Research Reports: Recent submissions
Now showing items 21-40 of 717
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Performance and reward management in an agile environment. 10 Key findings based on a qualitative studyAgility is an emerging key dimension of business excellence. Research by Vlerick Business School, surveying the largest for-profit organisations in Belgium, revealed that, for 93% of them, agile ways of working have become more important in the last few years. And the top three terms associated with the concept of agility are: adaptability, speed and customer centricity. Although agility has really taken off, many organisations are still struggling with implementing agile approaches in the area of performance and reward management. An agile way of working is transforming how organisations manage and reward their talent, but only a mere 18% of the largest for-profit organisations in Belgium consider themselves to be agile on performance management and 28% on reward management. How do you approach performance management when you need to evaluate projects that are run by several different leaders and organised around teams? How to align employees’ career aspirations with business needs in a non-hierarchical environment? Can we allow a merit-pay process when talent systems are becoming more team-focused? That’s why our Centre for Excellence in Strategic Talent Management and our Centre for Excellence in Strategic Rewards joined forces for a new study that sheds a light on 8 Belgian and 4 Dutch companies that were either working agilely from the very beginning or changed the tires while driving the car. Based on a qualitative study with the support of our Chair Partner Hudson, the research team identified 10 key findings, each representing a phenomenon, trend or influence currently playing in agile working contexts: A purpose-led approach towards performance & career development From taking up additional roles to role-based job design Career self-management as the main driver for career evolution Questioning the role of supervisors in the performance management process Transparency to enhance trust, ownership and internal fairness Actively identifying and managing poor performance Team members deciding on salary increases and promotions To pay or not to pay for individual performance? It all depends... Customised and on the spot recognition Managing and rewarding agile teams in crisis situations
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Supply chain planning in the digital ageWith new, digital technologies entering the factories and the supply chain, the role of people in manufacturing and logistics is undeniably changing. Existing tasks are disappearing or changing, new tasks are emerging. Digital technologies can be used to automate certain tasks, yet their full power is in how they can augment and extend the human capabilities of employees. But what about the planning function? How is this function being impacted by the introduction of digital technologies – and, in particular, artificial intelligence – making the planning system more advanced? In collaboration with OMP, partner in our Research Centre for People in the Smart Digitised Supply Chain, Professor Ann Vereecke, and researchers Alejandra Cabos-Rodríguez and Nicholas Vijverman, conducted a series of interviews with decision-makers in multinational manufacturing companies. The insights from those interviews can be found in the report ‘Supply Chain Planning in the Digital Age’. The reports looks into the future of supply chain planning in order to answer two sets of questions: What does the planning system of the future look like for manufacturing companies? Knowing that planning algorithms are becoming more advanced, self-learning and prescriptive, will this have an impact on the different modules of the planning system and on how these modules interact with each other? And what impact will this have on the interaction between the ‘human’ and the ‘machine’ – that is, between the planner and the planning tool? Who is the planner of the future? What will the planner’s responsibility be if algorithms are doing the planning? What skills and competencies does the planner need? Somewhat controversially, one may even wonder whether we will still need a planner in the future.
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The case for purpose: Demystifying the fieldOrganisations today are dealing with rapid changes and complex challenges. To survive and excel in a volatile business context, it has been argued that organisations need to adopt a more purpose-driven approach in doing business that transcends making money. In the past decade, an increasing interest has emerged in the topic of purpose by both academics and practitioners. Many business books and articles have been published to help companies on their way to become purpose-driven organisations. The notion of purpose has become so widespread that a lot of companies invested in articulating a purpose in order to engage stakeholders. Creating and establishing a strong and shared corporate purpose, however, can be a complex process. In this whitepaper, we aim to provide a clear understanding of what purpose is and why it matters. Based on the research available, we will reflect on how a strong and shared purpose can be established by organisations.
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Business ecosystems. What do they mean for your company? And how do they impact your role as a leader?Recently, two competing Belgian telecom giants, Telenet and DPG Media, announced an intensive strategic collaboration in response to the increased competition from global players like Netflix, Disney + and Apple TV. Such strategic partnerships between organisations are not new. Think of the collaboration between Douwe Egberts and Philips, which led to the introduction of the Senseo coffee machine. Most of these strategic collaborations consist of clearly defined and formalised projects, in which the legal departments are closely involved in delineating the partnership as well. But the world is changing rapidly. And so is the way in which organisations partner with each other. Changing customer expectations, increased regulation, new technologies, and the societal risks that come with a globalising economy shape the strategic agendas of many CEOs. These evolutions force organisations to rethink the way in which they collaborate with partners.
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Financing intangibles: Is there a market failure?It is well established that growth companies positively and disproportionately impact employment creation and economic growth (European Commission, 2016a; OECD, 2019a). At the same time, these companies are confronted with significant challenges, including access to finance (OECD, 2019b). Numerous initiatives have been taken by regional and national authorities and by the European Union to alleviate growth companies’ expected funding gaps.
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Five years of the Vlerick Energy Centre. An overview of results and lessons learnedAn overview of results and lessons learned from five years of the Vlerick Energy Centre. Energy concerns all of us. Being intertwined with the debate on decarbonisation and climate change, energy is a potentially hot topic. Two extreme positions have attracted significant media coverage during the past year. At one end of the spectrum are those people who feel the transition cannot happen fast enough, engaging in climate protests inspired by Greta Thunberg. At the other end are the Gilets Jaunes, applying the brakes because they believe, on the contrary, that things are moving too fast and life has become too expensive.
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Creating high-trust cultures - what can we learn from Belgium's best workplacesWhat can we learn from Belgium’s Best Workplaces™ when it comes to people practices? Organisations are reinventing themselves to keep pace with the challenges of this fluid, unpredictable world. Both local and global markets are transforming continuously, and new digital technologies and business models are causing a significant level of disruption. Enterprises are being forced to rethink their existing structures and to continuously improve themselves.
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The great remuneration survey. Study of remuneration preferences among salaried employees and civil servantsIn spite of the index jump and other measures intended to keep salary costs under control, the figures show that employers in our country face high costs. According to Eurostat, the average hourly salary cost in Belgium is 39.60 euros, which is more than in France (36 euros), the Netherlands (34.80 euros) or Germany (34.10 euros) That amount includes both the employee’s pay and the social security contributions.
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Risk and peformance: Embedding risk managementA new report from ACCA (the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants) uncovers how board-level risk management activities vary in organisations as a result of internal and external factors. The report, Risk and performance: Embedding risk management, highlights common challenges and good practices to overcome risk management difficulties. The research was conducted by Professor Simon Ashby (Vlerick Business School), Professor Cormac Bryce (Cass Business School) and Professor Patrick Ring (Glasgow Caledonian University). The study combines findings from four in-depth case studies including interviews as well as a review of current academic literature. The insights were consolidated to create the ‘risk gearbox’, a conceptual model for embedding risk management in organisations. It shows how formal and informal risk management mechanisms combine to create ‘strategic thrust’ to support the board decisions on strategic risk taking and control. There are also a number of recommendations for organisations looking to improve the effectiveness of their risk management arrangements.
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Entrepreneurial Buyout Monitor. A clear view on investment results 2014 - outlook 2015Welcome to the second edition of the Entrepreneurial Buyout Monitor – a snapshot of the trends and challenges involved in management buyouts and buy-ins of SMEs in Belgium from a practitioner’s perspective. We captured the opinions of 169 buyout experts in Belgium – including bankers, private equity investors, mezzanine players, family offices, lawyers, brokers and M&A advisers. Overall, the results indicate the investment climate has considerably improved – as expected from last year’s edition. The outlook for 2015 remains positive. The key insights from the survey are: 1) DEAL FLOW IS INCREASING – however, with higher levels of competition and more favourable lending conditions, we’ve also seen higher multiples – especially for medium sized and larger deals. It’s tougher to achieve attractive returns, so the deal origination process is critical. 2) MORE FAVOURABLE DEBT MARKETS – overall debt multiples increased and the cost of lending significantly dropped. This was true for medium sized and larger deals. However, lending conditions continue to be challenging for smaller deals – so they may need more creative deal structures. 3) ALTERNATIVE INVESTORS BECOME MORE PROMINENT – both family offices and mezzanine investors become more active in smaller MBO/MBI transactions. 4) PRIVATE EQUITY INVESTORS NEED A CLEAR STRATEGY – they need a more focussed approach to finding opportunities for growth while cutting costs. And so they must gain a deeper understanding – and further insights into the sectors they’re targeting.
