Aloys Gälweiler (1922-1984) studied economics and business administration and worked for many years at Brown, Boveri & Cie. As a lecturer, he taught corporate planning and corporate strategy at various universities in Germany and Switzerland, including the University of St. Gallen.

Gälweiler compact

Aloys Gälweiler developed a comprehensive concept for corporate management in the 1970s and 1980s. This is based on a detailed navigation system. A central feature is the differentiation between operational and strategic areas of responsibility with the corresponding orientation documents and control variables.

The core of the approach is the concept of success potential. This refers to all measures that ensure long-term success beyond the daily business operations. The success potential serves as a control parameter for strategic management, while success and liquidity form the basis for operational management.

The management of success potential, the core task of strategic management, serves as a "pre-management" of success and liquidity, the two decisive factors for operational management. For strategic management, this steering is crucial. It ensures the long-term success and viability of the company.

Context

The starting point of Gälweiler's concept is the realization that in view of increasingly rapid and unpredictable changes in the environment, new and more reliable foundations for corporate management were needed. The measures of success and liquidity used in traditional management could no longer serve as a reliable orientation basis for securing long-term success.

Gälweiler adopted a systems-oriented and cybernetic approach. With his navigation model he made a significant contribution to the development of the St. Gallen Management Model.

Selection of works

Corporate planning. Fundamentals and Practice, 1986.

Strategic corporate management, 1987.

Operational and strategic management

The areas of responsibility of operational and strategic management and their management variables:

Operational management: Immediate assurance of success in day-to-day business by making the best use of success potential. Success and liquidity serve as control parameters

Strategic management: securing long-term success. The potential for success serves as a control variable. The main task of strategic management is to secure and build on this potential

Potential for success - anticipating success 

Success potentials (EP) open up a long-term time horizon as an orientation basis for strategic corporate management. To create this takes a long time.

The factors product development, development of production capacities, market position and organization are central to the formation of DPs. Establishment and maintenance play the dominant role

Gälweiler distinguishes between existing and new DPs: New (future) DPs refer to new products or markets that create additional new DPs or replace expiring ones

The management of success potential has the function of systematically "pre-managing" the key parameters of success and liquidity that are decisive for operational management

Orientation variables of the pilot control

Two groups of orientation principles serve as a basis for data that extend beyond the success data over time. They form two distinctly different focal points for locating innovation potential. The significance for the innovation focus is mutually overlapping:

The phenomenon of the experience curve (costs)

Factual and time horizon extends further than for profit data

Function: The location of process innovations

The user problem (customer benefit)

Material and time horizon is maximum

Function: Orientation for product innovations