Academy
7-D Development Process
Learning Pathways | Strategic Curricula
Modular Academy | General Business Skills
Enabling Orientation
Orientation and Connectivity Models. How do we enable orientation and an understanding for connectivities and linkages in an interconnected and dynamic world. Designing and customizing practical frameworks for business and organizational orientation.
Contextual Analysis
A schematic and systematic look at context and complexity, and their distinct implications on strategy, innovation, organization, leadership and management. Zooming out and slowing down before making decisions and taking actions.
Adaptive Competencies
Learning to think in terms of dynamics, navigating through different organizational cycles and developing adaptive personal and organizational capabilities. About hypes, trends and megatrends. Loose-fit|right-fit organizations: how to build resilience and robustness for the long run. The art of timing and pacing. And much more.
Multi-modal Intervention Mix
Looking for patterns, structures and interdependencies. Using practical, applied system thinking to gain the biggest leverage. Progressing from analysis to a careful mix of low-cost, effective interventions. The Art of the Mini-Max Intervention.
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Strategizing »full 2 lean«
Strategizing »full | lean | agile«. Approaches, methods, tools and road maps ranging from whole-scale to incremental. Right strategies for specific contexts. With a focus on fast, small-scale, iterative and practical direction finding.
Business Model Canvas | Value Proposition Design
Two evergreens worth looking at. Quick tools for fast analysis. Thinking through the key dimensions of a business or social enterprise [BMC]. Delivering value from a customer’s point of view [VPD].
Effectuation
An entrepreneurial, resource-focused and super-practical framework to manage search, change and development processes in rather uncertain and complex situations when goals are not (yet) clearly known.
Functional Strategies
Strategies and strategy development for business functions and their alignment with overall company strategies. Navigating the maze of functional and cross-functional themes.
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Organization Design
An introduction into Organisation Design. Practical frameworks and dimensions of OD. Organisational Health, Organisational Fit and Good Design Principles.
Boundary Spanning
The Art of Connecting. Holistic leadership and practical organisational skills. Effective collaboration across silos and how to make it happen.
Matrix Management
»Making The Matrix Work«. Collaboration skills for complex organisational structures. With special focus on middle management challenges and capabilities.
Organizational Agility
A practical look at concepts and tools to increase self-organisation while maintaining alignment and direction. Scrum, Design Thinking and a diversity of micro-methods.
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Cultures + Identities
About cultures and identities, and why they still matter. Descriptive models and cultural dimensions. How cultural assumptions influence strategies, organizations and ideas on leadership. Practical implications and learnings.
Leaderhip
Models, frameworks and leadership dimensions. How culture influences our idea of “good leadership”. Identifying and living leadership behaviors for and in your organization. A complex and controversial, yet fun topic.
Enabling + Living Change
A look at the entire spectrum from whole-scale to incremental change. Dimensions, designs, mindsets, roadmaps. Mindset change through system change. With a focus on agile approaches and project-based learning. Searching for a calm, practical, down-to-earth approach.
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Human Resources
From recruiting to retention. About talent identification and development, performance management, succession planning. And much more. An overview and comprehensive tool kit.
Team Effectiveness
What constitutes an “effective” team? What are the main dimensions to take care of? About goals, roles, conflicts, decision taking, collaboration and feedback. Includes the topics of agile and international teams.
Meeting Effectiveness
Planning and running better Meetings. Collaboration without waste. From Meeting Manifest to Meeting Canvas and effective actions. With a special focus on the challenges of remote meetings.
Kanban
Enabling personal and professional balance and productivity. An effective process and visualization framework to gain back and maintain control over competing priorities.
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Strategy Execution & Delivery
Making things happen requires linking strategy design with strategy execution. Dimensions and principles. Thinking through and developing a coherent and holistic implementation approach to increase likelihood of success.
PPP Practical Project Management
The many practicalities of Project Management. The basics of PM. Dealing with unclear goals, unrealistic targets, multiple stakeholders, project crises and other obstacles. An overview.
General Business Skills
How to systematically develop General Business skills step by step. Understanding the basics of value chains, production processes, corporate functions or general management dimensions. Finance for Non-Financials. A cross-functional and base-line introduction.
