Case Study

Firmenich: Juggling the short and the long term (Cartoon case)

18 pages
July 2022
Reference: IMD-7-2308

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
Type
Field Research
Copyright
© 2022
Available Languages
English
Related material
Teaching note, Video
Case clearing houses
IMD case studies are distributed through case clearing houses. In order to browse the collection and purchase copies please visit the links below.

The Case Centre

Cranfield University

Wharley End Beds MK43 0JR, UK
Tel +44 (0)1234 750903
Email [email protected]

Harvard Business School Publishing

60 Harvard Way, Boston MA 02163, USA
Tel (800) 545-7685 Tel (617)-783-7600
Fax (617) 783-7666
Email [email protected]

Asia Pacific Case Center

NUCB Business School

1-3-1 Nishiki Naka
Nagoya Aichi, Japan 460-0003
Tel +81 52 20 38 111
Email [email protected]

Contact

Research Information & Knowledge Hub for additional information on IMD publications

Discover our latest research
IMD's faculty and research teams publish articles, case studies, books and reports on a wide range of topics