SERVIENTREGA S.A.

:
Managerial Insights Delivered Direct from Colombia
Daniel Arturo Heller1
Guido Angello Castro2)

After an hour drive through thick Wednesday morning traffic, our Chinese-made taxi entered a busy
driveway in the outskirts of Bogot. Our team of five had come to Colombia from three continents. We
shared one mission: To study how management is done at an emerging-market multinational corporation,
Servientrega, that has grown to become the market leader in the package delivery business in the northern
Andean region of South America.
Two other teams had also left the Sonesta Hotel on the same morning with the same charge. One went to
Aviatur, another emerging-market multinational corporation that specializes in the tourism sector. The third
team went to a furniture manufacturer, Multiproyectos, that provides a locally sourced alternative to imports
from China and elsewhere. In past years, similar teams have visited: Du Toitskloof Winery in South Africa,
Elan Sports and Bank Austria in Slovenia, Thomson-Reuters and the Environment Agency in the UK, CocaCola in Mexico, Blue Lagoon in Iceland, among many others.
These mid-week company visits come after participants in the Roundtables for Practicing Managers
program have spent two full days examining, expressing, and reframing their individual managerial challenges,
shifting between the ve managerial mindsets (reective, analytic, worldly, collaborative, action), learning the
vocabulary of managerial styles (art, craft, science), and becoming familiar with some tools that can be used to
improve the practice of managing (targeted reections, focused discussion, storytelling, role playing). After a
period of looking inward, going to the companies is a chance to shift the focus to the outside, so that we do not
lose sight of the rich and often enigmatic contexts that reality contains.
Of course there is a severe limit to what can be learned in a single half-day visit. One can only talk with
a small number of people and see a limited number of places. There will generally be restrictions on where
outsiders can go, and the people with whom one speaks will have been chosen based on their availability,
language skills, and other reasons. One cannot hope to get a fully representative picture of even a small to
medium-sized enterprise in such a short time, let alone a corporation with thousands of employees and multiple
locations. Yet, obtaining such an all-encompassing picture is not the goal of these visits.
Rather than seeking to understand, diagnose, and prescribe solutions, in the manner of a quick-fix

1) Professor, Yokohama National University, daheller@ynu.ac.jp

2) Assistant Professor, Universidad de La Sabana, guido.castro@unisabana.edu.co

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consultant, we visit companies to probe how the practice of managing is actually done in a real-world
environment. Through the generosity of the companies that open their doors to us, we are allowed to observe
managerial work in a specic setting and use this experience to obtain a fresh perspective and insights on how
management is accomplished in general. The process helps us learn about our own managerial styles, embrace
our individual strengths and our weaknesses, and improve how we practice (and teach) management.
Observation is a key tool in realizing the potential of the company visits. In Goslings course notes he
explains the process, attentive observation, as follows. When we look through a window we see what is on the
other side, and if we look carefully we can also see our own reection. Seeing both images is a matter of being
able to change the focus of ones gaze. Alternating between the different images can enrich the observation
experience.
The other side of the window is the practice of management in general. Your own image is how you
understand managerial action and practice it yourself or as a group. In addition to the two images on either side
of a window, often we can see the glass itself particularly if it has some dirt on it!
The company that is visited is the glass: the specic manifestation of how the practice of managing is
done in a particular context. Occasionally the glass is very clean; we nd it easy to relate what is being seen to
management in general or to our own managerial ways. Or we may nd that the glass is frosted; it is hard to
see anything except the glass itself. Usually, however, the glass will be clearer in some places and more opaque
in others.
In the remainder of this chapter, we will look at Servientrega and the visit that Vicky Thompson, Samo
Krizaj, Jonathan Gosling, and the two authors made to the company on the morning of April 30, 2014. By
studying Servientrega, its successful and very Colombian way of doing business, and though our description
of the act of observing this company, we will introduce the universal managerial insights we think we got a
glimpse of in this shared exercise.
Overview of Servientrega
Servientrega began operations in 1982, with the establishment of the company that would later become
the market leader in document and merchandise delivery in Colombia. Founded by the brothers Jesus and
Luz Mary Guerrero, Servientrega started out as a modest family business that offered delivery services within
Bogot and to some of the larger cities in Colombia: Cali, Medellin, and Barranquilla. Servientrega had a very
humble beginning; the delivery business started just by putting packages on buses. As the company grew, it
gradually began to rent space and build up its infrastructure.
Servientrega is headquartered in Bogot, with branch ofces in the administrative regions in the major cities
of Colombia, as well as operations in Ecuador, Per, Venezuela (closed as of 2014), Panama, and the USA (Florida
and New York). In Colombia, Servientrega runs ten main logistic centers, which are located in the countrys major
cities. The companys Colombian operations makes up 70% of total sales; 50% of Colombia is Bogot, which
has 100 trucks to collect and 200 trucks and many motorcycles to deliver. The company used to have two planes,
but they were disposed of in 2013 due to the high cost of maintenance. Including direct hires by franchisees,
Servientrega employs 12,000 people in Colombia. As of 2014, retail sales (B2C) accounted for approximately
55% of total sales, with the remainder comprised of corporate solutions (B2B).
Servientrega is among the two hundred largest companies in Colombia, with sales of around US$266

