Marie-Therese Herwig: Swiss hotelier on a motivational mission in El Salvador
For 28 years, Marie-Therese Herwig was immersed in the hotel industry with her husband, and during this time, she trained and developed more than fifty apprentices. At the age of 69, her husband retired from the business. She, just 54 years old, was looking around for a new challenge in the hotel business. And she found it in the Senior Expert Corps. Her first assignment was in El Salvador. A country guest house and a city hotel had asked Swisscontact for experts to improve their level of service and attract more guests. The building housing the rural establishment has been standing since 1525, a legacy of the Spanish colonialists. How could they preserve foodstuffs hygienically in the most basic of conditions? How were they to train and develop staff members, who had received little or no schooling? How could they improve the food on offer? These were the fundamental questions to which the Swiss hotelier, and her Salvadorian partners, had to find the answers. The management of the urban hotel wanted to know, how they could attract more guests. Herwig advised them to re-design their signs and homepage to make them more attractive and to market themselves more aggressively as a conference venue. Working with the managers of the two establishments, she drew up organigrams, specification manuals and terms of reference. The expert soon won the confidence of the employees, by getting herself actively involved in various departments. Since then, these departments have been making savings in both water and energy. “Involving the staff like this is unusual in El Salvador, but is an enormous motivational boost,” she smiled.
“The best kind of help is always the kind that benefits both parties; those who are giving and those who are receiving. The Swiss hotelier is convinced that this is the essence of the success of her advisory assignment”.
Max Meier: New jobs in a Ukrainian cardboard factory
“The motto helping others to help themselves in SMEs impressed me, and whenever we give our advice, we get to know other cultures,” is how Max Meier explains his attraction to the Senior Expert Corps. The retired engineer and business consultant carried out his assignment in a factory in eastern Ukraine, which manufactures corrugated cardboard and turns it into boxes. It was very satisfying that the orders were flooding in, but this was overwhelming the plant. The management was keen to increase capacity by purchasing some 23-year-old, second hand machines. For Meier it was clear that first of all, before any new machines were bought, the manufacturing procedures would have to be analyzed and rationalized. In a simulation, he showed the owners that only through better organization could their factory increase its productivity by 75 percent. To achieve the required two and a half times increase, the man from Switzerland suggested that they buy Ukrainian machines and recruit a total of 12 new employees. He calculated that if they did this, the company’s profits would increase threefold. With this advice, Meier brought his assignment to a close. During the final meeting, the factory owners assured him that they intended to implement all his proposals.
The WKF nursery in Java is also flourishing, thanks to a senior-expert
The young entrepreneur, Natalia Listya, had successfully built up a nursery called WKF and to ensure that she got the best out of her company, she continued to expand her expertise, for example by attending a Seminar in Malang . It was there that she heard about the Senior Expert Corps. She was very keen to make the most of this opportunity and so made some enquiries at Swisscontact. The expert she was seeking turned out to be Jost Frei, a specialist in sustainable agriculture, who also had management experience. He carried out an analysis of the company and its business goals along with the owner, who was determined that her nursery business should continue to expand. Cautiously, the man from Switzerland made some suggestions that, for the Indonesian labour scene, were rather innovative. By having the employees work in a close partnership with the management, the recommendations were embraced and implemented. Today, because of this, the chains of command at WKF are shorter and the individual responsibility of the employees is greater. By providing practical tips on the cultivation and protection of the plants, the agricultural expert was also able to reduce production losses, which had previously been up to 15 per cent. With the restructuring of the organization, sales increased. Natalia Listya eventually recruited 80 women and men. Brimming with self-confidence, she says: “We are seriously considering further expansion.
” Walter Keller: pastry shop manager in Latin America
“I am a curious and active chap,” says Walter Keller. “In addition, I think it’s a pity whenever accumulated wisdom is allowed to disappear. ”In his case, this means four decades in the chocolate industry. At Lindt & Sprüngli, the skilled confectioner worked his way up from humble pastry chef to the position of Vice-Director. Most recently, he had 600 people under him. After retiring, he heard about the Senior Expert Corps and immediately sent off his application. His experience, coupled with the fact that he speaks Spanish, makes him a much sought after man. In each of the last eight years, he has spent a month in Latin America; he has been to Peru four times, El Salvador twice and has travelled once each to Costa Rica and Panama. Mostly, Keller advises confectionary companies that are hoping to expand, or have been experiencing problems with their products. One such case was that of the women’s cooperative, whose rolls were going mouldy rather quickly. Keller spotted that they were being packed whilst still warm. It was the sealed-in dampness that was causing the mould to form. In another assignment, he convinced a cooperative of around 800 cocoa farmers to turn their valuable beans into chocolate themselves. The farmers had already been substituting these with an ordinary type that yielded a higher crop.
“I enjoy these assignments in developing countries, because I can see that I am able to bring something to the people and because, in doing so, I am also learning a lot myself. My work benefits the people in these places, because it opens up new perspectives.” Keller, always the manager, describes this relationship as a win-win situation.
Bon Ltd, Bulgaria: doubled turnover, thanks to a senior expert
Bon Ltd, in Gabrovo, Bulgaria, produces seeds and bird food and exports it to Western Europe. The young company director, Kalin Valtchev, built it up during the years of economic and political upheaval and has turned it into a flourishing enterprise –thanks also to the deployment of the senior expert, Franz-Xaver Dettling. The rapid expansion of the firm presented company director Valtchev with numerous problems. “Our organizational structure was incapable of coping with the new challenges,” he recalls. In order to analyze the situation and identify the solutions, he needed expert advice. Good advice does not come cheaply, especially where complex management questions are involved and he was neither willing nor able to burden the corporate coffers with horrendous consulting fees. He learned about the Senior Expert Corps from a newspaper, got in touch with Swisscontact and after a few conversations, he posted his request. A few months later, the retired Swiss economist Franz-Xaver Dettling, arrived in Gabrovo. He helped the management make a business plan for the next few years and draw up activity profiles. “Mr Dettling never told us, what we should do, or what we should allow. Most of the time, he was asking us questions and somehow, he managed to lead us in such a way that we found the solution by ourselves,” is how Valtchev described the modus operandi of the Swiss Manager. One positive result of Dettlings advice was that Bon Ltd. recruited a bookkeeper. She calculated that in the year following the assignment, the firm’s turnover had doubled. In the meantime, Bon Ltd has taken on 20 employees and has made a successful foray into the European bird food market.
