger cost focus, stronger focus on internal ways of working, and a stronger focus on customers. The new and changed way of doing business, challenges and impacts every level and function of the organisation. The HR function experiences the impact on many processes and practices, also on the key strategic HR initiative such as talent management, new discussions and priorities are emerging. All elements taken into consideration, the selected case are thus rare and worth documenting. In the following section it will be elaborated on how the empirical data has been collected through the three cases.