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24 Apr 2018, 17:00
| FROM IMD Admissions Blog: Day 2: Connect, explore & nail down! |
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On a second, exploration day of our innovation week adventure, we were deployed “in the field”. In our teams we split to look for innovations across the entire value chain of the healthcare system. We consulted professors, nurses, researchers, medical doctors, specialists, owners of testing laboratories. We visited array of different sites in the Lausanne healthcare ecosystem: the main Lausanne hospital CHUV, specialty lab Unilab, biomedical research workplace Centre Laboratoire d’Epalinges, firefighters and Brain Mind Institute of Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL). The mindset we brought with us was to look at existing problems with fresh eyes, not encumbered by any previous improvement attempts. We were looking at physical as well as mental health aspects of the problems. We were anthropologists, polite inquisitors. We listened actively, and collected data points. We conducted interviews, tested hypothesis, consulted our first ideas. All our observations were strictly patient-centric: we followed the patient on her journey throughout the facility and examined the post-care challenges that might emerge. During the day, we leveraged and expanded our empathy, treating it as an essence of the value chain.  At the end of the day, we got back to the main base at IMD to convey our testimonies to the team members and brainstorm around the many ideas we generated. Yesterday, my team “Cup-o-Crutch”, gained another valuable member: Oubadah, student of luxury design at Ecal with more than seven years of experience. We smoothly integrated Oubadah into our team yesterday and discussed our main motivation and expectations from the Debiopharm-Inartis challenge. This allowed us to articulate common goal of the team: “employ as much curiosity as possible to look for as concrete pain points of a patient in the healthcare ecosystem as possible. Based on that, design a functionable product improving patient’s quality of life.” This vision lead our steps during the day and helped us in narrowing down the problems in the late evening brainstorming.  Tomorrow we are going to build on this problem definition when immersing into the solution design. Our team gathered the first insights into the patient’s life and already went through the first short prototyping experience prior the Debipharma-Inartis challenge even started. We developed a Cup-O-Crutch – a cup holder that can attached to crutches, increasing the self-sufficiency of patients with crutches. This idea evolved when Adriano, one of my team members broke his leg and suddenly became dependant on the help of others in many daily situations.  We learnt how frustrating it becomes when the classmates are running around with cup of morning coffee and Adriano is not to be able to carry his own cup as his both hands are occupied. This idea gave ultimately name to our team as well as enhanced the team’s confidence to develop further solutions tackling patients’ discomfort. Now we have the opportunity to test our abilities again  I wish all the teams the best of luck, vast inspiration, creativity, craftsmanship and high level of energy when developing the prototypes. I wish at the end of the week we have fifteen prototypes of viable products improving patient’s life. |
25 Apr 2018, 15:00
| FROM IMD Admissions Blog: Day 3 – Ideate: be wild, weird, absurd! |
 Peter Vogel, Professor of Family Business and Entrepreneurship Debiopharm Chair of Family Philanthropy On the first two days of the challenge my colleagues and I had met new team mates, explored the healthcare scenario in Lausanne and finally found a problem we wanted to solve. So, day three took us to ideation stage. In a single day we had to come up with a solution for a problem we were passionate about, for Team Misfits (us!) that was helping elderly people to have more autonomy and move more freely. And if the two first days were all blue skies, making friends and exploring, day three is where things go crazy. Even though we had known each other for a few months the time constraint of this project put a lot of pressure on the team. And we also needed to onboard our new team mates Georg Foster, a designer from écal and Mohamed Jerad, our very own physicist from EPFL. As IMD’ers we were already used to the ideas of pushing the team, giving loads of feedback and working like hell. But how were they gonna see it? How can we achieve the goal of the challenge and still be sensitive to their needs and motivations? Building a solution for a problem is a messy process, you bring a bunch of smart people together and ask them to come up with absurd, weird and out of the box ideas. And maybe out of all or of a combination of some them you may end up with a good solution. The problem is, this process requires letting go of the fear of looking stupid, of the fear of failing, of the fear of being wrong. And When you finally find that sparkling, elegant life changing idea you discover either one of two things: someone did it before or it has some major flaws and it is not life changing after all. During our day we were all trying to come up with as many possible solutions as possible no matter how absurd they were, the idea is to stimulate creativity, and avoid idea killing. Judging is forbidden! Expressions like “yes, but” and “that doesn’t make sense” are banned… So we had the funniest, weirdest mobility solutions: like the suction grip, spring cane and the booty hammock, my personal favorite, just because I like the name. I learned that innovation requires a good deal of resilience because at this point I was frustrated, tired and I started to question myself. Is this the right solution? Is this a good model? Does this problem even matter? So what you do You gather some courage and a lot of humility and you ask for help and guidance (thank you Eric, for coming to our rescue!). Truth is coming up with innovation is messy, crazy and sometimes frustrating. And that’s how it is supposed to be, ideas need to collide before they can build upon each other. People need to fail in order to learn and succeed… Well at least that’s what we are told by Cyril Bouquet and Peter Vogel, our professors for this madness challenge. Joyce |
