Last Tuesday, our last “Wissenschaft und Praxis“ event for this semester took place. Carmen Lehner (ALPLA, Family Manager) and Dr. Francesco Debellis (Chair of International Business, University of Vienna) discussed the topic: “Expanding Globally, Preserving Traditions and Family Values“. Professor Emmanuella Plakoyiannaki (Chair of International Business, University of Vienna) moderated the discussion afterwards.
Prof. Plakoyiannaki introduced the team of the Chair of International Business, illustrating the various activities that the Chair has promoted in order to bridge students with the entrepreneurial world, such as the Erasmus+ Ulysses, the first European student contest aimed to solve real family business case studies, that has involved almost 100 students from 25 countries.
Dr. Debellis then presented the peculiar characteristics of family businesses, which represent the backbone of any world economy and produce over 70% of the annual global GDP. In particular, he addressed the topic of governance in family businesses, showing the complexities that can arise from the simultaneous pursuit of social-emotional and financial objectives, as well as from the coexistence of different types of stakeholders who may have diverging interests.
This was the prelude to the insightful presentation by Mrs. Carmen Lehner. Mrs. Lehner retraced the history of ALPLA, which has always been at the forefront of innovation, while at the same time preserving tradition and family values handed down from generation to generation. She illustrated the path from the ALPLA's foundation in Hard 70 years ago to today, where the company - currently led by a 3rd generation family CEO - has 190 subsidiaries located 46 countries worldwide, employing 23,300 people and having an annual turnover of more than 5 billion euro. Mrs. Lehner showed how the company's values, such as respect, trust, cohesion, social responsibility, and always putting the company's interests before those of the individual, has taken ALPLA through the various generational successions from being a laundry room to the world's largest family-run company producing packaging systems and solutions. One famous partner of ALPLA in Austria is Vöslauer, but they have also many other partners such as: Coca Cola, Henkel, L’Oréal, Unilever, Pepsi, Procter & Gamble and Mainzer Werner & Mertz GmbH (Frosch). Actually, ALPLA products are in every moment of our daily lives!
Mrs. Lehner illustrated the milestones of ALPLA’s evolution, showing the importance of the ALPLA spirit, the family values, the 'Du-Kultur' based on a low corporate hierarchy and how the company has made these values explicit in order to allow them to be transferred to the various subsidiaries worldwide. The topics and anecdotes illustrated by Mrs. Lehner were enlightening and of great interest to the large audience, whose various questions gave rise to an interesting debate which enriched the knowledge of our students, who could gain first-hand insight into the business reality of one of Austria's largest family businesses.
