Essentials in Strategy

This programme comprises 10 modules, designed to give you a robust introduction strategic management: 

Module 1: Introduction to the world of strategy  

• Understand the impact of a strong strategy for an organisation
• Analyse the strategy at your own organisation
• Understand the differences between corporate- and business-level strategy 

Module 2: A winning strategy 

• Learn how to define success and a winning strategy
• Understand the strategy formulation framework 

Module 3: Who do we serve?

• Understand and apply the first element of the strategy formulation framework: Who do we serve?
• Understand the importance of choosing your strategic customers

Module 4: What do we provide? 

• Understand and apply the second element of the strategy formulation framework: What do we provide?
• Learn the importance of understanding your business offering: how you differentiate your product from your competitors’ products

Module 5: What is our value proposition?

• Understand and apply the third element of the strategy formulation framework: What is our value proposition?
• Learn how to assess your overall proposition: the total value a customer derives from being your customer

Module 6: How do we realise this?

• Understand and apply the fourth element of the strategy formulation framework: How do we realise this?
• Learn how to align the way that your business is run with your value proposition

Module 7: Strategy implementation

• Learn how to make the step from making strategic choices to actually implementing them in your organisation using the Vlerick Strategy Implementation Framework
• Evaluate how winning companies implement their strategies using the strategy execution model
• Explore the concepts of alignment and commitment to talk about implementation and an organisation’s maturity

Module 8: The power of alignment

• Explore the Vlerick Strategy Implementation Framework in detail
• Assess the strategy implementation of your own organisation
• Understand how winning companies choose one particular operating model in order to succeed

Module 9: Alignment case study

• Evaluate how one company has implemented its strategy using one particular operating model with the goal to become truly customer-intimate
• Apply your learning so far to critically assess the case study

Module 10: From alignment to commitment

• Understand the importance of an organisation’s maturity in facilitating strategy implementation
• Assess your own organisation’s maturity using the ‘4 levels of maturity’ model

Programme design 

This online learning journey is packed with videos, exercises, quizzes, case studies and real-life examples to keep you engaged and motivated. You’ll also have background reading and questions to consider, to help you reflect on your own experience. 
 
Then you’ll have the opportunity to put theory into practice – and become confident about making the right strategic choices. 
 
You can start Essentials in Strategy at any time – and study wherever and whenever suits you. It takes around 10 to 12 hours to complete the programme and you can split this time over a maximum of three months.

If you’re looking to develop your strategic skills, this programme will help you reach the next level. You’ll learn how strategy is a crucial part of keeping an organisation focused on its objectives – and you’ll discover how a consistent strategy can help build competitive advantage. You’ll gain new knowledge of strategic management – and become confident at having strategic discussions with colleagues.

• Professionals who are keen to develop their strategic skills – whether they work in marketing, operations, legal, HR or any other function
• Are you striving not only to grow personally, but to develop the same mindset and language with the entire team? Contact onlineacademy@vlerick.com to register a group.

In previous editions, we had the pleasure of welcoming participants from companies like: