A few months ago, I had a pleasant conversation with Prof. William Barnett (Stanford University) about when the right time is to initiate some form of educational curriculum for a company.
He told me a story about an American company engaged in ‘gold mining’ that utilizes the educational program services of Stanford University. They come exactly on a calendar basis every few years during the same period. To Prof. Barnett’s curiosity about why they come periodically, the CEO of the mentioned company replied that they come when the price of their product, namely gold, is too low for exploitation. When they are not exploiting the product, they use the surplus time for education.
I pointed out that we also initiated the education process the moment we lost the market. It was a joke, as we were writing the company’s educational curriculum during the ‘golden’ era. However, we wanted management education to be the crown of the entire process. From the start, it was clear to us that we would need to seek a large part of the lecturers from outside our field because the process of learning and knowledge transfer abroad, especially in the USA, is far more effective.
The Impact of the Crisis We divided the education into three phases. The first phase lasts two years and teaches English up to the final module. Although this sounds trivial, it is very important, especially if you want full participation from the participants, particularly learning through business cases. The second phase consists of creating tailor-made programs with higher education institutions, with a special emphasis on final exams after completed modules, including the final exam. The third phase is a postgraduate MBA program for all who have successfully completed all programs.
Immediately after the first phase, we entered the deepest crisis in the automotive industry. We asked ourselves what now and how to proceed? How and in what way to respond to the challenge of the global and local economic crisis is a question that many companies are trying to find the right answer to, with varying degrees of success. Most rely on an innate ‘survival instinct’ and, with the help of reducing business volume, cutting costs, and laying off workers, try to survive and wait for better days. In doing so, they utilize the most creative parts of human potential that are unnecessarily wasted and, instead of innovating and encouraging diversity, they sink into the gray along with their competitors. Keeping this in mind, we decided to make a breakthrough and, unlike others, invest even more in knowledge and education of our own staff.
Decline in Revenue and Growth in Market Share On one hand, we experienced a rapid decline in revenue, and on the other, a rapid growth in market share. Even those of us who may be in the best market position struggled to cope with declines of 40 percent in the market. A small consolation in those past, but also current times, was the fact that the overall market decline amounted to a high 70 percent. At that point, we had to decide whether to continue the education project or postpone it for better times. With full responsibility, we decided to continue the process because the market condition we have is becoming permanent, one we will have to learn to live with in the coming years, and the management we need must be ready for such a situation at all times.
The message is that investing in knowledge will pay off. This is a message that should not be abstract but should be transformed into real action. By this, I mean programs that have criteria and in which we are all equal during the acquisition of knowledge. Knowledge simply needs to be encouraged, regardless of the position an employee holds. All employees should have the opportunity to acquire knowledge and implement it in practice, and in the end, the best will always crystallize.
The content of our education model program essentially consists of strategy and leadership, which include modules on management strategy, risk management, corporate social responsibility, leadership, marketing and sales, as well as innovation and market development strategy. The hardest part was bringing in professors, so negotiations lasted for months, if not years. Today, we have professors from Harvard, Stanford, Georgia Institute of Technology, Bocconi, but also from universities in Croatia and Slovenia. Additionally, one of the key members of our team is Dr. Goran Vlašić, an expert in marketing, communication, and innovation from the Faculty of Economics in Zagreb. For the two-year program consisting of 24 modules, an uninterrupted learning process is very important, which we consider crucial for the future and development of the company. I want to send a message and encourage at least part of the economy to invest in knowledge, with an emphasis on investing in business education, as that is what we are most lacking. The fact that we are now in the EU should further motivate us to invest in this form to achieve competitiveness in the EU market, which is certainly our greatest challenge in the future.
