What’s the secret behind growing the Hercules Trophy from the first small edition in Belgium to a yearly gathering of over 500 company teams? It’s about the people. You need to focus on employee and customer engagement at the same time.

• It’s about the people who join you on the journey. In my opinion, building a breakthrough team is one of the most difficult challenges out there. Inge had a big impact. She’s the Ronaldo of our team.
• It’s about the people who work for your customers. We listen and connect with them and innovate while staying close to what we are. It’s a delicate balancing exercise between adapting and staying aligned with our essence.

2 key customers

In the first edition of the Hercules Trophy, two important customers participated with just one team: Telindus and Safmarine. They embraced the concept wholeheartedly and approached us with an audacious idea. “Why don’t you organise a private Trophy for us?” We listened, took the risk, and co-created the concepts with them.

To this day, this collaborative model remains our bedrock: co-creating formats with our customers rooted in gamification best practices while crafting stronger connections of the hearts and minds.

Telindus Trophy

Luc, Telindus’s visionary marketing director, planted the seed. He approached me with the crazy idea to organise a Telindus Trophy for the customers and partners of Telindus. That was a bold move in those days, but he dared to dream big.

Telindus was a network integrator who went through many ups and downs. It was known for its fantastic culture. The late founder, John Cordier, and my future mentor, Jan, were steering the ship with a flat organisational structure. Every year, Telindus organised a train to the Ostend Casino, where they took all their partners and customers to the famous “Telindus Symposium”. It was the perfect mix of content and celebration. They understood the power of employee engagement to drive customer happiness.

Luc and I had a discussion in Cafe De Vijfhoek, developed a business model, and organised the Telindus Trophy for several years in a row. Giants like Cisco, Microsoft and HP sponsored the event, and large organisations like KBC, Fortis, NATO, Mercator and some Government agencies participated at a reduced rate. Win-win-win. The after-parties became legendary, fostering an ecosystem of shared joy and camaraderie.

I was still working as CIO for Pauwels Trafo. In 2003, Luc and Jan asked me to join Telindus to help transform Telindus from a network integrator into a systems integrator. They needed people from the customer side. I joined in the month that John unfortunately passed away. Jan and Luc were my mentors. I became an intrapreneur and learned about B2B solution selling, marketing, customer intimacy, partnerships and the importance of company culture and employee engagement.

John was also the former owner of KV Mechelen, who won the Eurocup in 1988, with Piet Den Boer scoring the epic goal against Ajax. John was one of the first to connect business with soccer in Belgium. Did you know that Piet also became a Hercules Trophy fan?

Jan and Luc, both soccer players, constantly used the entrepreneurial spirit of John and soccer teams as metaphors in coaching the employees and creating a winning culture. We became highly successful and were taken over by Belgacom, now Proximus, through a hostile take-over in 2006. Belgacom didn’t understand the power of culture yet, so together with Datanews, we transformed the Telindus Trophy into the ICT Trophy.

Cherchez la femme

A few weeks after I joined Telindus, Jan bursted into my office. “The Flemish Government ICT released a tender for a massive IT outsourcing contract currently operated by Siemens. You are a former CIO, so take your car, go with Stefaan to the country manager of EDS and convince them to work with us!” I was stunned because Telindus had zero track record in this kind of project, and I just joined and still needed to learn the capabilities of Telindus. I convinced EDS and used our famous Telindus culture as the main argument.

When I returned, I met with Jan in John’s office. He asked me what I would do next, and I said: “Don’t do it, it will kill Telindus! EDS is way too big; the chances that we will beat Siemens(who joined forces with IBM) are slim.” He spoke the famous words: “Many years ago, I was sitting at this table with many people to discuss the bid no bid for another impossible project. Everyone said no bid except for John and myself. We won the project, and it transformed us. A company needs these kind of large challenges to reinvent itself. I decide today that we are going for bid!” I told him: OK, but I can’t combine that with the other challenge you gave me.

So, I helped them set up the team and would hand it over. I asked for a dream team, and as I didn’t know anyone yet, I received a list of 15 people. On that list were all senior people and one rookie, Inge Van Belle. I asked Jan why she was on the list. “You’ll see, she’s one of a kind.”