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2016 M&A Monitor: Shedding light on M&A in BelgiumIn these times of globally booming M&A activity, I am pleased to present the first M&A Monitor of the Centre for Mergers, Acquisitions and Buyouts of Vlerick Business School. This Monitor supersedes the annual Entrepreneurial Buy-out Monitor that Vlerick has conducted over the past years. The scope has been expanded to consider all types of mergers and acquisitions. By capturing the opinions of 142 M&A experts in Belgium – including bankers, private equity investors, advisors, brokers, lawyers, family offices and mezzanine players – we provide a comprehensive overview of current trends and challenges in the domain of M&A in Belgium. The findings presented in this report are of great interest to all professionals active in the Belgian M&A market, as well as to decision-makers on both the selling and the buying sides. The results strongly indicate that Belgian M&A activity is surging − with 2 out of 3 respondents observing an increase in the number of M&A transactions. Competition amongst buyers has intensified, as the current market is clearly demanddriven, fuelled by easily available bank financing and the extensive amount of dry powder of private equity companies. The increased interest of family offices, wealthy individuals and foreign PE firms in the Belgian midcap segment puts additional pressure on the buy-side. A demand-driven M&A wave naturally results in rising valuations and M&A multiples. The experts surveyed overwhelmingly indicate that multiples have increased over the past year, leading to an average EV/EBITDA multiple across all industries and size classes of 6.1. Nevertheless, the imbalance between high demand and limited (high-quality) supply of companies also calls for caution. Academic evidence shows that transactions taking place at the top of an M&A wave are typically less profitable. These deals are more likely to be driven by hubris and herding behaviour. In addition, most interesting targets have usually been acquired at the start of the wave, leaving only targets that do not fully meet the ideal selection criteria. That’s why a detailed upfront assessment of the motives for buying a company, and a realistic estimate of potential synergy gains, prove to be of utmost importance in successful M&A. Our survey results indicate that realising economies of scale is considered to be the primary motive for strategic buyers, while financial buyers focus mainly on opportunities to follow a buy-andbuild approach or improve revenue and/or margin. The results presented in this monitor also provide interesting insights into the deal structure (use of vendor loans, earnouts, leverage ratios) and process (nature of sale process, use of vendor due diligence, length of M&A process). We open the black box of price negotiations and find, for example, that almost 1 out of 2 experts indicates that the average final deal price exceeds the initial indicative offer, while only 1 in 4 reports a lower final deal price compared to the offer price.
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2019 M&A Monitor: Shedding light on M&A in BelgiumAll good things must come to an end… This phrase also holds in M&A markets that have historically been characterized by a wave pattern. While the most recent global wave started around five years ago, a turning point might have been reached. The global amount spent on acquisitions increased further in 2018 to almost $4 trillion, despite a very strong drop in deal volume during the final quarter. The sudden plunge in deal activity seems to be driven by political and economic uncertainties rather than financial constraints, with a cost of borrowing staying at a historically low level and dry powder at private equity funds reaching a record level of $2 trillion (Bain & Company Global PE report). The results of our own Belgian M&A monitor confirm that deal activity surged in 2018 but, at the same time, the surveyed experts largely expect a stabilising market in the year to come. Interestingly, some remarkable changes can be observed in motives driving Belgian M&A transactions. Whereas realising economies of scale stays the number one acquisition reason, other motives, like gaining new technologies and attracting talent (or “acqui-hires”), have increased significantly in importance over the past years. Deal drivers in private equity transactions remain constant with a buy-and-build approach as preferred value creating strategy. In addition, we observe a significant decline in the fraction of cross-border deals by Belgian acquirers from 36% to 25%. The major contribution of our yearly M&A monitor is that we present unique insights into the specific Belgian M&A setting that is particularly characterized by small and mid-market deals. While only limited information is publicly available on mid-market M&A, virtually no data is published for really small transactions. Therefore, we present a separate category of data for deals with a transaction value below €1 million for the first time. Remarkably, the surveyed professionals are much more positive on growth expectations in this segment of the market with 2 out of 3 respondents expecting a further growth in 2019. The intensified competition in the midmarket segment might indeed push strategic as well as financial buyers more and more towards smaller deals. In last year’s M&A monitor, we expressed a clear call for caution in terms of multiples paid, questioning whether the elevated acquisition prices still allow to realise returns that outweigh the risks of the transaction. For the first time in six years, however, we now observe a slight drop in EV/EBITDA multiple across all Belgian transactions from 6.7 to 6.5 (ranging from an average of 4.4 for deals smaller than €1 million to 9.7 for deals exceeding €100 million). The minor reduction in multiples is mainly driven by the smaller deal categories (below €5 million). Nevertheless, upcoming sellers should not yet panic as the majority of surveyed experts do not yet predict a significant decrease in multiples in 2019. These observations and many other typical deal, financing and process characteristics are presented and discussed in detail in the remainder of this document.