26 Apr 2018, 17:00
| FROM IMD Admissions Blog: Day 4 – Prototype! |
 It’s Day 4. Up until this point, teams had dissected various problems in the healthcare industry, and come up with various ideas for changing the world. But it was game time now; it was time for everyone to make ideas a reality. We took the shuttle at 7:30am from IMD and headed to Univercité, a unique building space in Renens where designers, engineers, students and makers come together from all over Switzerland to develop projects and startups in an incredible incubator-like setting. Facilities included mechanical workshops, electrical labs, software development spaces, and so much more. As part of the innovation week, we were going to have access to this space and many of the experts and designers who came with it! For business students full of energy and stacked with dozens of ideas, this promised to be simply exciting. As the day kicked off, teams buzzed with their plans of how they would be prototyping their big ideas and bringing them to life, while our expert coaches that included health professionals, industrial designers, and story-telling professionals helped us iterate our prototypes and build better value propositions. Over the course of the day, teams dispersed into the 2000 m² crevices of the Univercité building, collaborating together to probe their designs and gradually build prototypes from wannabe mock-ups. The variety of designs and the creativity of the teams were genuinely impressive, but then again when you consider the depth of experience and diversity of background from our class of 90, it’s hard to be surprised. From a product design perspective, one of the most interesting observations for my team during the day was how much of an impact each piece of expert feedback we got had on our design. To put things into perspective, we had a total of 4 conversations with healthcare professionals throughout the day to better understand the pain points for the problem we were trying to solve, and each of these conversations significantly impacted our prototype design. We went from a very complex model to a much more simplistic version, capturing feedback from doctors and nurses related to simpler patient application requirements, more efficient handling needs and less sophisticated product preferences that made for a more well-rounded iteration of our first draft 2 days ago. Through this process, our critical thinking was put to the ultimate test, while our ability to make quick decisions as a team and iterate to move on to other parts of the design was thoroughly vetted. This was product design at its core, and it was a lot of fun. As the day drew to a close, my team was on its 5th physical prototype iteration with a long way to go. We still needed to finalize our design and spend time in the workshop to build a “clean” product that we could present to the jury in 2 days’ time. We still wanted to iron out some more details with more health professionals and patients. We still needed to iron out our business model and deep dive into the product’s value chain to ensure our product had a viable route to market. With only 1 more full day to go before we stand before the jury, the task ahead is nothing short of daunting. But this is the point. Nothing great ever came out of a comfort zone. We’ll keep pushing the boundaries of what’s possible, and we know, as a class of 90, that incredible things are just around the corner. |
30 Apr 2018, 02:00
| FROM IMD Admissions Blog: Day 5 – Innovation Challenge |
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The entrepreneurial rollercoaster is on, and we start to enjoy the ride. It is day five in the IMD Innovation Challenge and our master coach made it clear that we are passing through the informed optimism phase, an excellent place to be. This week has been a constant spin of ups and downs, it started with the great excitement of an idea, it passed from the hard crisis of a reality check, to when we critically readdressed our project towards a new and unexpected dimension. We are a team of six, composed of five MBAs and one design student from the Ecole Cantonal de Design in Lausanne. Our vision is to disrupt the way people see head protective equipment. Inspired by a strong personal story of one of our team mates, we rolled up our sleeves and worked hard to develop a protective helmet that could be worn by people at risk of traumatic brain injury as a fashionable item rather than a medical device. Our day started this morning at 8 am sharp. We had a quick introduction to intellectual property rights and then we ran into the laboratory to finalize our prototype. The excitement was tangible and, at times, we risked getting lost in our eagerness to build and construct something tangible that could change the lives of people. Fortunately, a comprehensive team of experts was present and, on several occasions, helped us channel our energy in the right direction. After lunch, there was no 2 o’clock feeling and our energy was still at its peak. We knew we had come up with something valuable and we wanted to present the best presentation tomorrow. As we walk through the inspiring alleys of Univercitè, we notice new prototypes popping up and we see companions celebrating eureka moments, it comes naturally to question if tomorrow we will be able to stand up to the competition and convey a remarkable pitch. Tomorrow morning we will be the first team to stand in front of our colleagues and to present our products to a jury of experts who will determine our fate. We are eager to break the ice, and we are not afraid of the test. We discovered, unexpectedly, that we crafted something that can make a difference to people and we are ready to defend our findings. Andrea Bertino |
