Last week our class was split in three groups to visit Zurich, Munich and London with one-day trips on occasion of spreading out our job on the Navigating the Future conference. This time, for each destination only a few topics were selected to be presented in front of local IMD alumni communities.
To get our group to Munich the MBA office organized a comfortable bus. The trip was rather long, but, like in the concept “Transportation 2.0”, we had freedom to do whatever we wanted: chat to each other, dream, stare at the window and admire Swiss nature, listen to music we had no time to listen before or prepare for the presentation in the afternoon. With almost no barriers in crossing the borders between the two neighboring and close in many senses countries, there was a clear sign in the 4G interruption and some differences in architecture and general outlook. Globalization vs localization…
Our event was hosted in the spacious room with a nice terrace of the Münchner Bank. Forty to fifty high-up guests, most of them IMD alumni came to listen to our presentations, and network. It was clear that IMD gives very strong bonds, irrespective of the type of the program or a graduation year. Our fellow class of the MBA 45th members was honored to shake hands and talk to successful leaders, MBA 4 or 8. After having studied some of the topics during the program, I had some amazing discussions on the real things people do in their respective industries. Thoughts on the non-commercial dilemmas that business faces with the development of the Artificial Intelligence, or Revolution 4.0, or Big Data management were rather deep and ambiguous. What is the future of work? Whom to save in a traffic accident involving self-driving cars? How to lead diverse teams, in which generation gap, level of digitalization and other psychological differences are becoming huge?
My classmates did a great job in presenting topics of Business Model Transformation, Technology Push and Energy Futures. Robin moderated our conference smoothly, leading us from food for thought to food for living. At the end of our event Prof. Ralf Boscheck gave a multi-faceted outlook on the today’s economics and its implications on business and society, that stimulated many discussions.
It was rather late when we exited the hospitable building and found ourselves under the cloudburst. Yet we wanted to keep the momentum of our triumph of the last 6-month effort and friendship. By metro we went to the beer house in the city center and, on the second wind, enjoyed another side of the event…
Till soon,
Aysylu
