Seminar of Business Strategy

Today, every single company is facing the challenge of balancing the urgent need for impactful decarbonization actions alongside the continued ambition for commercial success and financial returns. Companies must do an in-depth review of their corporate strategies and possibly make new structural strategic choices in consideration of this positive decarbonization commitment. They must develop and execute their own strategy for impact. All their stakeholders are expecting that.

This seminar will provide a practical learning experience to deal with that impact challenge on corporate strategy setting. The students are asked to deep-dive into the strategy for impact for one specific case company. They will need to come up with innovative strategic recommendations that combine both reaching decarbonization targets and securing long-term strategic and competitive position.

This seminar is of particular interest to those students considering to join companies or consultancies at the forefront of the growing ESG challenges. Moving beyond intention towards impactful actions.

The objective of this seminar will be to develop a set of impactful strategic recommendations in response to the decarbonization commitment for one specific case company. These recommendations should be as comprehensive and actionable as possible. To reach this, the students will have to put into practice the following concepts and tools during the seminar:

• Applying corporate strategy frameworks
• Measuring current GHG emissions and setting targets using science-based methods
• Identifying levers for accelerating decarbonization actions to reach targets
• Understanding the impact of these levers and strategic trade-offs this requires from an overall corporate strategy perspective
• Summarizing in a crisp and bold way the strategic recommendations for impact

This exercise will be done separately for three different case companies. These companies are selected as being part of a broader value chain. At the end of the seminar, the students will be able to check the consistency of the strategic recommendations across the different companies of that broader value chain.

Required and Corequired knowledge and skills

To take full benefit of the seminar, it is suggested to review and refresh corporate strategy courses.
As the science-based approach to qualify the climate targets will be applied, broad analytical skills will be important.
An interest in ESG matters is also recommended.

The students will be split into working groups and each working group will receive one case company for analysis and deep-dive. At the end of the seminar, each working group will present its report with strategic recommendations for its case company. To support the working groups in reaching that outcome, the seminar will be centered around 6 discussion and guiding sessions with all working groups together and 2-3 additional coaching sessions per working group separately.

The 6 discussion sessions will aim at discussing the following topics:

1. Overall context of ‘strategy for impact’
2. Science-based GHG emissions baseline measuring and target setting
3. Levers to accelerate roadmap towards targets
4. Impact of levers on overall strategy
5. Final session Part 1, including discussion on consistency across broader value chain
6. Final session Part 2, including discussion on consistency across broader value chain

For the final presentations, executives of the industry with deep decarbonization expertise will participate to gain insights, be challenged, and have an insightful discussion on ‘strategy for impact’ in their company and broader value chain.

For the other sessions, experts or companies might be invited to share their perspectives and experiences. Also, pre-readings will be recommended to foster a dialogue and discussion amongst the various working groups.

During the separate sessions with each working group, the intent is to provide specific guidance on the case company and required highlights on the specific application of the methods, concepts, and tools. Progress of the working group will also be discussed.

References, bibliography, and recommended reading

Overall pre-reads will be provided in due time and for sure prior to each discussion session.

Campus

Solbosch

Method(s) of evaluation

• Personal work
• Oral presentation
• Group work
• Written report

Personal work

Oral presentation

Group work

Written report

The evaluation will be based on the following criteria:

• Written final presentation (max. 25 pages)
• Oral final presentation (in front of executives of the case company)
• Team dynamics within working group with contribution of each member
• Active participation and contribution during the discussion sessions

Language(s) of evaluation

• english