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Group Photo from the Visit

Source: Photographed by the authors during visit; from left to right: Jonathan Gosling,
Daniel Arturo Heller, Ernesto Guerrero Ceron, Gastn Blanco, Vicky Thompson,
Samo Krizaj, and Guido Angello Castro; reproduced with permission

Table 1Top ten courier and delivery companies in Colombia (million USD)
Sales 2013

Sales 2012

Sales 2011

Sales 2010

Sales 2009
158.05

Servientrega

266.88

262.32

231.22

197.39

4-72 Red Postal*

125.72

99.66

86.51

84.13

66.82

TCC

116.06

111.75

111.24

92.33

78.67

Envia-Colvanes

113.13

116.07

122.15

99.72

70.70

Coordinadora

101.47

103.29

94.33

75.90

61.61

DHL Colombia

83.22

80.88

76.56

64.26

52.60

Fedex Colombia

38.62

37.57

35.34

31.76

26.38

Inter rapidsimo

34.75

32.24

27.74

24.31

18.81

TG Express

26.84

24.06

22.42

21.95

18.37

10

Enco Express

20.43

20.20

18.82

12.89

9.60

* Government-owned company
Source: Lanota.com (produced from ofcial data and data released by the companies)

million in 2013 (local Colombian sales only; see Table 1). The companys prot performance was 16% (ROE)
in 2013, which is among the highest for package delivery companies in Colombia for this reference year.
Servientregas largest competitor, 4-72, the Colombian postal service, does some small package deliveries but
has tended to focus its operations on mail and documents.
Servientrega grew to dominate the local market, rst with the delivery of small packages and documents,

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Table 2Servientrega s Sensemaking Using Five-Year Periods

Five-year period

Label

Key achievements

19821987

Gestation

Started operations in Bogot, sending documents to Cali and

Buenaventura (port city); Expansion to other cities: Barranquilla,
Bucaramanga, Medellin and Cartagena

19871992

Positioning

First marketing activities; Created the slogan, Servientrega es entrega

segura (Servientrega is safe delivery), to show a major corporate
value: safety

19931997

Diversication

Began operations in Ecuador; Servientregas founders created a series

of allied companies associated with the companys core business
of logistics: Servientrega Worldwide (international deliveries),
CVLogistics (air cargo charter), Efecty and Dimonex (money
transfers), Global Management (outsourcing services), Timon (ground
eet management), and Totalseguros (insurance brokers)

19982002

Consolidation

Began to develop and offer tailor-made logistics solutions; Started

offering logistics process management services at its customers
facilities

20032007

Integration

Changed marketing strategy and created a new slogan: Servientrega:

Centro de Soluciones (Servientrega: Solutions Center), integrating
under the same vision the services of the other allied companies; Began
the process of renewing its infrastructure with the construction of new
logistics centers in the major cities of Colombia

20082012

Expansion

Expanded its portfolio of products and services to offer specialized

solutions to companies in different economic sectors that can be
supported in the Solutions Center strategy; Began operations in Per
and Panam

20132017

Sustainability

Echoing the color of its brand (green), defined the companys focus
on sustainability, which is understood as self-generated resources,
commitment to corporate social responsibility, and environmental
stewardship; Created a new slogan: Dejando huella verde (Leaving a
green footprint)

