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WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management will offer a new executive education program in April. Organized jointly with Kühne Logistics University (KLU), the executive education program targets supply chain managers. Strategy, entrepreneurial logic and actions, and leadership are the Supply Chain Leadership program’s core themes.

Digitalization, internationalization, and increasingly shorter production cycles are presenting new challenges to companies and their flexibility. Supply chain management offers great potential for supporting or controlling corporate strategy, making a major contribution to strengthening competitive advantages. However, supply chain managers are often faced with the challenge of positioning the benefits of their own activities relative to the company’s strategic goals. This is why the Supply Chain Leadership program aims to expand the participants’ perspective on overall corporate policies and goals. In turn, this will enable managers to design processes more effectively and efficiently and to achieve corporate goals with the help of supply chain management.

“Our program’s participants will benefit from the expertise of the general management specialists at WHU and the experience of KLU’s supply chain and logistics experts,” said Prof. Dr. Carl Marcus Wallenburg, Chair for Logistics and Service Management at WHU and one of the program’s teachers. According to Wallenburg, the new program also features close coordination between its academic content and the daily working environments of the participants. It will focus on strategy and its implementation, leadership, change management, and entrepreneurial logic and actions.

“In today’s economy, efficient supply chain management is a key competitive ability booster. Managers who are not in tune with the times will find it difficult to achieve their corporate goals,” said Fabian Berger, Managing Director of KLU and KLU Executive Education. “This is why managers in this field must have the best possible continuing education opportunities.”

WHU Offers New Program on April 28 and 29, 2016, on the Düsseldorf Campus

WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management will offer a new Executive Education program at its campus in Düsseldorf. Over the course of two days, executives will receive intense exposure and training in private equity and venture capital.

Both PE and VC play a central role in the global economy: they revolutionize entire industries, contribute to the development of technologies, alter the modalities of competition and offer a second chance for companies threatened with insolvency.

"The time for an Executive Education program like this has never been better," says Professor Dr. Serden Ozcan, who holds a chair in Innovation and Organization at WHU. "Never before have successful strategies for investment decisions been as essential as they are today. For managers who want to endure in the market, then, continuing education in the field of venture capital and private equity is indispensable."

"The program is aimed at entrepreneurs, M&A experts, executives in the field of business development, and senior managers in family businesses," adds Professor Dr. Garen Markarian, who will also teach in the program. The benefits of this program derive from close coordination between academic standards and high practical relevance: "We will work with real case studies and simulations, discuss theoretical viewpoints, and have industry experts interact with participants." Among other things, participants will investigate the ways in which venture capital firms identify, evaluate and nurture growth opportunities, and PE creates value in an advanced lifecycle of an industrial firm.

Sunday marked the beginning of the year for the first incoming class in the "Advanced Executive Program in Sports Business" (AEP) at SPOAC, the Sports Business Academy by WHU. The incoming students will complete a year-long continuing-education program for professionals, with course work designed for tomorrow's leaders in the sports business.

On their first day on the SPOAC campus at WHU in Düsseldorf, participants were first welcomed by the initiators of SPOAC, Prof. Sascha L. Schmidt (Scientific Director of SPOAC) and Philipp Klotz (member of management at SPONSORs). Under the title "Strategy in Action," the first case studies on "competitiveness" were discussed, based on participants' previous preparation via a multimedia learning platform. Prof. Schmidt drew on participants' professional experience as the group worked on solutions to the problems posed. This is a core element of the "Harvard Case Method" taught at SPOAC – Sports Business Academy by WHU. The AEP comprises ten three-day modules devoted to topics ranging from "Strategy" to "Sales" to "Leadership."

Participants in the first incoming class stem from all relevant areas of the world of sports business. They include representatives of world federations such as FIFA and FEI (the International Equestrian Federation); national organizations including DFL, DFB, Eintracht Frankfurt, and 1. FC Köln; and students from the sponsoring industry, including Deutsche Sportwetten, Fujifilm, and WWP. Former and current top athletes from sports such as hockey, tennis, and Nordic skiing have also enrolled at SPOAC.

During an evening dinner, participants had the opportunity to reflect on their first day together and to engage in lively discussion in a relaxed setting. The day ended with an escape game in which the participants had to solve puzzles and brainteasers together before they could escape from a room.

Among the highlights awaiting participants on the second day was a keynote presentation by German Football League (DFL) CEO Christian Seifert. Dr. Michael Vesper, CEO of the German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB), is today's announced, guest lecturer.

The second three-day module of the AEP, on "Accounting and Finance," will follow immediately thereafter, beginning on Wednesday and ending on Friday. Participants will complete the remaining eight modules at the WHU campus Düsseldorf, meeting at intervals of four weeks each. The program concludes in early June with a study trip to Boston, where, among other destinations, participants will visit the campus of Harvard Business School.