Niels Kau Andersen, who is responsible for quality assurance in the biotech company Chr. Hansen, has a scientific educational background in the form of a civil engineering degree in chemistry from DTU, which he has subsequently supplemented with an HD in organization and management. As “the last shot on the educational tree”, he recently completed the INSEAD program Leading Strategic Change.

“I took the HD in organization and strategy when I started my management career. I really appreciate being academically challenged on, among other things, management theories and cases that are based on hard science. And in terms of my background, which is a lot about statistics and numbers, it is essential for me to challenge myself in relation to cultural understanding, change management and strategy, as this is an important part of my job”, he says and continues:

“And that is precisely the reason why I chose to go to INSEAD and participate in Leading Strategic Change. Over recent years, we have acquired several companies in Chr. Hansen. The companies represent very different cultures, and therefore cultural understanding in relation to these processes is absolutely fundamental. Because of our global “footprint”, we have always had to operate across cultures, but the strategic work of integrating acquisitions has of course just given it an additional dimension – we have to deal with cultures both at “company level” and at “country level”. It is important for us to be very aware of how culture plays a role, and I have no doubt that cultural understanding has an impact on how strong we subsequently become.”

Nice balance between theories and cases

According to Niels Kau Andersen, the level of the program was high, and it hit well in relation to the fact that all participants were challenged.
“I think that the balance between on the one hand the academic and theoretical and on the other the practical was really fine – the business cases illustrated the theoretical perspectives very well. The professors had world-class professionalism and a genuine interest in the subject area, and they were able to dig deeper when challenged with additional questions.”

He highlights three key-learnings in particular, which will be important for his work going forward.

“The strategy model, which was presented with its three dimensions: product, customers and efficiency, was on the one hand very simple, and on the other hand it contained a lot of depth. It is a model I have been able to use from day one, and it has definitely made me and my strategy work much sharper. Another important learning relates to the so-called “competing framework” from cultural education. The model is based on the fact that when, for example, acquiring other companies, you should not look at where we have cultural differences, but where our cultures overlap with each other, so that we can build on common strengths. In conclusion, I would like to mention the inspiration and the network I have gained with the other participants. We were tied together in a really good way, and I have gained extremely useful and usable insight into a large number of other industries.”

Physical presence doubles the payoff

Niels expects the network to be able to be used in the future if he encounters problems or challenges that he wants to discuss with others.

“We come home with a common understanding and a common conceptual framework, so it is easy to reach out to each other. An at least equally important perspective concerns, here on the other side of corona, how fantastic it has been to participate in an education with physical presence. Not only are we physically present, we also travel away together for a week to INSEAD to learn together, where there is also time for social activities.”