30 Apr 2018, 04:00
| FROM IMD Admissions Blog: Mathieu – the ultimate goal |
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“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” Oscar Wilde “Become who you are.” Friedrich Nietzsche I am Mathieu, a 36-year-old French national. I lived in France for the first 34 years (equally divided between Troyes in Champagne then Paris). As far as I remember, I always did what I had to do, what the others expected me to do. First from an education standpoint: I completed a Master in Business Law, pursued a Master of Science in Management, attended law school and finally passed the Bar exam. Second, from a professional standpoint: I started my career in the Paris office of one of the biggest US law firms advising the largest private equity funds. After 5 years, I moved to one of the most prestigious French law firms advising blue chip companies and finally worked as Director for the biggest Swiss bank in Zürich and Geneva. At that point, I started to reflect about myself and felt the need to take the time to discover whether what I was doing was really in line with who I fundamentally am. In order to take a real step back, I decided to pursue an MBA at IMD to benefit from a program that puts the accent on leadership and self-awareness, while enlarging my scope of skills and competences. It has now been 4 months since the journey started and I feel, working with leadership professors, a psychoanalyst and a leadership coach, that I am finally starting to understand and become who I am…. and it feels good!  Upon my graduation, I already have the feeling that I will have a clear view and conviction on what I really and deeply want to do from a professional standpoint. Owning this knowledge is the key outcome of my journey: waking up every day to perform an activity that I feel passion for is the ultimate goal that I should have searched for a long time ago… but as people say, “better later than never”. As opposed to my classmates, I was living 7 minutes walking distance from IMD when I applied to the program. Moreover, I have the advantage that my grandparents live in the building next to IMD, which gives me a unique opportunity to enjoy them whenever I have spare time, and to receive their support and love as needed. Nevertheless, I feel that all of us came to IMD in January with this common goal in mind and heart: to start a journey towards a new enhanced life. Mathieu Denieau |
01 May 2018, 03:00
| FROM IMD Admissions Blog: IMD: Real World Applications |
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Since February our team has been working in collaboration with the cutting edge, Zurich based, start-up Nanoleq. The co-founders, Vincent and Luca, have invited us into the fold as if we were veritable members of their company, and we could not have asked for a more fulfilling experience. Nanoleq produces a potentially industry shifting material that enhances the lifetime and reliability of cables (envision here your headphones or the cables you’d find on a robotic arm.) Our challenge was to work with Vincent and Luca to iron out their business plan and provide both strategic and tactical recommendations regarding their way forward. Throughout this process, our team was excited by the opportunity to apply what we have learned in the lecture hall to a real-world application. Around every turn in the project we found ourselves recalling what we learned in our latest Finance, Marketing, or Entrepreneurship classes and sorting through how we might best apply it to our Nanoleq effort. For example, in the process of developing a “Market Scorecard” to help Nanoleq quantify the potential of certain markets, we drew on our NPV / Time Value of Money sessions as well as our newfound, better understanding of what makes a compelling Value Proposition. It was a fulfilling experience to watch our in-class learnings come to bear in the real world for real impact.  From left to right: Matthias Tschudi, Janis Doelle, Nancy Phelps, Luca Hirt (Nanoleq Co-Founder), Vincent Martinez (Nanoleq Co-Founder), Maria-Jose Oriz, Jaime Garcia-Prieto, Shingo Kawano. |
02 May 2018, 23:00
| FROM IMD Admissions Blog: Life is an adventure! |
