Back to Business

In this 60-minute session, we'll go over the course expectations and topics.

We expect that you will participate through constructive comments and discussion through all the sessions. Our instructors are doing a tremendous service pro bono and we feel that this program is the purest form of knowledge dissemination as you are giving up your time and mental energy willfully as well.

• Some preparation will be required before each session. You will be provided all learning materials before the session.
• There will be ample time for questions and answers related to the topic, so your participation is required.
• All participants’ cameras are expected to be turned on during each session.
• All participants are expected to mute themselves throughout the session, raise hands (Zoom feature) to ask questions and unmute, and then mute after the question has been addressed. PLEASE do not leave yourself unmuted.
• All participants are expected to have discussions about content in the chat box. The instructors will review the chat and answer specific questions not addressed after the session.

The lecture is a deep dive into fixing and transforming the broken world. It is dedicated to those who want to reinvent the world, propel The New Harmony, driven by universal values and a higher ethical compass, digital technologies, and sustainable business practices. It is for those who want to transform a business or an organization; to catalyze change; or to disrupt outdated, unresponsive policies in healthcare, ecology, education, government, economics, or other institutions.

The lecture is dedicated to the searchers for Strategic Harmony, to all the people sharing and living the following set of values:

• Speak out as though everyone is listening
• Serve as though everyone is in need
• Collaborate as though there are no boundaries
• Live as though global survival depends on you
• Listen as though you feel everyone's pain
• Innovate as though you’re open to limitless possibilities
• Create as though no obstacles exist
• Manage as though sustainability is your bottom line

Mental Agility & Multicultural Contexts: Developing Mental Reflexes adapted to International Business Contexts:

Making a detour into both Cultural as well as Symbolic Anthropology is relevant to get top managers develop mental reflexes that will be appropriate to manage the understanding of the current complex world. They are completed and enriched by crossing them with other dimensions borrowed from Human Sciences such as Ethnology, Sociology and Philosophy, since understanding the Other starts with an attempt to understand oneself first.

Associated skills:

• Understanding today’s societal and social mutations
• Developing the awareness of today’s and future actors of the international economy of the strategic consequences and managerial challenges linked to the management of cultural diversity
• Deciphering cultural logics
• Grasping the nature of the stakes as well as the invisible and hidden issues of internationalization, notably by making the actors aware of the cultural footprint of a language, revealing the traps of the use of English as a Lingua franca.

Digital platform ecosystems are among the biggest trends in the digitized business world. Tech giants such as Amazon, Google, SAP, and Tencent as well as start-ups continue to implement platform models into their business strategies. This talk will address the fundamentals of digital platform ecosystems, including risks and governance mechanisms. Subsequently, the design of digital platforms will be discussed, including the different developmental phases of platform growth are shown. The talk will end with discussing different roles in digital platform ecosystems and the implications for organizations. 

Specific learning objectives include:

• What is a digital platform?
• How is a digital platform embedded in a business environment?
• What are the alternatives for companies to enter the platform economy?

In an ever-changing digital landscape, success in business can often depend on your digital marketing practices. To be effective at digital marketing, you’ll need a strategy. This course covers all the essentials of digital marketing and explains its various roles in an organization’s marketing strategy. It covers relevant topics like relationship marketing and the customer experience, campaign planning (advertising), and Search engine optimization (SEO). This course will provide the skills and tools to develop effective digital marketing strategy.

The aim of this course is to provide you with a comprehensive guide to the concepts, techniques, and best practices to support the digital marketing strategies for your company including:

• Introduction to digital marketing
• Customer relationship management
• Search engine optimization (SEO)
• Permission marketing

Somewhere in this mad frenzy for pandering to the microscopically specific tastes and preferences of consumers, fueled by the efforts of multinational marketers to ‘glocalize’ their product portfolios, a new kind of mass marketing has started emerging. It’s actually a paradox. In the process of identifying different, newer and better bases of market segmentation at the global level, somehow the very concept of market segmentation has become redundant. The proliferation of global products has created a generation of cosmopolitan consumers, and these global products themselves are an offshoot of the hybridization of cultural identities.

This segment will look at learning objectives of:

• Has the concept of market segmentation become redundant?
• What are the implications of intermingling psychological paradigms across the globe?
• Will homogenized consumer behavior lead to greater standardization across the globe?
• Will locally customized marketing transform to globalized mass marketing?

We idolise mavericks like Steve Jobs or Billionaires like Bill Gates, We get inspired by a Mukesh Ambani or dream to create enterprises like Jeff Bezos. But business insights can be learnt from unlikeliest of the places and from complete strangers, unknown small entrepreneurs from the streets. It is a story telling session and not a lecture on business acumen, grit, perseverance and inspiring stories from tremendous humans whom we will not find a case at Harvard or their business models being discussed at top business schools of the world. Yet, for me, they are as amazing as billion dollar worth unicorns who we talk about all the time in media.

I bring great examples, some cases and amazing stories from a Shoe Shine guy from Addis Ababa, a pavement book seller in South Africa, a legacy sweet shop in India, a Punjabi shop run by a British in Japan, and many such tales.

It is expected that participants by the end of the course should be able to:

1. Understand the business models of many street vendors
2. Appreciate the various business lessons we can draw from their enterprises
3. Develop strategies to incorporate those lessons into our future entrepreneurial ventures or future jobs

The session focuses on the critical issues in cross cultural diversity and global business. It analyses culture, ethics and governance from the African and Ghanaian perspectives highlighting on some unique aspects of culture that can be harnessed for business success. Emphasis would be laid on the cross-cultural communication, ethical dilemma for global local and global firms operating in Ghana, issues of community, organizational and national politics and governance and doing business in Africa and Ghana. The session is delivered through mini case analysis and group discussion.

It is expected that participants by the end of the course should be able to:

• Assess the differences in culture, ethics and governance in their environment and that of Ghana (Africa).
• Analyze the impact of cross-cultural dynamics and ethics in doing business.
• Develop strategies to mitigate the possible negative impact of culture, ethical dilemma and governance.

Value Stream Management, sometimes referred to as value stream mapping, is a powerful tool to assess any organizational process for non-value-added activities.  Critical decisions about layout, flow, scheduling, material delivery, personnel assignments, among others can be streamlined through a rigorous analysis of a process. 

Our two decades of experience with value stream mapping methodology is culled in a short session that zeroes in on the following learning objectives through a mini-case demonstration:

• What is a value stream map?
• How can it be used effectively for organizational decision making?
• What tools assist us in the process?
• What are some implementation roadblocks?

Dream It! Believe It! Achieve It! The Art & Science of Entrepreneurship captures the essence of what it means to be an entrepreneur and what it takes to start a new venture in the 21st Century. This fast-paced session examines challenges of the entrepreneurship paradox; explores the roles of creativity, innovation, and technology; presents a comprehensive entrepreneurship process model; and sets the stage for translating ideas into action. Blending entrepreneurship and strategy, Dr. Matthews outlines the essential continuums that define entrepreneurship from ideation, conceptualization, and formulation, to the process of implementation. Are you ready for what’s next?