Managing Change: Business School academic talks about book launch today

Visiting professor talks about how to manage change in business

Companies that need to manage growth and strategic changes is the subject of a new book by a Visiting Professor at Imperial College Business School.

Companies that need to manage growth and strategic changes is the subject of a new book by a Visiting Professor at Imperial College Business School, which will launch on Thursday  17 January 2013.

Professor George Yip, Visiting Professor of Organisation and Management at Imperial College Business School and Co-Director of the Centre on China Innovation at China Europe International Business School, has written a new book – the culmination of a five year  study – which outlines how companies can successfully achieve a consistently high performance and manage significant strategic change at the same time.

Professor Yip analysed the 20-year financial performance of 215 of the largest publically listed British companies

Professor Yip worked alongside management expert Gerry Johnson, Emeritus Professor of Strategic Management at Lancaster University Management School and business historian Manuel Hensmans, Professor of Strategic Management at the Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management to write the book, which is entitled Strategic Transformation: Changing While Winning. The official launch of the book will take place on Thursday 17 January 2013 at the Business School.

The book offers a new take on management strategy, providing insights from leaders at Cadbury-Schweppes, Sainsbury, Smith & Nephew, SSL International, Tesco and Unilever.

We speak to Professor Yip about the book, whether his findings surprised him, upcoming projects and his role as a Visiting Professor at the Business School.

As a Visiting Professor at Imperial College Business School what do you hope to achieve?

I find the Imperial environment really stimulating, especially the world class faculty.

I also look forward to my interaction with students through an elective on International Business and Marketing that I will teach this June for MBA and EMBA students. Overall, I hope to make myself a valuable member of the Business School.

Can you tell me about your experience in management?

I have more than 15 years experience in management and I have gone back and forth between business and academia. The first six years were in consumer marketing, first with Unilever in the UK, which included being a product manager at the Birds Eye Foods division and working on advertising for Stork margarine, then the largest advertising account in the UK. I was also the Dean of Rotterdam School of Management in The Netherlands, a top six European business school, where I led an organisation of nearly 500 faculty, staff and 7,500 students.

What are the most common mistakes that some companies have made when trying to achieve a high performance and manage significant strategic change?

The book revealed a number of main mistakes that are made by companies when trying to balance performance and strategic change. 

There is an over emphasis on delivering short term results and an inability to anticipate the changing environment, and an expectation that both high performance and strategic change can be delivered as routine without special processes.

During your research for the book were there any findings that surprised you?

We analysed the 20-year financial performance of 215 of the largest publically listed British companies and found that only six of them managed both consistent long-term high performance and strategic change, which was surprising.

Your book explores the strategies employed by firms that have been able to balance high performance and strategic change such as Tesco and Cadbury Schweppes, what are some of the key reasons for this?

These companies were able to achieve high performance and strategic change because they implemented key strategies. Some of these tactics included reinventing their business model to suit contemporary industry conditions, anticipating the future and constructive challenging.

What can other companies learn from the book?

There is no one answer to such a multifaceted question, but we put forward ten proposals from our research and related literature in the book. Some of the key actions are to build on history, get behind decisions once they are made, and select and develop a different next generation.

Do you have any upcoming projects?

I am in the middle of a three year project, co-directing the Centre on China Innovation at China Europe International Business School, based in Shanghai. The focus of the Centre is to understand how Chinese companies innovate and in particular how they are moving from imitation to grassroots innovation with global application and how developed world multinationals are using China as an innovation base, both for the domestic market and markets worldwide. We have a large number of research studies, which will culminate in a number of articles and a book, which should be out in mid-2015. After that, I may turn my attention to Chinese companies in Africa.         

My other area of interest is managing global customers—how multinational suppliers can manage their relationship with their multinational customers. This month I am doing the final edits on a co-authored paper on Customer Centric Leadership that we hope to have accepted at a top management journal.