WiKa Beton invested in education: Great experiences and strong knowhow from Finland

WiKa Beton, a leading precast concrete company in Indonesia, is on its way to become one of the best integrated EPC and investment companies in South-East Asia. Because of the speedy growth of its business, WiKa Beton had to accelerate the human capital development in the company last year.

To help WiKa Beton achieve their target, Aalto University Executive Education designed a high-quality customized Advanced Leadership Program and an Internship Program for the company’s key personnel.

The target of the leadership/internship program was to ensure that WiKa Beton’s employees would have the necessary global competences and cross-cultural skills to run regional operations. Innovation, renewal, executing strategy and driving growth were also among the focus themes of the program.

”It was a big investment for WiKa Beton to fly 22 people from Indonesia to Finland to study for two weeks. The fact that they had the chance to come together is very valuable. From a company’s point of view, educating personnel may seem slow in the beginning, but it pays off in the long run,” says Anu Sirkiä, Executive Director, Asia Pacific, Aalto EE.

Precast Engineer Harry Ignatius attended the customized WiKa Now! Advanced Leadership Program in Helsinki, Finland.

“The program measured up to my expectations. Our lecturers knew how to actualize the themes, it was easy to understand them, and they were very helpful and open to further discussions on the topics. During the group discussions, everyone was actively discussing and arguing their case,” Ignatius says.

The program was a mix of class lectures and project site visits. The students visited several interesting sites in the Greater Helsinki area, such as the Kalasatama district development project, the Vantaa power plant, and the Helsinki Airport extension.

In addition to class lectures and site visits, Harry Ignatius had the chance to dig a little deeper with his studies. He was in the selected group of employees for whom the leadership program included an advanced internship in a Finnish hosting organization.

WiKa Beton offered its managers and executives the opportunity to experience how top Finnish multinational precast companies run their business. During the internships, the participants benchmarked the best practices of their hosting companies and explored new methods, systems, and ways of working. Elematic offered an internship position for Harry Ignatius.

“My experience with Elematic was fruitful. They gave us trainees a very warm welcome, and they were very willing to share their experiences and have discussions with us. During the internship program, I learned that Elematic is strongly oriented towards customer needs,” Ignatius says.

During the internship, WiKa’s trainees learned about equipment and products in practice.

“Factory visits taught me how useful automation is in precast production and how much it increases efficiency. Visits to construction sites taught me the details in precast connections and the component installation process, which is fast, precise and effective,” Ignatius says.

For Harry Ignatius, the most important teaching in Aalto EE’s leadership program was the hands-on experience – in his case, the internship at Elematic.

“During the internship program,

I felt a solid team coordination that was supported by a simple company organization and a good relationship between the employees and the management.”

“Elematic focuses on consumer references and current market trends. Visiting customers, discussing problems, and hearing customer opinions are an effective strategy to collect useful information to improve, develop and innovate equipment needed by the customers. I think Elematic’s spirit for innovation and their focus on the customers to keep leading in the market is something important to share with my company,” Harry Ignatius says.

He is very pleased with the leadership program overall.

“I recommend the Aalto Executive Education program especially for the opportunity to do an internship program where participants can learn effectively from another company’s experiences and share the knowledge with their companies to grow their businesses. The site visits to several projects and the cross-cultural program were also pleasant and fruitful experiences that we had in Finland.”