03_IGNITE meets VICTORINOX | IGNITE MOVEMENT

IGNITE MEETS VICTORINOX

WRITTEN BY LUKA CARATSCH

19th APRIL

Ever since the IGNITE Movement began, we’ve sought to meet and discuss with purposeful companies that put into practice the ideas that we discuss in our conferences and workshops. This quest led us to meet amazing people and businesses throughout the years. A particularly striking example of such an enterprise is Victorinox. Indeed, this very Swiss company holds very inspiring values and applies them throughout their ventures. For instance, they’ve decided never to fire an employee for financial reasons.

Back in November, the IGNITE team had the chance to travel to the canton of Schwyz in order to visit the Victorinox Headquarters and to hold a small talk with the current CEO Carl Elsener -- not to be mistaken with the other three Carl Elseners: his father, grandfather and great-grandfather, all of whom were also CEOs of Victorinox. What made this journey even more special was the fact that we were accompanied by Matt Wiatt, Raj Sisodia, and Stephen Schledetzky, all of whom took part in our 2016 Conference (for more information on their work, check out some of the older blog articles). It was very important for us to facilitate interactions between all these brilliant people, knowing they were like-minded on the topic of purposeful companies. The meeting at Victorinox allowed us to foster a cross-border interactive session as the participants came from far-off places including Canada, India and the USA.

Victorinox was founded more than 130 years ago in Schwyz, by the great-grandfather of the current CEO. Since then, the management has always tried to run the company as a caring family business. They are not focused on results quarter by quarter, but rather they measure success from generation to generation. We quickly became aware of the fact that this notion of family business extends much further than to just the management team. Indeed, this idea also concerns the employees, which are at the top of Mr. Elsener list of priorities. This is exactly the reason why some of them decide to stay with the company for more than 40 years.

This caring environment for the workers is without a doubt one of the key success factors that enabled the company to become what it is today. In around 130 years, Victorinox slowly grew to become the biggest manufacturer of pocket knives in the world, employing almost 2’000 employees with around 500 million in revenues each year. Victorinox is clearly a success story in Switzerland, but it is also a great example of what treating your employees right can do for you.

To give us a concrete example on how to follow this ideology in practice, Mr. Elsener told us an astounding story. Back in 2001, after the 9/11 attacks in New York, new regulations prohibited the sale of pocket knives in airplanes and airports, and also prevented passengers to carry-on those knives with them. Thus, from one day to the other, almost 40% of the company’s sales were canceled. This had disastrous consequences on Victorinox’s finances, however, they still managed not to fire any employees during this crisis.

Victorinox achieved that first and foremost because of their conservative spending policy which is oriented towards always having substantial savings and being prepared for tougher times. However, this still wasn’t enough for them to go through this struggle, they needed to find a way to generate revenue to compensate for the salary spending.

The solution they found was quite simple: they managed to find some work for their employees in other factories. For instance, when another factory had a considerable order, Victorinox would contact them and rent them the services of their skilled employees. Thus, in the morning when workers would arrive at the factory, the company had organized buses that would take them to the other firm. This allowed Victorinox to receive some revenues from this process and the other company to benefit from the work of skilled employees.

Most importantly, it allowed for all the workers at the headquarters to keep a steady job and feel safe in their position. Indeed, knowing that your employer will go to such a length to keep your part of the organization must be reassuring in a world where termination for financial reasons is the norm. This behavior is also very beneficial for Victorinox in the long run; an employee is far more inclined to work harder for a company that he/she loves and feels safe at than for one that they despise.

Overall, this visit to Schwyz was very inspiring and fulfilling for all of us. We got a first-hand look at the production of one of Switzerland’s most iconic products, and we got to meet with incredible people and hear their stories. When we left the headquarters towards the end of the day, we were happy to find yet another example of what a purposeful company looks like and how successful they can be.

We were honored to have Mr. Elsener present a keynote during our conference back in November; it was one of the most interesting and endearing portions of the event. Both our company tour/meeting and the keynote speech elucidated for everyone what sets Victorinox apart from so many other big companies: the care they have for the well-being of their employees.