Educating the managers of tomorrow

Strategic management refers to the set of managerial decisions and actions that determine the organization’s competitiveness and long-run performance. The strategy classes provide a framework to develop analytical thinking, strategic decision-making, and the ability to deal with strategic complexity. You will experience and learn about strategy formulation, strategic management, and strategy implementation. To do so, you will work on various case studies (in class and in teams) and interact with C-level managers in the classroom.

The general learning outcome is to

• be able to conduct a broad environmental analysis,
• formulate strategic choices and policies that determine the long-term success of firms,
• understand the differences between business-level and corporate-level strategies,
• demonstrate how to identify strategic problems and make recommendations.

This course aims to build an understanding of macroeconomic mechanisms and the way they determine the evolution of the global economic environment.

• principles of macroeconomics, interest rates, exchange rates, monetary/fiscal policy, inflation, unemployment and phases of the business cycle
• understanding macroeconomic factors for large groups and economic aggregates to identify their systemic behaviours
• focus on recent trends, political choices, and how central institutions affect corporate business choices

These courses will introduce you to marketing and the definition of the marketing environment (PEST and SWOT tools). You will be able to define a winning marketing strategy, from the context analysis to the definition of practical steps. Applications will focus on real cases, e.g. in the aviation and telephone industry.

Further topics:

• consumer segmentation, including building a strong and valuable brand
• market segmentation, differentiation
• principles of phygital marketing (combining digital and physical)
• learning how to perform quantitative and qualitative research
• the value of price; customer value

Starting from the 2009-2011 crisis, you will get a deep analysis of causes-effects processes, passing from the Italian to the European economic and political situation. The final aim of the course is to define how the economy is influenced and consequently influences business dynamics.

The course aims to cover issues relating to the digitalization processes of companies operating in different sectors. It provides an approach to cover the management of information and communication technology, the choice of infrastructure and systems, strategic planning and the governance of ICT.

Understanding what is going on when different stakeholders act together in statutory meetings, with the final purpose of developing a company's strategic choices.

In this course, you will understand the principles and fundamentals of finance:

• bonds, derivative assets, arbitrage and financial engineering
• pricing of financial instruments, a formal approach to price forward/futures
• hedging interest rate risk, risk management
• swaps, options, pricing of options, applications of financial options

The course focuses on financial markets and instruments:

• discuss the vocabulary of finance
• understand important techniques (compound discounting, pension funds, credit pricing, basics of financial decisions, short sale or arbitrage)
• define and understand a financial product
• the importance of risk management
• get to know various types of investments and some specific aspects of markets

These courses will make you understand the role of accounting and controlling in a business context. In various case studies, you will use the instruments and techniques of accounting and controlling as for example:

• costing and profitability analyses of products, services, markets, customers,
• performance measurement
• understand why accounting information must include both financial and non-financial information (and how you can analyze this information)
• understand a balance sheet for the purpose of company assessment and valuation
• understand the role of private equity
• definition, construction and interpretation of main blocks of financial statements: income statement, balance sheet and cash flow statement

Corporate finance application through the management of highly complex excel worksheets. Understanding how to develop effective business plans for company valuation and stardom operations or debt restructuring operations.

This corporate finance course aims to introduce the valuation methods, the concept of value drivers and the basics of value-based management through a mix of lectures and various case discussions (in class and teams).

• definition of financial valuation models, applied to real cases
• financial markets
• review of corporate and financial strategy
• mergers and acquisitions
• venture capital
• corporate ownership and governance

You will understand the strategic role of Human Resources within organizations. With case studies (in class and teams), you will learn about the principles and application (in modern management) of

• business drivers for HR strategy,
• the recruitment strategy,
• the executive remuneration and compensation,
• management development and leadership,
• how to structure and evaluate employee performance.

The importance of communication, relationships, and stakeholders' role in prioritising and obtaining a competitive advantage over time. The best practices to be adopted within different types of organisations.

Impact Innovation:
"Companies that want to stay competitive need to think about how their business would be like years from now." This is an in-depth course in working with impact (radical) innovation. The course includes a scientific understanding and application of tools and methods for exploring and experimenting impact innovation in the context of a chosen scientific domain. The course covers hands-on exercises of tools and methods applied in leading firms, as well as discussions on governance and how to effectively set up organizations for impact innovation.

Strategic Dilemmas:
"Running a large corporation is complex. Strategies constantly include trade-offs, risk and uncertainty. We need to be able to integrate a series of disciplines in business to make qualified long-term decisions." This course gives an in-depth case-based learning experience with practical application. The case presented will include areas of innovation, digitalization, operations, finance and how a challenge from the executive management can be handled by a set of experts (you). During the case, you will act as an internal management consultant and provide direct recommendations to executive management.

"Innovation for Change" is dedicated to the impact innovation world. The objective of the whole programme is to apply the most advanced technologies to contribute to the resolution of problems of social interest, with the ambition to generate a significant impact on the world in a medium-long term perspective.