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“Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious. And however difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at. It matters that you don’t just give up.” Stephen Hawking This quote has been leading the path of my life, fuelling my endeavours and lifting me in adverse moments. I am Martina, 32, and I am a tireless explorer, world-traveller, bridge builder. I was born in the Czech Republic and experienced the rapid transition of the country from communism to democracy, from centrally planned to market economy. I evidenced reinvention of the social values and the energy and enthusiasm directed towards the New. This era very much shaped me, my business acumen and became a source of my drive for continuous development and growth. As a first generation of Czechs who could travel freely, I grew into a global citizen with European heritage, observing and learning from different cultures of countries I visited or lived in. My interest in international affairs and foreign languages brought me to studies of International Trade. As an athlete, I learnt to be determined and focused, as an athlete-fighter, I learnt to never give up and project success on my mind. I am striving in dynamic, creative and flexible environments, under pull- and though leadership, surrounded by knowledgeable and inspiring people with different perspectives. This is what my IMD MBA year has been mainly about and this is what I am looking for in terms of working environment. I am passionate about people – customers, team members, internal clients – understanding their needs, motivations and aspirations. I am keen on bringing people together – mediating their interactions – and bringing people further – showing them new opportunities. My need is to know and to understand – I like to decompose and structure problems, gaining insight and enrichment from learning. I am devoted to coming up with solutions to those problems, constantly surveying new ways of solving. As an adventurer, I enjoy tackling new fields, broadening my skills, seeing new horizons and…  ….seeing the world from different perspective. Because this is what I believe urges us, human beings, to get up every morning: looking for adventure and meaning in our lives. Martina |
06 May 2018, 13:00
| FROM IMD Admissions Blog: Outdoor Classes and Partners Lunch |
Prof Knut Haanaes to MBA class: “The weather is so nice outside; why don’t we continue this Business and Society class out on the lawn?”. The partners of the MBA students join the rest of the class for lunch at the restaurant on campus.                        Raj Ramful |
08 May 2018, 06:00
| FROM IMD Admissions Blog: Ana – a honey bee |
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I am Ana and I am a honey bee – hard-working, adaptive, brave and communicative. When a bee colony outgrows its hive, it has to find a new place to live and one little brave scout bee takes off to search for that new home – and this is what I did. I was born and raised in the post-USSR period in the poorest country in Europe – Moldova, where by my early teenage years I had realized the limits of local expectations and aspirations. At the age of 16, I decided to move to Switzerland to broaden my perspectives, to pursue my studies and, ultimately, to have a better future.  While I quickly noticed that I had to overcome language barriers and that my cultural awareness was limited to Soviet countries, as a bee, I worked much harder and had more drive and motivation than my Swiss classmates. I attribute this to growing up in a family with a working mother and grandmother, both of whom never took anything for granted and taught me in my young years the need to work hard to achieve goals. Even without speaking proper German, I was able to quickly find new friends and managed to successfully integrate and absorb a Swiss mentality of structure, precision, and toughness, while keeping traits my family brought me up with: an emphasis on independence, gender equality and family-centricity. During my undergraduate studies at the University of St. Gallen, I gained some work experience in financial services, ranging from corporate and institutional banking (BNP Paribas in Paris) to private banking (J.P. Morgan in Geneva) and asset management (Ayaltis in Zurich). While I enjoyed the client contact during this period, I noticed that I was rather fascinated by the challenges of the financial services industry as a whole – the reason I joined Oliver Wyman after my graduation. Consulting is very competitive – your daily life consists of criticism while praise is often scarce, but you have a unique opportunity to work with exceptional teams and clients on shaping the industry together. In the end, as a bee, I live in a world where big things can happen through community efforts, not by a single leader. However, I also believe in the importance of having an individual impact, and so I am brave and willing enough to invest my time next to my intense working hours, and when necessary, to sting and make sacrifices for the causes dear to me: work ethics, inclusion and gender diversity. Banner image: sunset over Zurich Lake Ana |
10 May 2018, 09:00
| FROM IMD Admissions Blog: The Art of Problem Solving |
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“The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story and writes another; and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it.” For someone who spends an awful lot of time living in the fantasy world of books and films, the real world can sometimes get a little dreary. And when things started getting dreary, I knew I had to rewrite my diary. My name is Anish Singhvi, and I’m a 26-year-old Indian male, non-engineer, solver of problems. Which is a cooler way of stating that I am a lawyer. The key driver throughout my (admittedly) young life has been one question: ‘How to be a professional problem solver?’ The hunt for answers took me to one of India’s best law schools, and from then on to one of India’s (and Asia’s) biggest law firms. Working countless hours on complex mergers and acquisitions, solving difficult problems was exciting and challenging at first. The thrill of working on new transactions and dealing with clients from across the world kept me going. But the more I worked, the more I felt the need to play a bigger role, to solve bigger problems. Law school and my law firm taught me how to think and I felt that I could use all the skills I had learned in a much larger context. Which is when I decided to reboot and leave my ‘minor life for grander maybes’. IMD positions itself as a school for leaders, and while I don’t disagree with that, I don’t think it is necessarily in the leadership business. It most certainly is in the problem-solving business. Through all our classes, coaching, integrative exercises, start-up projects, team activities, problem solving is the one common denominator. And with a class as diverse as ours, one constantly hears fresh new ideas on how to solve some of the biggest problems faced by businesses today. I suppose it is only appropriate to end this blog by quoting a personal role model of mine. Arsene Wenger (the legendary Arsenal coach) once said “the target of anything in life should be to do it so well that it becomes an art.” Which in a nutshell is why I landed up in Lausanne on a cold January morning: to learn, to grow, and hopefully turn problem solving into an art.  Anish |
15 May 2018, 03:00
| FROM IMD Admissions Blog: The voyages of an IMD start-up group |
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These are the voyages of an IMD start-up group. Its ongoing mission: to explore the strange new world of entrepreneurship. To seek out new challenges and opportunities. To boldly go where few others have gone before. ‘Real Learning. Real Impact’. If any of us were in any doubt about how seriously IMD takes that statement, those doubts were put to rest when we received our start-up project assignment. No tests, no marks, no theory. Real practical work, where a pass or a fail depends on whether you have actually made a meaningful contribution. It doesn’t get more ‘Real Impact’ than that. Keeping this in mind, for the past few months we’ve been knee-deep in the brave new world of on-demand delivery, with our start-up company, ‘Luckabox’. Luckabox aims to solve the billion-dollar problem of instantaneous last mile delivery. Or to put it simply, it asks one exciting question: “Wouldn’t you like to receive your online shopping shipped in under two hours?” Luckabox exists as a broker between online retailers and courier companies to ensure that for paying customers, the nearest courier on their system can pick up the online order and deliver it to the end customer in under two hours. Using software as a service, Luckabox wants to tap into this new and growing market for instant delivery. For the past few months, we have been working towards understanding this market and the potential opportunities therein. We’ve been getting in touch with retailers across Switzerland to understand their pain points and the value proposition that Luckabox could potentially bring. This has involved tapping into the vast IMD alumni network, and at the same time making cold calls and finding people through LinkedIn. At the same time, we have prepared our extensive customer survey to help us better understand customer needs. If anything, the past few months have taught us that the life of an entrepreneur is very much like that of an MD student. One is passionate, always working and more often than not, sleep deprived. On the eve of our final presentation to a jury of venture capitalists, our hope is that all our work is well received. More importantly, we hope that we have managed to bring some real value to our young start-up. Isn’t that what ‘Real Impact’ all about?  (Luckabox team from left to right: Sakshi, Alberto, Mathieu, Fabiana, Ignacio, Anish) Anish |
16 May 2018, 00:00
| FROM IMD Admissions Blog: TWIICE – a fascinating start-up experience |
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In January, when we were signing up for the start-up projects, none of us comprehended that we were going to be part of something truly fascinating. Tristan and Marek, the co-founders of TWIICE, have embarked on a mission to help people who suffer from lower limb mobility impairment. The start-up has developed an exoskeleton, a wearable robotic structure designed around the morphology and shape of the human body that help patients to stand up, walk at various speeds, manoeuvre stairs… The team’s objective was to help TWIICE answer two questions – “where to play” and “how to win”. Over the last four months the team mapped out patient journeys, identified key stakeholders’ needs and conducted interviews with physiotherapists, neurologists, insurance companies and medical device experts across the globe. In addition, the team also tested different business models and drew tactical plans that will support the company in achieving its goals in the near future. We worked as a team, drawing on each other’s strengths, leveraging past experiences and in-class learnings. This project was an intense experience that allowed us to get a feel for the kind of hurdles, challenges and excitements an entrepreneur can go through. As this project draws to an end, it is difficult not to feel emotional. We have been astounded by the passion that drives the co-founders of TWIICE to help people in need, and the IMD team feels immensely privileged to have been part of this journey!  From left to right: Claudine, Ankit, Guilherme, Marco, Tristan and Marek (TWIICE), Pallavi and Camille |
16 May 2018, 18:00
| FROM IMD Admissions Blog: When hard times hit, #Disrupted |