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2018 M&A Monitor: Shedding light on M&A in BelgiumIs the sky really the limit for M&A? Since the first edition of this Belgian M&A Monitor five years ago, we have witnessed a continuous surge in the number of transactions and the multiples being paid. The average EV/EBITDA multiple in Belgian M&A increased from 5.0 in 2013 to 6.7 times EBITDA nowadays. The number one concern highlighted by M&A advisors that filled in our survey, is the current overheating of the market. Nevertheless, two out of three respondents expect M&A activity in Belgium to keep on rising in 2018. It is of course not surprising to observe elevated multiples in a seller’s market that is characterized by economic recovery and easy access to cheap financing. However, the question remains of whether acquisition prices have reached their limits. Part of the answer lies in the interpretation of the multiple which is in fact simply the inverse of the required return by investors. An EV/EBITDA multiple of 6.7 indicates that investors would realise a return of approximately 15% before taking into account any investment expenditures. A further increase in prices would result in returns that no longer outweigh the risks associated with the acquisition. We can only hope that both strategic and financial buyers keep on making this reflection. Despite the critical note in the above paragraph, high multiples could of course be warranted in case of strong growth potential or limited risk in the target’s business. That is why we report for the first time valuation and financing multiples per sector. Industries with relatively lower multiples are “Retail” (5.3x EBITDA), “Transport and logistics” (5.7x) and “Construction” (6.0x). Sectors characterized by superior multiples are “Technology” and “Healthcare” (both 8.2x), “Pharmaceuticals” (9.2x) and “Real Estate” (9.3x). We are convinced that publishing these sector multiples increases the practical usefulness of this Monitor even further in setting price expectations for Belgian M&A. In previous editions, M&A advisors emphasized the Belgian unstable regulatory and tax environment as a restraining factor for M&A activity. In our most recent survey, we explicitly inquired respondents about their expectations concerning the reform package agreed upon by the Belgian federal government and presented in its “summer agreement”. While the vast majority of M&A professionals expect a neutral or slightly positive impact due to especially the decrease in corporate tax rate and the introduction of tax consolidation, some also highlight the interest deduction limitation based upon EBITDA and more stringent conditions for the exemption of capital gains as possible limiting factors. In the remainder of this 2018 M&A Monitor, detailed insights are presented into the evolution of Belgian M&A activity, current typical payment and financing structures and various process characteristics that could be highly relevant for buyers, sellers and all professional parties involved in Belgian M&A.
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Rising star monitor. The many faces of growth. Results 2018The Rising Star Monitor is part of the Entrepreneurship 2.0 initiative. Entrepreneurship 2.0 was launched by Vlerick Business School in collaboration with Deloitte Belgium to develop state-of-the-art knowledge about the key issues young, high-potential ventures struggle with. It also runs knowledge and community-building programs for entrepreneurs who are in the midst of tackling important scaling challenges with their ventures.
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Flexibel werken in ziekenhuizen: OM en HRM perspectiefIedereen spreekt over “flexibel werken”, maar al snel blijkt dat dit een term is die vele interpretaties kent. Flexibiliteit wordt zo een verzamelnaam van variabele werkomstandigheden telkens met een ander doel indachtig. Het kan bekeken worden vanuit het standpunt van de werkgever en vanuit het standpunt van de werknemer. Een werkgever wil zijn personeel zo flexibel mogelijk kunnen inzetten om zo goed mogelijk aan de variabele vraag van zorg te kunnen voldoen. Een werknemer bekijkt hoe de job zo flexibel mogelijk kan worden ingevuld (tijd, plaats, inhoud) om leuk en uitdagend te zijn, en een ideale balans tussen het werk en het privéleven te creëren. In deze tekst geven we een overzicht van de verschillende types flexibiliteit die relevant zijn voor een ziekenhuis. Hierbij geven we ook een aantal voorbeelden hoe flexibiliteit vorm kan krijgen in de dagelijkse realiteit. We focussen ons voornamelijk op verpleegkundigen, maar veel aangehaalde vormen van flexibel werken kunnen ook van toepassing zijn op andere werknemers.
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Belgian high-growth monitor. Who are Belgium's fastest growing companies?High-growth firms (HGFs) are frequently described as the engine of the Belgian economy. They create the majority of new jobs and account for an enormous increase in the total added value that is realised by Belgian private firms. Therefore, it is crucial to learn more about the characteristics of these HGFs. Who are these Belgian high-growth firms? Do we find remarkable evolutions in their profiles? Answers to these questions may be vital for academics, policy makers and ambitious entrepreneurs. The Belgian High-Growth Monitor aims to provide these answers by analysing the subset of HGFs in Belgium for the most recent period and by surveying a group of Belgian growth entrepreneurs.
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Risk culture in financial organisationsInterest in the cultures of organisations and their effects on management practices goes back many years and there is an extensive body of scholarship on this topic. Yet this interest has increased dramatically in the period since 2008. The debate is led by the world of practice, particularly in the financial services sector. Furthermore, a new twist in the vocabulary of culture has taken place and companies, advisors and regulators now seem to have a specific focus on something called risk culture.
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Risk and the strategic role of leadershipRisk and risk management have always been at the heart of concerns about leadership. In this report, we explore the role of boards in the risk management of the organisations they lead.
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Global entrepreneurship monitor 2011 - Report on Switzerland.The following Global Entrepreneurship Monitor Report 2011 on Switzerland illustrates the differences in entrepreneurial attitudes, activity, and aspirations between economies, revealing the factors that determine the nature and level of national entrepreneurial activity and identifying the policy implications for enhancing entrepreneurship in Switzerland. The GEM data complements existing indicators about competitiveness and innovation and allows the creation of a new aggregate index, the Global Entrepreneurship Index (GEDI).