Project-based Learning
Mixing Doing and Development. How to integrate project delivery with personal as well as organizational learning. A small investment with material long-term benefits.
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The Embedded Economy
Economy as an embedded concept. Ecological ceilings, social foundations and their indicators. The art of drawing systems boundaries. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The Circular Economy concept. An introduction.
TESEI Total Economic, Societal and Ecological Impact
Total Economic, Societal and Ecological Value. A simplified yet practical orientation framework. Ethics & Aesthetics for a safe, prosperous and sustainable future.
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Copyright: Kovacic, Ferdinand A (2019) | CC BY NC SA 4.0 int | Workcode CD-01-LIZ0000007253-7 | Icons: Noun Project
Modular Academy | Global Business Skills
Globalisation
International business environments and “The New Normal”. The Triad of globalisation, digitalisation and politicisation. Economic, business and political shifts. Between Connectography and Globaloney. Key strategy topics in internationalisation. Shocks, megatrends and dealing with complexities.
Institutional and Organisational Environments
Expecting and understanding institutional and organisational differences. Looking at Liberal versus Coordinated Market Economies. Or rentier systems and neo-patrimonialism. Models of organisations: stakeholders, power, decision making, property rights.
Political Risk and Mitigation
A systematic look at sources, types and the nature of political risks at the local, regional and geo-political level. Proactive mitigation and negotiation strategies. Non-Market engagements, and honest corporate citizenship and shared value approaches.
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Country-level Analysis
Analysis of a potential target country in which to operate. Market research and market entry preparations. Use of practical yet systematic analysis frameworks. Identification of valuable information and research sources. From research to networks to exploration | learning journeys. With a sober look at country-related risks.
Industry-level Analysis
An in-depth look at the competitive landscape of local and peer competitors. Matching value offer and competitive sensitivities in different industries from a cultural, administrative, geographic or economic perspective. Incumbents versus international competitors: (dis)advantages of global competitors.
Firm-level Analysis
How to compete and add value. Using a strength-based view on firm-specific resources, capabilities and core competencies. Applying Adaptation, Aggregation and Arbitrage strategies. Determining the organisation’s globalization readiness. Right-sizing company expectations.
Portfolio Matching
Matching country and market with the firm’s/organization’s value offer to achieve scale and relevance. Performing a market attractiveness and prioritization analysis. Clustering geographies and value offer portfolios. Determining the overall risk portfolio.
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Organisation Designs
Organisation Designs for Emerging Markets. Moving beyond structures. Designing and managing internal as well as external connectivities. Thinking about functional area strategies and operations. The role of the (regional) Headquarter. Effective set-up and use of Shared Service Centers. Organising for and around volatilities.
Route-to-Market
Planning your local presence. Analysing local structures and dynamics. Developing EM Sales and Channel Management strategies. Taking a patient, long-term life cycle view. Assessing affordable investments and macro-micro risks. Aligning RTM with the changes in market maturity. Maintaining your brand, quality and reputational control.
Distributor Management | Focus EM
Selecting and recruiting of distributors. Thoughtful designs of distributor’s functionalities and life-time co-operations. Building and maintaining operational effectiveness. Developing appropriate monitoring and control processes. Establishing mutual training and communication processes. Understanding and agreeing on pricing and margin management.
Supply Chain Management
Understanding Emerging Market Supply Chain characteristics. Developing collaborative SCM orchestration. How to match innovation, business and supply chain strategies. Building long-term strategic supply chain resilience. Assuring operational effectiveness along internal and external supply chain nodes. Integrating and training external partners.
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Global Cultures
The ability to manage across cultures. Defining social and cultural identities: ideas of man and nature. Describing cultural environments: descriptive models, cultural dimensions, global environments and clusters. The workplace as culture stomping ground: on strategy, leadership, decision finding and organizing. Practical implications for versatility and communication skills.
Leadership in a Global Context
A look at leadership in the international context. Conventional notions of leadership and management. Leadership as a cultural and context-dependent phenomenon. Institutional and organizational environments and their potential impacts. The GLOBE Study. The art of boundary-spanning across leadership expectations.