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Spring arrived to Lausanne couple of weeks ago and with the warm rays, suddenly everyone’s shoulders seem to be less bended under the workload. Perhaps also because we are ticking the check marks on the MBA map, delivering presentations and closing projects, maturing throughout the program. One of the major events this week here at IMD were the final presentations on our start-up projects to a panel of venture capitalists and business angels. Over the past four months, we tasted the life of the brave ones, who are coming with answers to industrial and societal problems, the visionaries, the inventors, the disruptors: the entrepreneurs. As our favourite Entrepreneurship Professor Benoit Leleux says: “These are totally different kinds of animals, but it makes a lot of fun to work with them.” My team had the pleasure to confirm Benoit’s words. Our start-up evolved rapidly over the short period of time; here the business development happens in the units of weeks, building upon the information, contacts and networks established in the last couple of days. Beside supporting the start-up with business model conceptualization and financial projections, we rolled up our sleeves and deep-dived into the field work: we conducted market research, defined value proposition and validated it with experts from the industry, designed route to the market, engaged with suppliers, drafted pilot programme documentation, prepared go-to-market materials and investors decks and many more. Thank you, team 9, for your engagement and hard work, it was a great experience working with you!   While learning from one of the best IMD’s brilliant minds, Professor Goutam Challagalla, the past weeks also brought fresh wind and insights into the contemporary businesses based on technology. In his inspirational and thought-provoking classes, Goutam took us to the very edge of today, providing the look over the cliff towards tomorrow. After his crash course, disruption became the new norm of my strategic thinking and stimulated curiosity to explore the digital business models further. Disruption also stroke on the personal side; keeping the high pace already for four and half months, there are plenty of daily situations when I am off my comfort zone, pushing myself, being endorsed by cohorts or “lured” into the off-comfort situation. This is a highly addicted game: I fail and I get up and I want to fail again to enjoy the getting up. I see things I didn’t see before. I observe myself from a totally new angle. I work with my mind, concentrated. The metamorphose began. Old Me is being disrupted by New Me. The metamorphose and ongoing change can be a painful process though. And it gets even more painful when life-changing events happen in our lives. On Easter Thursday, Bernard, father of my partner passed away after nine months of combat. It was fast, unexpected, heart-breaking. Bernard was a distinctive intellectual, family lover, whose life colour was auburn. Coming back from the Easter break, leaving my partner back in Germany learning to live the new reality was frustrating. We felt every centimetre of the long-distance relationship. This was metamorphosis from a different perspective, urging the importance of values. The partner life here at IMD is in general own chapter deserving at least one more special edition of the blog post. Some of the 2018 MBA class moved to Lausanne with their partners and children, who provide a safety base and tremendous mental support throughout the programme. Regardless if they are present in Lausanne or not, the role of our partners is not easy at all. This year is primarily about us. They are part of our decisions to pursue an MBA; nevertheless they are in the shadow while the spotlight shine on us. They changed their lives around our MBA and observe our metamorphose first-hand. Twelve years after their MBA experience, Alumni Rafael Altavini and his wife Carolina Altavini came to IMD to share their experience with partners’ life not only during and but also post the programme. They brought an honest testimony about the challenges they were facing.  Listening to their speech in the Lorrange auditorium, I pondered about big journeys. We set-off on one in January and are in the midst of it. It brought us to places we have never been. This is not the last big journey by far. It is a heart-warming feeling to know that we have life companions holding our hands while walking into the unknowns. In memory of Bernard, to our loved ones. Martina |
18 May 2018, 01:00
| FROM IMD Admissions Blog: Invest in knowledge |
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An investment in knowledge pays the best interest. I followed this quote by Benjamin Franklin quite literally, when I decided to pursue an international MBA degree program about 2 years back. I am Sandeep Sharma, 33 years old, Indian, married and father of a two year old. I was born into a family of educationists in a small town in the northern part of India. Early on in my childhood, I realized the value of education and its power to alter the course of not only individuals, but their entire families and communities. Ever disciplined, I steered my journey from the dusty roads of a small Indian town to swanky Board rooms.   Passionate about automobiles, after my undergrad I joined India’s leading car manufacturing company in a supply chain role, however I was always curious to learn more about how different departments within the company came together to deliver business strategy. This curiosity led me to pursue a post graduate diploma and then join the organization practice of a leading consulting firm, serving clients in India and the Middle East. After another few years, I decided to expose myself to implementation aspects in a global financial services company. Working with various BU presidents, trying to address their most critical people challenges, I realized how fast the world was changing. New skills and technologies like Digital, Big Data and Machine Learning required me to communicate in a new language and I understood it was time for yet another investment in education to prepare myself for the next leap in my career. IMD has an intense focus on imparting new skills and its curriculum is constantly evolving to keep pace with new trends in the world of business. Over the last 4 months my cohort has been on a roller coaster of practical and classroom learning. Unique experiences like start up projects, the Innovation lab, and the data analytics week have been truly inspirational. But, it’s far from over. As we near the end of yet another exciting module, I look forward to more exciting things… To end, I am reminded of another quote: “Education is the passport to future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today”– Malcolm X Sandeep |
