Axel Strayer's Successful Transformation Case Analysis

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Organizational Factors for AXEL SPRINGER’s successful Transformation:
Company Introduction:
Axel Springer SE; headquartered in Berlin, Germany; was founded in 1946 by Axel Springer in Hamburg. Today it is the biggest digital publishing house in Europe, owing multiple newspapers and magazines, such as Bild, Die Welt, and Fakt and has more than 15,300 employees on its payroll. It generated total revenues of about €3.29 billion and had earnings of €595 million in the financial year 2016. The contribution of digital media activities to its revenues is 67% and nearly 72% to its earnings. The company has a presence in more than 40 countries through various subsidiaries, joint ventures, and licensing agreements. The company is currently headed by its CEO Mathias Dopfner. He has been in the role since 2002. Mathias Dopfner is widely credited for turning
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“It was very clear to me that we needed to accelerate our cultural transformation,” reported Nicola quoting Dopfner from a recent interview. This clearly indicated that as a CEO; Dopfner was quick to realize the need for cultural change and also he wanted the change to start from the very top.
Instead of hiring consultants; Dopfner chose to send 3 of his most senior managers to Silicon Valley for nine months. He wanted the top executives to learn from and adopt the innovation culture from leading digital companies like Google, Apple and Airbnb, etc. The objective being the management understand and identify opportunities for digitization in the publishing and media industry. He followed this up with promoting experiential and educational trips to Silicon Valley for all the top

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