Explain in one or two short sentences who you are, and what your startup does and why
Drinkotec is a Swiss manufacturer of beverage digital dispensers and a software provider. We are passionate about Design & Software which we use to help solve the global challenges in our industry. We serve global beverage brands as well as the general market (entertainment & workplaces).
Why was it the right timing to take the LeadiNNg to Scale Up program?
While scaling the company to be able to serve clients in EMEA, North America and Middle East, we were confronted to some inevitable challenges such as:
- Designing the company to be compliant to ESG standards
- Scaling the team and leading change inside the organization but also at client side
- Developing leadership performance in the middle management
- Creating solid and sustainable partnerships
- Preparing and planning the supply chain to serve at scale
This list is far from being exhaustive and we touched based on many more valuable topics. As an entrepreneur and leader in a company, continuous learning and preparation is a must, and learning from people who have been there and done it multiple times accelerated our readiness to face these challenges with confidence and efficiency.
“The program opened our eyes to new and different perspectives we probably would have discovered down the road but unprepared and probably too late.”
What did you learn?
Jim Pulcrano and the IMD faculties have put together an extraordinary line up of experts and entrepreneurs, from Silicon Valley to Europe, to share with us what it takes to lead a scale up and cross the chasm successfully, as we are getting more and more traction and demand from the markets. The learning is real and from real experiences.
I have taken all these learnings and experience, and shared them with my teams. We have then implemented, adjusted and most importantly, it opened our eyes to new or different perspectives that we probably would have discovered late, and not prepared, down the road of scaling up. I took all the learnings to my team, we implemented new things, adjusted others but most importantly it opened our eyes to new and different perspectives we probably would have discovered down the road but unprepared and probably too late.
Why was it the right timing to take the LeadiNNg to Scale Up program?
Taking dedicated time to step outside the business is sometimes very hard. When I took the decision and started the program, I met with very passionate women and men, all with the same goal: to go together as far possible in the venture and successfully.
Would you recommend this program and to whom?
Leaders, women or men, serious about taking on the responsibility and challenge to prepare on all levels their organisation should follow this program in which they will discover the ingredients of leading an innovative company through the scale up phase!