20 May 2018, 16:00
| FROM IMD Admissions Blog: MBAT! |
Congratulations to the IMD MBAT TEAM! In true IMD spirit, the small but high performing team won several medals at the MBA Tournament where they competed in several team sports like athletics, volleyball, ultimate frisbee, dodgeball, etc.                           Raj Ramful 
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22 May 2018, 03:00
| FROM IMD Admissions Blog: FIXtech – Bringing connectivity and automation to bulk commodity shipping |
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14-May-2018 We finished our presentation to a jury at IMD Business School one hour ago. The jury is made up of Ventures Capitalists, Business Angels and a very committed professor. We are Group 8, and over the course of the past five months we have been supporting FIXtech in their startup journey. This presentation marks the formal closure of our course on Entrepreneurship. Our professor is firmly convinced that entrepreneuring cannot be taught from a book: Instead you should be out there, with a startup, to get your hands dirty and achieve impactful results. The brief was and is clear: No exams, only results count! One of our team’s successful strategies has been to divide and conquer, and here we are: Three team members are documenting our work and ensuring a proper handover of our deliverables to FIXtech and to IMD. Three team members sit in a train to Zurich to represent our startup at VentureKick BootCamp. We overlook the beautiful vineyards on the shores of Lac Leman, as Lausanne quickly disappears. At VentureKick we will be asked to present the latest for FIXtech, its milestones in product development and to pitch their rapidly evolving plans. Every engagement and every feedback is a gift and an opportunity to improve the product, its story and the strategy. Each team is expected to work out with their respective startup where they can add most value. This leads to a unique journey for every team, depending on the venture’s maturity, the needs of the founders and the skills that your team brings. In our case, we bring 38 years of experience in management consulting, project management, IT, shipping and finance. To achieve results, we have leveraged the broad experience in our team, the wider class and our networks. We have assisted in operational affairs, provided coaching and acted as a sounding board. Additionally, we have taken on bigger deliverables. Examples are the delivery of a comprehensive financial model and the pilot project, for which we delivered the structure and materials. What better validation than comments from your peers: Apparently, the other teams have been referring to us as the ‘dream team’. FIXtech is bringing automation to the bulk shipping industry. You take two experienced and well-connected professionals from the bulk shipping industry, fresh out of their MBA’s, and you add to that six hungry MBA candidates. The dynamics are very positive and motivating. It is incredible to see what ground we have covered together since January. FIXtech has been building momentum. The founders’ focus, experience and positive energy are going to be critical ingredients on their coming journey. Matt, Bret: Thank you for making us part of the team! Group 8- Team FIXtech  Hans, Kshitij, Paula, Ana, Gerardo and Parth |
24 May 2018, 02:00
| FROM IMD Admissions Blog: “What got you here won’t get you there” |
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Two years ago, I was flying back home from a business trip to Rio de Janeiro and caught myself thinking about my life and career so far. It was with a sense of accomplishment that I had reached my 6th year working with sales and account management in the mining & metals industry. With a combination of hard work and serendipity, I had built a solid start and a strong reputation. I had a promising career outlook and support from fantastic people I met along the way. Although I felt reassured by the circumstances, something was itching inside. As I later realized, my feelings at the time were accurately translated into words in the very title of a fantastic book by Marshall Goldsmith – “what got you here won’t get you there”. It was about time to take a step back and look at the broader picture. Time to redefine my goals and calibrate my path. Inspired by the profiles and advice from successful executives I had the pleasure to work with, I decided to pursue an MBA at IMD as a means to acquire further knowledge and deepen my understanding of international businesses. It wasn’t a straight-forward decision process, but a deep and rewarding assessment of my life as a whole.  About two years (and many emotions) later, I am now 5 months into the MBA and couldn’t be happier with my choice. What I expected to be an add-on learning experience revealed itself as a life-changing journey. To make things even more special, my girlfriend and I got married amidst the process and we are now expecting our first child. A true IMD baby who will be born in August!  What the future reserves to me and my family remains uncertain. But after all, I think I have finally learned to appreciate uncertainty and it’s the best feeling I have ever had. Fernando Serra |
