Bühler: Mobilizing Industry around a Common Purpose

Bühler Group, a Swiss multinational processing technology provider, started by selling machines for processing grains and later transitioned into selling food processing solutions. A family-owned business in the fifth generation, Bühler’s high-end milling, grinding, sorting, and die-casting machines and its process engineering and services expertise were respected by the world’s largest players in the food, feed, and automotive industries. The firm’s purpose was formalized in 2010 under the slogan ‘Innovations for a Better World.’ With the establishment of its purpose, the firm began to transform itself from a quiet technology leader to a vocal advocate for innovation, education, and sustainability in its industry, a substantial challenge for a privately held Swiss company with CHF 3 billion ($3.2 bn) revenue. Though Bühler had nurtured its long-term partnerships with customers, the firm struggled to bring about a deeper embrace of sustainability across its customers’ value chains, which it considered necessary. In 2016, the firm introduced the Bühler Networking Days conference as a platform to facilitate a dialogue on innovation, sustainability, and education in the industry. The event aimed to change the firm’s one-on-one interactions with customers into a public and multilateral engagement. While planning the Networking Days 2022 conference, the firm’s leadership wondered how they could use the forum to inspire others in the industry to commit to concrete outcomes. Besides, had Bühler done enough to embed sustainability in its internal and external innovation ecosystem? How should the firm measure impact and see whether the efforts made so far were simply incremental or collectively enough for Bühler to be a truly purpose-led firm?