Business Transformation Course

In today’s increasingly short-lived world, organizations must constantly adapt to changing conditions and challenges. New technologies and changing customer demands are just two examples that executives need to consider when designing their business models. In addition to these aspects, a large amount of creativity is required in order to optimally design the value for the customer (Who?), the benefit promise (What?) with the central building blocks of a business model, the value chain (How?) and the earnings mechanics (Why?).

Taught by Prof. Dr. Karolin Frankenberger, a proven expert in the field of business model innovation with extensive theoretical and practical experience, the EMBA students were introduced to the diversity of business models in the Business Transformation course. The topics of the week included environmental analyses, trend understandings, organizational potential analyses and the successful implementation of such change processes. The EMBA students mastered the topics with enthusiasm and reflected on their own organizations.
The contents were substantiated by the presentations from various representatives from McKinsey, CEWE, Volkswagen and QSID Digital Advisory. The company representatives Benedikt Krings, Dr. Reiner Fageth, Markus Schmidt and Falk Bothe gave the students insights into their personal experiences and explained transformation challenges based on concrete examples.

“With the course week Business Transformation, we had the opportunity to acquire practical and theoretical useful backgrounds for our work,” noted Prof. Dr. med. Carlos Buitrago Tellez (participant EMBA 56), “and I am eager to implement the ideas in healthcare. I am looking forward to this challenge!”

Prof. Dr. Karolin Frankenberger explained, “The world is changing so quickly, competitors are changing, new players are coming into industries, markets are dissolving. That’s why it is very important to reflect on new business models and think about how to manage your own transformation – today and in the future.”

Parallel to the course contents, the students were given case studies based on real challenges of the represented companies (Volkswagen, PostAuto, Schindler, Mibelle, Swisscom and V-Zug) that were specially developed for the EMBA course. In front of Dr. Christian Schulz (Head of Operations of Schindler Group), Falk Bothe (Director Digital Transformation at Volkswagen), Reto Wenger (Open Innovation Developer at Swisscom), Julian Schubert (Business Engineer at V-Zug), Mark Hugelshofer (Head of Strategy at PostAuto) and Peter Müller (Group Head SCM Personal Care of the Mibelle Group), the EMBA students presented their business model innovation results based on the given case studies.
The EMBA students took into account the megatrends from various industries and derived suitable transformation models, which the company representatives received enthusiastically. Following the keynotes from the company representatives, Prof. Dr. Karolin Frankenberger concluded the course week with a networking aperitif.

Dr. Christian Schulz (Head of Operations, Schindler AG) summarized: “Today was something very special. It was very interesting to see how the students here presented concise, very well-devised and strongly presented cases in a very short time. It was extremely informative and I was surprised at the solutions proposed – the quality of the presentations was outstanding. What a great day!”