Heinz Landau is a seasoned business leader who has gained valuable working and leadership experience on three different continents.

When I read the March 2011 special issue on brands of “Absatzwirtschaft”,  Germany’s leading marketing journal, I was very happy when I came across an article by Achim Feige titled “Good Brands Create Triple Wins”. In that article, Feige states that it is no longer enough for a company to go only for profits. As a result of the value shift after the financial crisis, the “good-business” economy is taking its place, linking economy, ecology, ethics and personal integrity in profitable ways.

The “people, planet, profit” – thinking is not really a very new concept. However, there is evidence that there are nowadays more leaders and companies out there that are moving from mere lip service to true transformation and implementation.

More and more people want authenticity, depth, substance and social and ecological responsibility.

More and more people want authenticity, depth, substance and social and ecological responsibility. That’s a major change and challenge for brands and companies alike. Therefore, the concept of sustainability has to be integrated across all aspects of the business of  a company.

Enterprises and brands must have an authentic core. Brand management moves from the marketing manager in a company to the CEO and the Board of Directors. They are responsible that the company has a purpose beyond making money (as a powerful differentiator). They have to make sure that clear vision and mission statements are defined, that a value framework and a simple, understandable branding strategy are developed and that all that is clearly understood and lived by all employees (of course, including the Board of Directors).

Like this, the employees will be the main brand ambassadors towards other stakeholders like customers, suppliers and the community. And at the end, the company will be able to generate economic, social and ecological profit.

One of the reasons that I am so delighted to have read the above stated article in “Absatzwirtschaft” is the fact that all the above goes hand in hand with my blogging partner’s (Stephan Polomski) and my philosophy of “caring leadership”. It is great to see that this type of thinking becomes gradually more and more mainstream thinking among leaders and entrepreneurs.

As a matter of fact, we launched our human-centered approach at Merck Ltd., Thailand already more than a decade ago. We developed, implemented and vigorously lived our so-called “4 stakeholders approach” centered around our core value “care”. Care for employees, care for customers, care for the society and care for shareholders; lived in a care-culture.

Our single-minded care-brand was directed by the Managing Director and the Leadership Team, not by the Marketing and/or the Communications Department. Our branding strategy had an impact on every department across the whole enterprise, on everything what the company and the employees were doing.

Due to the simplicity of our care-model, all our employees understood what the company and the brand stood for. And they were living the brand values at all internal and external contact points. A credible brand that was lived from the inside and perceived as authentic from the outside.

The outcome: excellent results in all key performance areas for employees, customers, society and shareholders! More than a decade of profitable double digit sales growth! A quadruple  win situation!