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HR Capabilities | Talent
Thinking about people development as »talent at all levels«. Combine proactive, long-term strategic processes and designs (> »Corporate Academy«) with practical, on the spot operational implementation. Assuring top management team diversity. Building vocational and managerial | leadership skills for front-line workers and supervisors. Grow skills and talent from within, at home, abroad and with key partners. Foster appropriate diversity and inclusion.
Managing Global Teams
Understanding advantages and special challenges of working across distances, cultures and countries. Building and leading global and dispersed teams. Leadership versatility in a global context. How to manage communication and maintain trust. Remote project management. Technology as enabler and its limits.
Corporate | Organizational Academy
You got that far? Fantastic. What do you think of it? Interested? For business propositions | inputs | exchange of ideas | cooperations | pro bono please get in contact with me.
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Frugal | Innovation
A practical look at innovation leverage points: creating or redesiging products + services for local needs; adjusting the business model to local environments; cost containment; and the thoughtful integration of new technologies. With a special focus on »frugal innovation« to serve the poor and emerging middle class people in Emerging and Developing Countries.
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Factfulness | Life on Four Income Levels
Studying and learning from Hans Rosling’s great book »Factfulness«, the Gapminder project [www.gapminder.org] and the concept of Life on Four Income Levels. Instincts at work and how to correct our mental landscapes on global facts: gap | negativity | straight line | fear | size | generalization | destiny | single perspective | blame | urgency. Get the book and study their website.
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Copyright: Kovacic, Ferdinand A (2019) | CC BY NC SA 4.0 int | Workcode CD-01-LIZ0000007253-7 | Icons: Noun Project
Modular Academy | Fundamentals of Business Finance
Business Finance Framework
(x) Enjoy a graphical representation of a company’s finances and how they change over time.
(x) Choose between digital and physical/analogue versions and different levels of complexity
(x) Experiment with a high-level view of how a business really works
(x) Experience fundamental business finance concepts in a very ‘tangible’ form
(x) Develop ‘composite’ business and financial literacy
Practical Business Finance
(x) Explore the fundamentals of business finance and cut through the myths and ‘jargon jungle’ of business finance
(x) Decipher financial reports and assess the financial health and viability of a business
(x) Uncover the three core financial statements – Income Statement, Balance Sheet and Cash Flow Statement – and learn how they help to run a business
(x) Delve into their key elements, from (sales) revenues to net income
(x) Learn about those central key finance/accounting concepts that really matter in business practice
Linking Business Finance & Business/Operational Model
(x) Understand your company’s business and operating model
(x) Uncover its business narrative(s): review history, understand markets and environment, competition
(x) Analyse its annual reports,financial statements and, if available, forecasts
(x) Obtain and study i external reports about industry and company
(x) Make business model and financial figures ‘match’ and ‘tell’ a coherent business story
The Pricing Waterfall
(x) Study a visual representation and analysis of pricing factors, from ‘base price’ to ‘pocket price’ and ‘pocket margin’
(x) Break-down the components that affect the final price, including ‘on-invoice discounts’, ‘off-invoice adjustments’, ‘cost-to-serve’ and other costs
(x) Understand, categorise and assess price ‘leakages’ in your business; identify areas for improvement and make informed decisions to optimise profitability
(x) Use a tailor-made, concise framework creatively combining the traditional pricing waterfall concept with a modern strategic pricing design model
Mechanics of Pricing
(x) Understand and practice the ‘mechanics of pricing’
(x) Assess the impact of price changes on profitability as a function of contribution margins/cost of goods sold
(x) Simulate concrete planned or possible pricing changes for your business
English-German | Englisch-Deutsch
(x) All materials and training sessions are available in two languages
(x) English and German | Englisch und Deutsch
(x) Serves a dual purpose if required: business finance AND business language training
(x) Translation and other language services are available
(x) Alle Materialien und Trainingseinheiten sind in zwei Sprachen verfügbar
(x) Dient bei Bedarf einem doppelten Zweck: Finanztraining UND Sprachtraining
(x) In cooperation with Young Translations Language Solutions (see https://www.young-translations.com/en/)
Copyright: Kovacic, Ferdinand A (2024) | CC BY NC SA 4.0 int | Icons: Noun Project
»Let it not be said that I have said nothing new: the arrangement of the material is new.« Blaise Pascal