Source: Authors, with information from the visit and www.servientrega.com

and later on with transportation services for corporate merchandise and larger deliveries. For a long time
it faced no major competitor in Colombia. International companies (e.g., DHL, Fedex and others) began
to gain a foothold in Colombia only in the 2000s. As Servientrega developed structurally, financially, and
technologically, the company established a strong local brand between 1983 and 2000, which probably delayed
the arrival of foreign competitors.
Servientregas strategy has been to position its sales points close to the customer in towns and
neighborhoods covering the entire country. Competitors have followed this strategy to challenge Servientregas
domination of the market. As a response, Servientrega has offered additional services that have been developed
by new companies belonging to the same corporate group. Among those services are: money transfers,
insurance, mobility services, call center services, outsourcing support, international courier, and others.
Servientrega has sought to make sense of its development path by breaking it down into ve-year periods.
Beginning with the founding of the company, each period has been labeled with a strategic purpose (Table 2).
In more recent periods, labels have been denoted at the beginning of the period to mobilize and motivate the

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Photo of Trucks at CIL

Source: Photographed by the authors during visit; reproduced with permission

organization. The current ve-year period, Sustainability, is aimed at taking steps towards cleaner logistics
operations in accordance with social demands to care for the environment.
Flow of visit
The visit took place in Servientregas Centro Internacional Logstico (CIL; International Logistic Center)
located in one of the load terminals to the Bogot International Airport El Dorado (BOG). The agenda for our
visit was divided into two stages (but really it was three); in the rst stage there was a presentation and discussion
focused on the history of the company (its origins, its vision of strategic planning, the legacy of its founders, the
location of its operations and related issues). What followed next was a spontaneous discussion that was not on
the original agenda, but which reinforced the openness with which the company received our visit. During this
second stage of our visit, we had an extended meeting with a leader in the sales division of the company. The visit
concluded with a lengthy guided tour of the cross-docking facilities and ofces of the CIL.
The corporate presentation was given by Ernesto Guerrero Ceron, Facilitador Senior de Transporte
Nacional (Senior Manager for National Transportation), who despite having the same last name, is not related
to the family of the founders. Ernesto accompanied us for the entire visit. The presentation began with a
formal overview of the company that was designed for visitors, which covered the history of the company, its
achievements, and future outlook. Halfway through the presentation a manager from the sales area, Gastn
Blanco, joined the meeting.
From the very start of visit, we had already begun to ask Ernesto some questions that were triggered
by the presentation. Once Gastn arrived, however, the meeting rapidly became a fully two-way interactive
question and answer session. How do you interact with and evaluate your direct reports? How is it between

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Photo of Motorcycle Cross-Docking Area

Source: Photographed by the authors during visit; reproduced with permission

you and your boss? What is the management style of the company founders? How do you approach your
customers? What problems are the most common? What logistics solutions do you offer to certain sectors?
What are you doing related to e-business?
After about two hours of discussion in the conference room, we spent another couple of hours walking
around the CIL facilities and co-located ofces, including the open ofce shared by the corporate directors
when they work at this site. Ernesto took us to all the major operations at the site, taking time to respond to
all of our questions. The logistics operations of CIL are located in an old hangar that has been remodeled to
handle platform cross-docking, where the creative use of space has built one of the largest logistics operations
in the country.
The loading area for the motorcycles is quite a sight. We saw it when it was empty and one can only
imagine what it looks like when it is packed with the delivery personnel. Anyone in Bogot will have a chance
to see delivery bikes motoring around the city. Make no mistake; these are professional uniformed personnel
with their safety equipment and skillful riding. Each sports a backpack loaded with hundreds of envelopes
ready to be delivered on a long journey from sunrise to sunset.
We also observed some loading and unloading of goods, though the late morning hours are the slow time
of the day. The biggest operational problem, which is probably shared by all such companies in Colombia is
how to handle and efciently sort non-standard packages (including oversized cargo). A large proportion of
the shipments are packaged by customers in reused boxes and non-reinforced cardboard, sometimes without
sufcient protection to safeguard the content.
Servientrega relies heavily on manual labor in its handling and sorting operations, which enables the
company to permit customers to send their goods in whatever box they like. Although this freedom creates

