Our ability to link theoretical concepts to practice makes us a desired partner for many academic institutions. We participate in many executive education programs in the Netherlands and abroad. Our contribution can consist of a guest lecture, several days of teaching or the organization of the program as a whole.

Generally, our programs are given on request or in cooperation with institutes, such as Rotterdam School of Management (RSM), Maastricht School of Management (MSM), Nyenrode Business University, FHR School of Management in Surinam, Euroforum, EURIB and The Learning Cycle. We are registered as a tax free institute for education purposes. Find our Centraal Register Kort Beroepsonderwijs (CRKBO) registration here.

The topics we lecture in predominantly consist of strategy, digitalization, becoming conversational with clients, change management and leadership. If you are interested in executive education but specifically for your organization we offer incompany trainings.

We believe personal development should not be “one-size-fits-all”, but instead should be aligned with the organizational vision. This means Strategy Works, in collaboration with our clients, looks at how our programs can develop people in order to improve their ability to help realize the corporate vision. This way, a program is not founded on general principles which can apply to any organization, but instead, contribute to each specific organizational context, thus creating maximum impact.

Our approach to linking reflection to on-the-job learning is by incorporating a business case in the program. Participants form teams in which they tackle a real life company issue. We encourage their management to select business cases that have an immediate bearing on achieving the corporate vision.

Participants apply what they have learned from our trainers and hone their skills by reflection in an offsite location to translate their learning experiences to a more abstract level so that they can apply them to other contexts in the future. If a program has multiple session, participants often start work on their business cases on the sessions themselves, complete them in-between and receive feedback in the next session.

We aim to maximize the impact we have on the future of the participants within their organizational context. In order to show our participants progress, and thus the program’s effectiveness, we apply different ways to measure results:

1. Program evaluation: Querying participants on how they experience the program.
2. Assessment: Measuring competences before and after the program to spot developments.
3. Career development: Gauging promotions and professional evaluations of participants until 1 year after the program.
4. Implementation of the business case: Evaluating the impact of the business case assignment that is central to the program.

Our experience has shown that these four tools offer great insights into the effectiveness of our programs, but also offers valuable data on how to continuously improve on them.

We are living in a rapidly changing time: the digital age. Technology transforms societies all around the world. In business, many organizations get uprooted by the digital wave, while some manage to successfully ride it. The first winners of this new age are starting to surface, with companies such as Airbnb and Uber revolutionizing industries and changing the rules of the market, forcing others to comply.

Many business leaders focus on the impact of technology on their products and production processes. Can technology make our product better, or cheaper to produce? Should we offer our service in an app? However technology does not only change the product offering, but an organization’s business model as a whole. Daily digital experiences drive the evolution of demand, consumer behavior changes, boundaries between businesses and individuals fade away.

Strategy Works does not only focus on product innovation, but helps you understand the underlying need of your customers, develop an industry foresight and generate ideas for your future business model. At the end of the day, it is all about maintaining a fit with your environment.

A digital strategy is different from a traditional strategy in the sense that it becomes much harder to determine clear targets or results. We recommend formulating process objectives instead of result objectives since exploration requires the ability to be agile and learn as you go. Organizations need to balance the exploitation of their current business, including optimization of that current business, while simultaneously explore or experiment with different business models.

Strategizing is something we all do at some point in our lives (when buying a house, choosing an education or running a business). Strategy is about making choices for the future: “What do I want, and how will I realize that?” This is something every organization does, although it may sometimes be subconscious or intuitive.

When it comes to business strategy, the essence is always how to create a sustainable fit between the organization and its environment. But firms have several strategic options, and it is not always clear which one is more favorable than the others. Strategy Works supports organizations to help make decisions on paths they can take. Together with our client, we develop a strategy consisting of pillars, so called ‘must win battles’ to maintain and/or to enhance the fit between an organization and its environment. Each pillar is divided in measurable objectives to track progress. A clear strategy also contributes to the expectations of stakeholders and positioning in the outside world.

Action-oriented
Strategy only truly works when the necessary competences are apparent and developed at every level of an organization. Too often strategy is considered to be an abstract concept only relevant to the heads of an organization. We do not agree with this position. This line of thinking results in strategy documents which paint incomplete pictures and which lack the general support necessary to successfully implement them. A strategy needs to be both comprehensive and tailor-made for it to be relevant and for it to gain the support necessary to implement it. We involve our clients in the strategy formation process and thus help them develop a strategic mind-set and equip them with strategic frameworks. This ensures our clients have the tools necessary to deal with similar problems in the future.

In today’s fast-changing environment, organizations need a sense of direction to avoid strategic drift. A vision is an image of what the world, your industry or your organization will look like in a number of years. An organizational vision helps to improve performance and to sustain the right to exist by anticipating the future. Strategy Works facilitates envisioning projects that vary from a one-day envisioning workshop to an industry wide vision-development project.

In our envisioning process, participation of the organization and their key stakeholders is essential and results in ownership of the result. Our vision map captures the perspectives of internal (and external) stakeholders to arrive at a shared and robust vision on the future, without disregarding differences in perspectives. Analyses (interviews, desk research, business model analyses) can be conducted to further enhance the robustness of the vision.

Organizations find it difficult to take a holistic view and see what developments are affecting or perhaps even disrupting their business. Of course people within the organization are aware of disruptive trends within their industry, but they struggle to create a sense of awareness within their firm or see things in the right perspective. This makes it difficult to inspire teams or organizations and to take on a new direction. Strategy Works has a cutting-edge big picture view of the future. We translate these insights to our clients’ organization or business to inspire people and ensure maximal impact.

Thought leaders
Strategy Works conducts research on the latest trends within sectors or on a societal level to keep our consulting service of the highest quality. Our experience in lecturing at top universities, such as Nyenrode Business Universiteit, Rotterdam Business School and University of Maastricht, together with our global bestseller Strategy: An international perspective and innovative research projects we engage in, makes us thought leaders in the field of strategy. We value our academic practices highly, because our ability to combine theory with practice imbues our insights with rigor. This makes us unique in both our teaching and consulting practice.

Read more about our perspective on the future under insights or contact us to learn more about what our key-note talks.