Why are some organizations successful while others fail? This key question will be explored on this day. Strategic management involves management decisions and actions that determine the long-term performance of an organization. On this day, concepts, tools, and approaches to strategic management challenges will be discussed in the context of rapidly changing conditions, such as technological disruptions, frequently changing customer needs, and digital transformation.

• What are the core elements of strategic management?

• What are the contents of a successful strategy? What questions must be answered in every strategy development?

• What are the key factors for business success?

• How does strategy development work and what methods are used?

• What are the success factors for strategy implementation and which tools are applied?

Change management involves the ongoing adaptation of organizations to changing conditions. In times of increasingly rapid change, tougher competition, technological disruptions, and frequently shifting customer needs, change management is no longer an exception but has become a common practice. The professional use of change management methods and tools can therefore provide a significant competitive advantage.

• How do people behave during change?

• What is the role of leadership in change?

• What are the methods to overcome resistance?

• What are important tools for managing change?

• What are the typical mistakes in change processes? How can change processes be professionally supported?

How Robust Is My Strategy? Nobody knows what the future holds. But since the global Covid-19 pandemic, we all know from painful personal experience what it means when the world suddenly and unexpectedly falls apart. Many companies and public institutions were unprepared and were hit by existential crises like a typhoon. Start-ups were just as severely affected as international corporations. The consequences are still felt in some areas. Both the pandemic and recent global geopolitical changes that impact markets and companies have shaken the entire world awake: As companies, we must prepare for unexpected events in an environment of volatility, uncertainty, and complexity. What can we learn from this for our strategy work?

• Why are some companies hit harder by crises than others?

• How can companies better prepare for the unexpected and the unthinkable?

• What tools can companies use concretely to better anticipate opportunities and risks?

• How can strategic foresight be effectively integrated into strategy work?

• How can companies remain innovative even in a “no way out” situation?

In the age of digital transformation and the resulting enormous challenge for companies to question and reinvent their own business models, trends play a crucial role. Identifying various societal and technological trends and analyzing their relevance for the industry, company, and business model is no easy task. The goal of this day is to bring clarity to the trend jungle and show you which common methods can be used to identify, cluster, and evaluate trends—and how to develop structured ideas for new products, services, or business models based on this information:

• What are trends and how do they spread?

• What is the relevance of trends from a management perspective?

• Which methods and tools can be used to identify trends? How does successful trend scouting work?

• How can trend-based innovation be implemented?

• What is the process from trends to the development of innovative products, services, and business models?