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issues and is a widespread problem for other companies in the sector, most customers greatly prefer to avoid
paying for packaging. Servientregas biggest customers use standardized boxes, and they can negotiate for
a cheaper shipping rate by using such packaging. The resulting mixed stream of packages is difficult for
automated equipment to handle, but people can do it with ease. Servientregas ability to manage the labor force
that does the manual sorting is a source of competitive advantage for the company.
Summary of our presentation about the visit
After returning to the hotel following the company visits and a bit of sightseeing at the Salt Cathedral
of Zipaquir, the three teams went straight to work preparing for presentations the next day. How to share
what we had learned through our unique experiences at these three Colombian companies? Preparing such a
presentation is no easy task. Our team found it helpful rst to sit around a table and talk freely about what we
had seen, and glasses of cold Club Colombia beer helped loosen our tongues.
Our hosts at Servientrega had kindly let us take many photos. Some of our better shots have been
reproduced here. In this section, we reproduce the content of our presentation, following the same format
that we were required to use that day. We explain: (1) How management is done at Servientrega, (2) What we
learned about management in general from the visit, and (3) What we learned from the experience of being
part of such an international team visiting a particular company for the specific purpose of deepening our
understanding of how management gets done.
(1) How management is done at Servientrega
We could feel the family-like atmosphere that envelops Servientrega from the very start of our visit. The
second author of this chapter worked at Servientrega for about ten years before leaving in 2011 to pursue a
Ph.D. at the Universidad del Rosario (Bogot, Colombia). There were many hugs and warm words exchanged
as seemingly everyone we met in the ofces extended a warm welcome to him. Had a long-lost friend come
back, or was this the return of the prodigal son? The rest of us could only guess, but clearly someone close to
the heart had come home.
Together with the warmth of a family, we could also feel a strong sense of discipline. Our discussion with
the two managers clearly gave us the impression that it was numbers-driven company. How many packages
are moving through the facility each day? How many documents did each person sort per day, per week, per
month? How many new contacts with potential customers this month? How many actual new accounts did
a salesperson bring in this quarter? Perform (i.e., meet your targets) or be shown the door. Not everyone is
allowed to remain in this tight-knit family.
Servientregas international expansion seemed to be a natural extension of the companys Colombian
roots. The clear focus of international growth has been the surrounding Andean countries and Panama that
share somewhat similar social and market conditions. By limiting expansion in this way, the company can
apply to these new locations the same basic technological and managerial capabilities that have been honed in
Colombia.
With each start of a new 5-year plan, the CEO of the company changes. The top post alternates between
the two Guerrero brothers. This mechanism lets them each put their own stamp on the company without getting
in each others way. Regardless of which of them is CEO, the brothers were described to us as both sharing a

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Photo of Birthday Package Delivered to an Employee s Desk

Source: Photographed by the authors during visit; reproduced with permission

heartfelt concern for their employees. They frequently walk through the ofces and shop oors. They take time
to stop, talk, and inquire about ones kids, and so on. And when someone in the ofce has a birthday, he or she
will get a little something delivered to his or her desk.
We were struck by the visual consistency displayed around the office that related to the current fiveyear plan, Sustainability. Green already being the corporate color certainly contributed to this feeling. We also
saw small bamboo plants in pots on the conferences table and elsewhere throughout the visit, together with
bamboo scenes painted on the walls. There seemed to be the clear intent to use natural cues to infuse the quiet
tranquility of nature into the ofce environment. At the same time, there was also a strong showing of support
for the Colombian national football team, which Servientregas group company, Efecty, ofcially sponsored
(Colombia went on to do quite well in the 2014 World Cup).
On the distribution room oor, the companys green logo was pervasive. Yet, otherwise there were fewer
visible cues regarding the current sustainability focus. When pressed on the issue, however, our hosts explained
that they were presently implementing a plan to shift their eet to fuel-efcient trucks. This example illustrated
one way the sustainability plan had gone beyond just being a slogan or theme for ofce dcor and was being
played out in actual business decisions. When pressed even further, we were told that the decision to switch to
the more expensive trucks also made scal sense, based on the fuel costs savings over the life of a truck.
(2) What we learned about management in general from the visit
Making sense of the complex and often seemingly chaotic external world that confronts many of todays
companies is a central job of the manager. The internal side of a company can be equally difcult to grasp,
with its own ebbs and ows, personnel turnover, competing rivalries, unanticipated actions, and reactions.
We were struck by the effort at sensemaking we found inside Servientrega by the companys use of

