Client
Voith
Industry
Overview
Voith is a multinational technology company headquartered in Germany. Founded in 1867 as a small locksmith, Voith now has more than 19,000 employees, sales of €4.2 billion and locations in over 60 countries worldwide. It is one of the largest family-owned companies in Europe.
We collaborated with Voith to update their corporate brand strategy, delivering expressions from a mission and manifesto to positioning and personality. By reconsidering and streamlining Voith’s values, they could more effectively guide the organisation’s behaviour. These elements were accompanied by a compelling visual identity evolution.
Economic conditions and business performance indicators led Voith to undertake a restructuring process which included selling its Industrial Services division, making a big investment into robotics and many other business scale adjustments. During the restructuring, management were concerned about the impact it would have on employee morale. At the same time, the company was approaching a milestone as they prepared for Voith Group’s 150th anniversary.
Both the internal restructuring and the company anniversary presented an opportunity to use Voith’s brand to explain and galvanise change; getting ready for the next 150 years in the Voith Group story. It was a chance to highlight their legacy, re-engage employees with shared values and encourage them to work together across corporate silos for the benefit of the entire organisation.
With long term experience of being at the cutting edge of technology, Voith understood the importance of staying relevant better than most. With this in mind, the organisation set about evolving its brand strategy. The goal was to reimagine the brand idea, brand values and tagline in a way that would be both authentic to Voith’s heritage while renewing their positioning for growth.
Uniting a global workforce
As we embarked on our journey with Voith, it became clear that there was already a solid brand strategy and a very detailed design system in place, but that various business units within the group had built similar strategic elements in parallel. Creating a group brand strategy would unite the Group behind one overarching vision. It was about taking the existent, examining it in detail and deciding which parts needed developing in order to allow for closer collaboration and unity.
The goal was to give relevance to the brand in the face of industrial digitalisation and other megatrends, while also ensuring it remained true to its heritage. The question was, from an engagement point of view, how could we bring all of these changes alive in a way that galvanised Voith’s global workforce?
Starting from Voith’s existing positioning ‘Engineered Reliability’, we carried out a deep immersion process in order to find a brand core that was more emotional and that connected Voith’s long standing expertise with its future ambitions.
The immersion served as an initial diagnosis, from which we developed the engagement program’s focus. It was clear we would face the task of both increasing visibility and understanding the advantages a strong corporate brand can bring, as well as redefining the contents of the brand itself. We would revamp Voith’s brand and embed it in the renewed brand strategy at the core of the engagement program, and bring it to life through the visual identity used during anniversary celebrations.
Thorough analyses resulted in an overhaul of Values, Mission and Vision statements. A new articulation of Voith’s brand was coined: Inspiring Technology For Generations. Staying true to the core of the former ‘Engineered Reliability’, the new claim sets a more emotional tone to focus on Voith’s future. From there, the engagement program was articulated around the concept of ‘Taking Ownership’ to motivate all employees to feel empowered within their roles, embody the Voith brand and celebrate the 150 years of history with pride and a sense of belonging.
Visualising 150 years and counting
Coinciding with the 150th anniversary celebrations, the new strategy and engagement program needed to become tangible with a renewed visual expression. The concept we developed is based on the many ‘rings’ of a tree seen in cross-section, symbolising sustainability, age and strength. The number of rings of a tree grows as time passes; each layer with its own variations, but originating from the existing structure, and also taking the form of a fingerprint.
Engagement
In addition to the visual and strategic elements, we created a detailed plan for an internal engagement program and implementation of its initial steps. This program would serve to communicate the new brand to everyone in the organisation and also have the emotional benefit of ensuring employee enthusiasm post-restructuring. It was to be launched as part of the anniversary celebrations, accompanying the strategic concept.
The system is built around the use of a 50/50 structure, bringing simplicity and boldness to the identity. Enlivened with digitally native colours, the cleanliness speaks of Voith’s enduring focus on technology.
The impact
The renewed brand strategy was launched in front of hundreds of senior managers from Voith worldwide. Voith’s Group Conference periodically marks a milestone in shaping corporate strategy and aligning leadership globally. Voith’s results were announced, the Business Units’ successes and challenges shared and new goals adopted.
The Voith Brand was a major element of the conference’s agenda along with the announcement of the Brand Engagement Program. The new framework and the brand engagement program are now being planned out in detail on a global basis. Finally, Voith revised its corporate identity based on this anniversary expression.
