Givaudan: Global Learning Catalogue

Our Client:

Givaudan is the world’s largest manufacturer of flavours, fragrances and active cosmetic ingredients. The company’s products are developed for food and beverage makers, used in household goods and in care products and perfumes. Givaudan employs over 13,500 employees across EMEA, APAC and the Americas.

Our client’s needs:

During the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic, Givaudan sought to align business development to its new strategy and purpose statements, all while embracing the new remote learning paradigm.

Our solution

The Oxford Group was awarded a three-year contract to develop and deliver new business development courses across Givaudan’s 25 operating countries. It now offers ten ready-to-use courses in seven languages, with a delivery team composed of 14 expert facilitators.

The journey began shortly after the release of the 2025 Givaudan strategy ‘Committed to Growth, with Purpose’. The partnership and design approaches ensure that the catalogue and content continually align to the 2025 strategy and associated leadership model.

Working in partnership

The Oxford Group holds quarterly reviews with senior contacts and weekly reviews with logistical contacts. Meetings identify the next courses to develop whilst driving continuous improvement.

Taking time with design to co-create with the client

Following decisions on new courses to develop:

Allocates a lead designer who works with the client on the overall proposal of content.
Brings in Givaudan SMEs from different regions to co-design the course.
Asks its lead designers to co-create additional content to supplement the core material from The Oxford Group, agreeing what will/won’t work and how it’s relevant to Givaudan.

Quality assurance

The Oxford Group recently introduced a quality control element to ensure all facilitators deliver to an exceptional standard, including:

The two lead facilitators shadowing the other twelve facilitators and each other.
The facilitators give feedback based on four core facilitation criteria and collect and share best practices.

Standardising a proven structure

Each course consists of:

Pre-work activities to ensure the learners are well prepared to make the most of each course.
Two three-hour sessions, separated by a two-week gap.
An inter-session element for learners to reflect on their experience of applying the learning back in the workplace to be shared during the second session.
Follow-up activities to embed the learning.

The content tends to be a mixture of some tried and tested classic content from The Oxford Group, made-from-scratch examples and exercises, as well as exercises that follow a ‘read, watch, reflect, do’ format, featuring creative development tools.

Being sensitive to the multi-cultural audience

As a core programme with learners from different cultures, The Oxford Group’s focus on diversity and inclusion ensures its facilitators are from varied cultures. Courses are delivered in three time zones in local languages including English, French, German, Italian, Serbian, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin and Japanese.

Fuelling a culture of learning

The Oxford Group ensured Givaudan’s courses catered to its learn-hungry workforce, clearly positioning the courses to guarantee the right people enrol. Courses are offered to specific target audience and employees self-enrol according to their individual development needs. The shift to virtual learning proved effective in extending development beyond the obvious high-potential audience, while also breaking down silos and connecting different geographies.

The outcome

Around 3,500 participants attended GLC courses (as of Spring 2023). During 2021, the height of the pandemic, there were 179 virtual sessions delivered. Initially, the courses averaged a 4.2/5.0 satisfaction score. In 2021, this increased to 4.3 (the internal target is 4.0). Since the introduction of quality control, the courses are often hitting 4.9/5.0 satisfaction scores.

The Givaudan Global Learning Catalogue is the freshest, most consistently premium-quality catalogue The Oxford Group has had the pleasure of contributing to. The combination of business alignment, close client-vendor collaboration, workplace application, quality assurance and content relevance are all ingredients in this recipe for success.

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