From the business idea to a sustainable business, this course is about business planning and marketing of innovation and start-ups. The course is highly practical: Each group identifies technology innovators from research or start-ups and works with them on new business models and market approaches to find new product-market-mixes for a given technology or innovation. Over three to four months, the teams work on a business plan which is then presented at the end.

In various case studies (in class and teams), you will also learn about

• venture capital
• the building of a financial plan
• capitalization terms, elements of pricing
• negotiating deals
• the preparation for profitable exit strategies
• the role of entrepreneurship

Structuring a sales proposition of an existing or a new business idea is fundamental, particularly with the final object of managing rapid changes in business and organizational models. The course aims to define a sales strategy within the company and how to plan pricing, according also to the new trends occurring within corporates.

The seminar focuses on growth through innovation. Through various case studies (in class and teams), you will learn about

• managing technology-driven enterprises
• managing innovation project portfolios
• principles of innovation

Leaders – be they corporate, public, NGOs or entrepreneurs – must navigate complexity, triggered by two mutually reinforcing paradigm shifts: globalization and digitalization. This requires human-centered, creative, iterative, and pragmatic approaches that help to imagine and roll out new, better ideas and unthought-of solutions. Design thinking is such an approach to innovation: The visualization and design of “possible futures”, of processes, products and services is critical to business competitiveness. Design thinking is the productive combination of analytical thinking, intuition, and doing.

To strengthen the ability to think about all the consequences of the digital revolution for the European industry, the Collège des Ingénieurs offers seminars that focus on digitalization.

"Data4Business" is an ambitious programme that will prepare you to become a leader in the corporate world. You will learn to use the power of data to drive innovation and impact in businesses. The bottleneck in digital transformation driven by data is identifying real business needs and designing adequate answers using data. We will focus on this business mindset, using data only to create value for a business.

"Driving Business Value with Applied Data Analytics" will enable you to analyze data sets of medium size quickly and to visualize and communicate conclusions and interpretations clearly. This includes an initial data exploration and preparation in Excel/PowerBI and the creation of interactive dashboards with meaningful visualizations in PowerBI. The course is wrapped up with PowerPoint and techniques on designing slides efficiently and effectively in the big consulting firms' style.

You will learn how to demonstrate effective written and verbal communication by acting on the pillars of communication and on topics related to storytelling and identity. Also, you will focus on how to communicate and network in the digital space.

In this course, you will understand how to increase the probability of success during negotiations and business meetings and learn how to relate with other parties involved (in different types of transactions) with a particular focus on how to ask and how to reply according to the person you have in front. You will work on various case studies and negotiation simulations.

Beyond intuitive negotiation, you will get to know the keys to more rational thinking in negotiation and learn about fundamental preparation, negotiating a project, and dealing with emotions to enhance the negotiator's effectiveness.

Learn how to manage stress and define posture, body language, and pause. You will define a speech structure and language in front of an audience, with suggestions on how to coordinate a PowerPoint presentation.

Learn how to build a personal career strategy, considering yourself as part of a personal project plan, a business. You will understand how to recognize and list the main parameters to optimize a business and recognize the main questions to ask yourself in carrying out a business – with the final objective of increasing business and personal performance.

The course will enable you to improve

• your team effectiveness (collaborative intelligence, meeting, mailing, team knowledge, enhance leadership, manage conflicts, build a team)
• your personal effectiveness (amplify your intelligence, resist the stress, organize the agenda and the desk, personal branding)
• your effectiveness in business (increase sales, reduce costs, manage a unit with projects and processes, scoreboard, KPIs)

Recognize that more than getting the right skills is needed to solve a problem efficiently. Be aware that teams must go through several phases before they can work efficiently together. Discover the key drivers available to team leaders to accelerate team development.

Each MBA candidate should individuate a managerial skills model and realize the leadership style that suits them best. In fact, as for private life, also professional life consists of relationships, where the essential factor is the quality of human relationships. Therefore, the course aims to develop relational intelligence and the virtuous circle of emotional maturity and empathy in each candidate.

This course raises awareness of the importance of soft skills in a leadership role. You will increase self-awareness from the perspective of motivation (what drives us, what is our drivers' satisfaction level, what motivates others) and understand that our way of seeing the world is not universal. The course creates a deep moment of connection between the fellows as they start the MBA journey together.

Long-term career planning involves a lot of guidance and preparation. It involves identifying core skills and values while developing personal and career goals in broad strokes. You will also identify career and employment trends: How can you prepare for future career developments?

How to manage resources and activities accordingly in a project life cycle is vital for each company. You will understand in deep the planning and analysis of the various passages of a project (start-up, planning, execution, performance monitoring, closure), including as a core part also risk management techniques and tools for coordinating projects.

The goal of a business presentation is to propose a documented business idea to an executive committee of the company where the MBA fellow's mission takes place. The targets are to

• detect a top management issue
• have a development perspective of the idea and make recommendations on actions (if possible with figures)
• bring to life everything you say with extra influence, personal impact, authority and natural presence
• develop compelling content that quickly connects with people (from all backgrounds) and discover strategies for handling questions
• comprehend how to gain buy-in from difficult personalities

By gaining personal feedback and supportive coaching through video analysis, you will feel confident to put all these skills into action.