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Photo of Bamboo Plant and Football Support

Source: Photographed by the authors during visit; reproduced with permission

its 5-year plans. Certainly one can see how a current plan is intended to give direction to a company going
forward. At the same time, Servientrega has also looked back at the past and retroactively made sense of what
the company has experienced by labeling the plans from the very start of the company. The plans certainly
helped us as visitors quickly catch the Servientrega story. Employees can also benet from having a shared
understanding of where the company has been and where it is going.
An important point of the Roundtables educational experience is to sensitize ourselves to the context
within which the practice of management takes place. In the slow x, time is taken to understand context. We
seek a solution that is tailored to a particular time, place, and above all, the unique people involved most
notably ourselves. We are willing to devote the time and effort to the slow x because we have learned the hard
way that the quick x is like a silver bullet that takes down the werewolf. It only works in a fantasy world.
By intentionally slowing things down to take time to reect on the rich context of an actual organization
and its environment, we can find the universal lessons contained in a specific context. In the case of
Servientrega, the power of familial ties has been brought into the company to increase loyalty and commitment.
In fact, there was a similar family-like feeling at all three companies that the Roundtable participants visited.
Harnessing relational trust and its benets is not something unique to Colombia, even if all the hugging is not
something that would work in, say, the U.K. or Japan.
(3) What we learned from the visit experience itself
The visit to Servientrega was fascinating, yet by all accounts it only allowed us to capture one slice of
what happens at Servientrega each day to make its business model work. Yet, in preparing and giving our
presentation, it became quite clear to us that we could at best hope to present maybe 30% of even the limited
scope of what we had learned. So, in the end maybe only about a third of a thin slice is delivered to the

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listeners, who then perhaps can only digest half again.

The exercise drove home the point that there is so much ltering that occurs in gathering information,
distilling its meaning, and attempting to share it with others. Our hosts even in their very openness were also
ltering, we were ltering throughout the visit and in deciding what to show and explain in our presentation,
and those listening to the presentation also did their own ltering. We then engaged in still more ltering in our
discussion following the presentation.
Why is there so much ltering? Certainly the time limits (in preparation, in time to present and discuss)
are a major reason, but so are the differing purposes, biases, interests, and abilities of the speakers and
listeners. Especially the emotions, smells, sounds from the visit are hard to capture and relay. We all felt that
the faces and artifacts shown in the photos tell much more than the spoken word. Filtering is pervasive but it is
also necessary to prevent information overload and the indigestion that can follow.
Since we were a group of people coming together from such different locations with such different
backgrounds for such a specic purpose, it was easier for us to see all the ltering that was going on. The
different ways the members of our team went about asking questions and gathering information at the site
made it clear that we were coming at the visit from very different angles. While it is less obvious in everyday
situations, ltering is always happening and being aware of it can help us manage it.
Summary of the discussion following our presentation
After we finished our presentation, one of the first comments we received was that the local view of
the second author was largely missing from our talk. This remark came after another participant had made
a comment about an earlier presentation at how helpful it was to have heard the local voice. Though we
had failed to convey it in our presentation, we fully agreed that the second authors participation had greatly
augmented our company visit.
The second author went on to explain that seeing Servientrega again after not having been there in a
couple of years impressed him with the positive changes he saw, such as the new expressions of the company
s management philosophy that we were shown. Yet while he did feel comfortable throughout the visit, he also
felt some degree of sadness when he thought how the company used to be his company, but now he was on the
outside looking in.
Where the layman sees green, the trained eye sees lime or verdigris. In Spanish, green is verde, but
one with deeper discernment might say verde esmeralda, verde safari, verde oliva, verde pasto, verde hoja,
verde jade, verde seco, verde suave, verde esperanza, verde Servientrega, verde verde. Each language has its
own strengths and weaknesses, and each culture trains us to think and see things in certain ways rather than
others. Visiting Servientrega and the other companies together with our Colombian colleagues aided our
understanding of the subtler issues involved and even helped us pick up on some of the contradictions that our
hosts were either unable or unwilling to notice.
In the discussion following our presentation, a Colombian participant brought up the issue of the strong
market power of the two market leaders that we visited, Servientrega and Aviatur. While these powerful local
players had managed to keep the large multinationals at bay, was their success also keeping down other smaller
players in Colombia? The question is of course not unique to emerging markets, but it does seem to be a
growing issue around the world.