Inge loved the Hercules Trophy before she knew me. We were both in a relationship and workaholics, and we didn’t have much contact as she was working on the outsourcing deal in another city.

That was until Telindus and EDS won the 580mil contract against Siemens-IBM! A few weeks before the Hercules Trophy, Inge approached me. She was creating the new team to deliver the outsourcing contract, and she needed to unite different cultures fast: the Flemish Government, the Siemens employees that would be integrated, EDS and Telindus. So that means civil servants, German, US, and Flemish cultures. She wanted to convince them to create 24 mixed teams in just a few weeks. I told her she was nuts, but she did it!

After that Hercules Trophy, I asked her if she wanted to join me in selling teams for the subsequent editions, and one thing led to another. We became a dream team, got married with children, took it global, and fought side by side to transform the company into the Herculean Alliance. Sounds easy, but looking back, only a few would make it through all the struggles.

Safmarine Trophy

Almost the same thing happened with Safmarine. Mario was working there. Safmarine also joined a team in the first edition, and they also loved it. They were also known for their specific culture, and they asked us to start the Safmarine Trophy.

Francis, Jan, Sophie, Nadine, Larissa, and many others have played a pivotal role and are still true fans. Sophie recently became a customer with Bahri in Dubai, and Francis joined the Trophy again with Exmar in Belgium.

Safmarine is a South African container shipper who bought CMB and installed its headquarters in Antwerp. They were later integrated into Maersk. And just like Belgacom, Maersk stopped the Safmarine Trophy when they integrated both companies. However, just like we did with the ICT Trophy, we transformed the Safmarine Trophy into the Maritime Trophy with the help of CEPA, Alfaport, De Lloyd, Barbera, Jan, Rudi, Johan, Philip, Miranda, Luc, and so many more.

Funny story. Many years later, in 2014, I received a phone call from Denmark. It was the CHRO from Maersk. They conducted an internal global survey asking for initiatives to reinforce the Safmarine culture. “Restart Hercules Trophy” was the answer! So we organised the Safmarine Trophy one last time at The Olympic Park in Munich.

Safmarine taught me that the Hercules Trophy was not a Belgian phenomenon. When I looked at all these different nationalities coming literally from all over the world, creating a moment that matters on just one day, I knew we had to take this global. But more about that in another episode.

Growing Hercules Trophy through white-labelled events

We organised the Telindus Trophy and the Safmarine Trophy for almost seven years in a row. This is remarkable because you would think that companies would always look for “new event concepts” to wow their community. The secret of our success was innovating “within” the format. That’s how we created a sustainable business. But more about the innovation in another episode.

Telindus pushed us to develop the ICT Trophy, and Safmarine helped us to create the Maritime Trophy. However, we didn’t stop there. In just a few years, we approached other communities. We created the Airport Trophy with Roland and Ilse, the Retail Trophy with Jorg, the HR Trophy with Vacature, the Mechelse Trophy with Caroline and the Microsoft Trophy with Dirk and Bruno.

Much later, we were also approached by companies like Nokia, ING and Deloitte to create their private game days. We even received a request from Madrid to organise a Trophy for the marketing world with IP Mark. That would be our first step outside Belgium, but more about going global in another episode.

All the verticals then gave us the same message: let’s create an inter-community concept. So we started that from 2009 onwards, 10 years after the start.

HERCULEAN LEARNINGS THAT WORKED FOR ME

• Listen to your customers but stay close to your vision.
• Bring the right people on board. The people who are way better than you. In one of the next episodes, I will also explain what happens if you take the wrong people on board.

THANK YOU HERCULEANS

All the people who were mentioned in this blog and the many others who helped us craft the communities. I didn’t mention him here because he inspired me along the whole journey, but now is a good time to thank my dear friend Jan Demey.

Read the previous episode here.

Disclaimer

The Herculean Chronicles are my personal interpretation of 25 years of the Hercules Trophy. I’ve written 12 stories from a place of love and gratefulness, even for my adversaries. All the names are real, and it’s my way of thanking everyone and bringing the community together around untold stories. It’s also a way to explain the journey to my kids so they won’t make the same mistakes again and remember their roots. As it’s impossible to remember everything, please contact me and send me your stories to enrich the legacy.