Formatted like a comic-strip, this case showcases how Firmenich achieved resilience and strong sustainability commitments thanks to its family ownership. The case investigates how family ownership spanning across four generations and 125 years, has influenced the company’s core values and brought a long-term perspective to its strategy, which allowed sustainability, diversity, and inclusion on the executives’ agenda many decades before its peers. The case concludes by illustrating how these core foundational values allowed Firmenich to weather the COVID-19 storm by prompting the organization to react very rapidly, in a display of strong resilience. Firmenich is the winner of the 2019 IMD-Pictet Sustainability in Family Business Award.
Learning Objective
- The case aims to illustrate how family businesses tend to have core foundational beliefs that support strong, long-standing sustainability commitments.
Keywords
Family Business, Sustainability, Strategy, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Succession, Governance, Resilience, Environmental Social and Governance, Value, Long Term Planning, Inclusive Capitalism, Impact, COVID-19, Crisis
Settings
World/global
Firmenich, Consumer Goods, Cosmetics and Perfumes, Consumer Goods, Food and Beverage
2020
Available Languages
English
Related material
Teaching note, Video
IMD case studies are distributed through case clearing houses. In order to browse the collection and purchase copies please visit the links below.
Copyright Information
IMD retains all proprietary interests in its case studies and notes. Without prior written permission, IMD cases and notes may not be reproduced, used, translated, included in books or other publications, distributed in any form or by any means, stored in a database or in other retrieval systems. For additional copyright information related to case studies, please contact Case Services.
