Option I: Innovative Corporate Responsibility

Professor Minna Halme, Aalto University School of Economics, Finland

In addition to traditional economic responsibility, corporations are increasingly required to take also environmental and social responsibilities. In companies these responsibilities are often perceived merely as obligations that bring extra costs. In the Innovative Corporate Responsibility course we take a different approach, and explore how to turn environmental and social corporate responsibility challenges into sources of revenues and new business ideas. We learn how to develop eco-efficient business models and how to innovate inclusive business models that alleviate poverty in a financially feasible way.

Discovering the opportunities requires both knowledge and challenging predominant thinking models. For that end we ask what are environmental and social responsibilities for businesses and how should they be integrated into management and operations of a company, paying attention to the multi-cultural settings within which international companies operate. Further, we explore what are the financial implications of different environmental management and social responsibility approaches to companies.

Option II: Strategies for Mergers and Acquisitions

Professor Tomi Laamanen, University of St. Gallen, Switzerland

Mergers and acquisitions represent a versatile tool to implement a firm’s strategy. At the same time, however, they involve a high risk of failure for inexperienced acquirers. One way of alleviating the risk of failure is to make acquisitions as a systematic practice in the acquiring firm. Rather than executing isolated deals, systematic acquirers execute streams of mutually interrelated acquisitions aimed at specific strategic targets.

In this module, we focus on five aspects of acquisitions: (1) When are acquisitions the most applicable tool to advance and implement a firm’s strategy? (2) How should acquisition targets be assessed, both strategically and financially, in the due diligence process? (3) How are acquisition programs developed and managed? (4) How to become a successful systematic acquirer? and (5) How to lead the post-acquisition integration process? We use a number of cases of both successful and less successful acquisition strategies and acquisitions accompanied with a set of analytical frameworks to develop participants' skills to successfully develop and execute acquisition strategies.

Option III: Project Management

Dr. R. Britt Freund, University of Texas at Austin, USA

The purpose of the Project Management module is to prepare participants for maturing a potentially risky project opportunity from its initial conceptualization to a realistic project plan that provides sufficient detail for the business and investors to make a funding decision. Upon successful completion of this module, participants will understand the critical components of a project organization and be able to: (1) economically evaluate a potential opportunity, (2) create and “progressively elaborate” a plan following a structured stage-gate framework,  (3) anticipate and proactively manage risk and uncertainty, (4) structure the project team and monitor progress around critical “chains” and buffers, (5) create a realistic cost and schedule estimate, and finally (6) embed these concepts into a comprehensive and integrated project plan.

Driving Growth: Designing Customer Centric Business Models

Professor Kaj Storbacka, University of Auckland Business School, New Zealand

The key driver of value creation is organic growth. This module will focus on finding growth by transforming from market driven to market driving strategies. Firms drive markets by changing their business models. Examples of such changes are: transforming products to services, moving from product sales to solutions sales, using freemium models, etc. These new business models require new types of relationships with customers and increased customer centricity.

In this highly interactive module we will

• define the essence of customer centricity in various industries;
• explore value creation based on customer relationships: how to increase the value of relationships to the provider, to the customer and to shareholders;
• analyze various ways for firms to define their market and position themselves in growing markets, or pockets of the market; and
• discuss business model design as a central capability for firms wanting to modify the market environment so that it works in their favor.