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Perhaps it is inevitable in todays capitalism that the success of big companies will squeeze little ones. If
so, one can imagine that there are benets to Colombia due to the two big guys we observed being locally
owned companies. At the same time, successful local players could actually serve to reinforce the societal
divisions of the haves and have-nots. Unequal distribution of wealth and, more importantly, inequality
in access to opportunity is often described as the chronic problem of many emerging-market economies,
including Colombia.
Our presentation about Servientrega was criticized for its lack of hard gures. We were told that 90%
of what we said was about culture and organizational issues. This comment cut right to the bone. We did
not spend much time asking questions about numbers during the visit. Had we spent more time probing, we
certainly could have lled in some of the gaping holes in our understanding, which we have attempted to do a
bit in this chapter.
On the one hand, we agree the message would have come across better with some more numbers and
the grounding they impart to the qualitative points being made. On the other hand, as Henry Mintzberg
points out in The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning (1994, The Free Press), hard numbers often have a soft
underbelly. Numbers can lull us into thinking we understand things better than we actually do.
There was a level of frustration on the part of both the presenters and listeners about the lack of time to
explain and discuss. The presenters were also frustrated with the lack of time to prepare. We got back to the
hotel at dinner time, and we had to make the presentation the very next morning! To make matters worse, the
second author had to be at home that evening. We wished we had more time to prepare.
However, here again we need to remind ourselves that the exercise was purposefully set for such a short
period of time. We had come to Colombia to improve how each of us practiced management. The Rountables
involve many steps that are designed to help us achieve this goal. Spending more time on the company visits
would necessarily mean taking time away from other exercises. Severe time limits remind us that management
is all about dealing with scarcity. The manager must become adept at managing a variety of scarcities, with
time generally being the most scare of all.
Concluding words
Niceties, such as letting the discussion go longer than the allotted time, gets in the way of accomplishing
other important tasks before us. If discussion really needs to continue, people will find the time to do it
afterwards. We need to trust the process, just as we trust our fellow participants. If we let niceties get in the
way, we would not be able to accomplish what we had come all the way to Colombia to achieve.
We were also cognizant of our desire to want to see things in a good light, especially given the
graciousness of our hosts. In the discussion afterwards we were able to see the company we visited in the
somewhat harsher light of the larger Colombian society. There will always be winners and losers in any
society. Any success story must be heard in the context of the bigger picture. Hearing a more nuanced story
does not distract from the successes, but rather opens the door to greater successes, that is, successes that
extend farther and deeper into society. Is that not the ultimate goal of a true manager?
The day after our visits to the company we had to change our venue from one of Rosarios campuses to
another. The change was made to avoid going through the part of the city where a demonstration was going to
be held by farmers protesting against the land-development policies of the government. Such a demonstration

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could potentially turn violent. It had happened in the past. Though in this particular case, it ended up staying
peaceful.
Attracting foreign investment creates opportunities for economic growth. In the agricultural sector,
however, only the landowners may end up better off. The peasants, who work but do not own the land,
often nd themselves kicked out with nowhere to go, all in the name of efciency. We were reminded how
management must ultimately be about contributing to keeping the peace and building up society, not just about
prot. Since companies are invariably embedded in the larger society, management will inevitably be about
these bigger issues. It may be too much to expect anyone to be able to do it alone. The Roundtables experience
taught us that as part of a community we can see how it can get done.

Acknowledgements
We rst thank our kind hosts at Servientrega and Universidad del Rosario, who made this inquiry possible. We also express our
appreciation to Samo, Vicky, and Jonathan, who accompanied us on the visit and with whom we presented our ndings to the
other Roundtables participants. We also extend our gratitude to all the participants in the Roundtables who listened attentively to
our presentation, asked probing questions, and shared their observations. The lively discussion that ensued was eye-opening on so
many different levels, and we have tried to bring such a feeling into this chapter.