A few months ago, Kedge Business School was born from the strategic reunion of BEM (Bordeaux Ecole de Management) and Euromed Management. This new school is already an impressive business education platform, with more than 10,000 students in France, North-Africa, and China.

As a consulting professor for Euromed’s Executive MBA, I’ve been teaching Business Model Innovation as an elective class for nearly 5 years now (and a quite successful one if I may say so). For the next MBA intake, we’ll go a notch further and start a fundamental class on Business Model Design. So, this is not only about changing your market anymore but really how the business model approach can be a central management perspective in the current economy.

The full syllabus of this “real life”-oriented class is as follows (we may have some last moment adjustments, but essentially the spirit will remain the same):

Key points

The ambition of this course is for students to get a solid 360° understanding of “what is a business”, without staying in a vertical perspective such as strategy, marketing, finance, human resources, etc. As so, it’s also designed as an introduction platform to all of these domains, so that students can effectively adapt to them, and use them in the most effective way in their professional life.

Course Perspective

Our socio-economical environment has drastically changed since the nineties. It would be probably exaggerated to claim that most of the tools used to pilot and lead an organization are now outdated and obsolete. Still, many of them are now misadjusted and skewed.

Leaders in the early 21st century have to deal with many paradoxes: technology cycles and adoption are faster than ever, and yet markets are less and less technology-driven; business paradigms are flipped over by increasing “black swan” events, and yet companies are more and more risk averse; manufacturing delocalization and disintermediation have been rendered mainstream by the net economy, and yet marketers are still stuck in a product-driven approach…

To survive and strive in this new world, a perspective adjustment is called for. The main new perspective that we will present and work on through this course will be to let go of the traditional top-down strategic instinct and to shift to a more transversal business vision.

Instead of defining business perspective as a predictive battle plan, with a step-by-step development of “the perfect” competitive posture through a specific portfolio of products or services, we will try to focus more deeply on the business architecture and how it develops a powerful and well-identified added value.

Through this course, we will explore the tools that will help us change perspective and specifically how to design powerful, sustainable business models, whether you are a startup, a multinational, or a non-profit organization.

Learning Objectives

After this course students should be able to:

Challenge and reframe old business models by understanding current market drivers and how they weaken or strengthen specific parts of a business architecture;
Understand the business architecture of any venture, and specifically what added value is created to specific customers’ segments, how revenues are generated, how the cost structure is dealt with, what the key resources and competencies involved are, etc.;
Coordinate various business approaches (strategy, marketing, finance, innovation, HR) to develop, sustain and enhance competitive business models;
As entrepreneurs or intrapreneurs, design new added values fitting specific visions and markets, while being also able to set it up as a concrete, real-life activity.

Content

Principles of Business Model Design

Setting your business vision
Business model as a synthetic strategic tool
Connecting the dots with marketing, finance, HR…
Business modeling tools, pitch and business planning
Typical business models
Product and monetization as a feature of added value
“Magic spot” and business roadmap
Key resources and competitive advantage
Monetization and cost structure analysis
Ecosystems and value chain interactions

Addressing Key Business Problems

Business model optimization
Pivoting on key resources
Enhancing added value through focus
Exploring free models
Adjusting monetization granularity
Dematerializing your business
Developing a multi-sided offer
Jumping to the next cycle

3. Structuring and Sustaining a Business in Real-Life

Startups, SMEs, multinationals, and NGOs specificities
B2B, B2C, C2C and B2G perspectives
Understanding your ecosystem life-cycle
Forecasting and risk management
The key phases of business development
Early-stage business prototyping
Scaling up a business and bridging the gap
Leveling up from an “event horizon” market
Mixing strategies and sustaining innovation

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Hope to see a few of you during one the courses that are scheduled. But in any case, if you want more info please contact the fantastic MBA team here.