31 May 2018, 03:00
| FROM IMD Admissions Blog: IMD races to raise funds for international charity |
15 members of the IMD community participate in Race for Gift in aid of Mercy Ships Members of the IMD 2018 MBA class and IMD staff recently participated in a charity sporting event in Geneva called Race for Gift organized to raise funds for over 20 international and non-governmental organizations. A team of 15 IMD MBAs and staff ran in the 10 km as well as the 5km and walking race to raise funds for Mercy Ships, an international charity with the largest non-governmental hospital ship in the world. Why Mercy Ships? About 5 billion people worldwide don’t have adequate access to surgical interventions. Mercy Ships provides medical care through hospital ships to the poorest of the poor through health care services, life-changing operations, and training and capacity building programs by mobilizing people and resources worldwide. Mercy Ships performs orthopaedic, reconstructive, maxillofacial and ophthalmic surgery as well as dental care. The organisation was founded in Lausanne in 1978, by Don and Deyon Stephens. Mercy Ships has worked in more than 70 countries providing services valued at more than $1 billion, with more than 2.35 million direct beneficiaries. In addition to raising over CHF 4,000, IMD turned in an outstanding performance in the following categories: – 1st – The IMD team won the 10km Company Challenge (the ranking is established with the aggregated times of the three best runners from each company) – 2nd – Lauren Hasek won second place in the 10k in the Women’s category – 2nd – Sara Jamil won second place in the 5k in the Women’s category – 3rd – IMD won third place among the company teams to raise the highest amount of funds |
31 May 2018, 08:00
| FROM IMD Admissions Blog: Company Visits – Danaher, Hilti, Nestle |
The job search frenzy has started! Earlier than usual this year according to reliable sources. We have had Danaher as one of the first companies coming on campus to talk about their recruitment process. Furthermore, companies like Nestle and Hilti have welcomed various cohorts from the class.         
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01 Jun 2018, 06:00
| FROM IMD Admissions Blog: AROUND THE WORLD IN 10 DAYS |
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Phileas Fogg attempted to circumnavigate the world in 80 days on a £20,000 wager. The technological innovations of the 19th century had opened the possibility of rapid circumnavigation and this prospect captivated Verne and his readership. Once again, fascinated by technology, a group of 90 will attempt to go around the world in 10 days to observe and be inspired from the best in the world. The class of IMD MBA 2018 will together travel to three locations; from Lausanne to Silicon Valley, Singapore and finally Bangalore; and discover few of the most innovative technical hubs around the world. These cities are considered the mecca of technology and rank very highly on the Digital Barometer. What makes these cities world class and breeding grounds for path breaking innovation is the overall infrastructure and skills in the immediate environment. The global expedition will give us a unique perspective in the technologies and business models that are shaping the future of business, understand the key opportunities and challenges peculiar to innovators in each region. And hopefully, we will be able to develop a point of view on the Fourth Industrial Revolution and how each one of us could make an impact post MBA. With a packed calendar from Day one, the trip will be filled with company visits and alumni events with occasional free evenings to explore the culture. The stay in Silicon Valley will be replete with the visits to the likes of Apple & Google. While, the trip to Singapore will give an insight into Corporate Innovations where we go to Collision 8, Unilever Foundry & AI Singapore to name a few. Bangalore will provide a glimpse to the organizations such as Wipro, pioneers of the Indian IT growth story. In my opinion, it will be an opportunity for each one of us to develop a mindset to start asking the right inspiring questions. And understand that next wave and what does it take to win in that next wave. As the excitement builds up towards the departure date (17th June) of the Expedition, here’s what some of my class mates have to say about the expedition. Our ombudswoman Candice says: “I want to see the differences in start-ups across regions”. In the same vein my French/Cameroon friend, Michel, is excited to discover India and compare the mindsets of Indian entrepreneurs with their European counterparts. Our Italian colleague Filippo quotes: “It will be interesting to see if we can measure up and have critical conversations with the entrepreneurs we meet and identify a red thread at the end of the trip”. Guilherme and Marco are looking forward to an immersion of cultures across continents, while, my Indian friend Shubham quips, “Never thought I would go around the world in such a short span of time unless I was a pilot or an astronaut”. Till next time -Neharika |
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Hi Generic [Bot],
Here are updates for you:
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Tuck at Dartmouth
AGSM at UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE
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