Seven Essential Skills for Aspiring Corporate Strategists

A career in Corporate Strategy

Many young professionals aspire a career in strategy - either as a Consultant in one of the big strategy consulting firms (McKinsey & Company, Boston Consulting Group, Bain & Company, A.T. Kearney - just to name a few) or as part of the Corporate Strategy team at one of the major corporations. While there are numerous social media posts, articles and publications about work and life as a strategy consultant - partly driven, of course, by the recruiting efforts of the big consulting players - information about careers in Corporate Strategy teams or Inhouse Consulting are much harder to come by. 

In fact, similar to external consulting, a job in Corporate Strategy offers exciting projects, outstanding development opportunities and the outlook for a stellar career:

• Corporate Strategy teams typically work on the most exciting and most relevant strategic projects for their companies - not only setting the strategic direction for the company, but also executing at least some of the top-priority projects that are bound to shape the future of the company.
  This also means working on a wide variety of topics, across all functions within a business - be it Marketing, Operations, Supply Chain, Finance, Human Resources or IT.
  In short - life as Corporate Strategist never gets boring, and no day is like the other.
• Typically anchored with the CEO or even part of the CEO Office, members of the Corporate Strategy team have constant exposure to the top management of the company and are involved in basically all crucial meetings and events relevant to the long-term direction of the company. This gives team members unique development opportunities, and the chance to work with (and learn from) the most senior leaders in the business. 
• Although certainly a demanding, high-stress job, being part of the Corporate Strategy team opens opportunities to fast-track your career (both inside and outside the company). For example, one of my team members in her late 20ies, in a Manager role at that time, received a double-promotion after working in the Strategy team for 2 years and getting exposure to all senior managers in the company, and moved on to head an entire department, managing millions of trade volume; Minor Food's former Head of Strategy moved on to become CEO of Minor Food's China Business; and some of my very talented younger colleagues left to pursue their Master's degrees at Ivy League Business Schools before being hired by some of the top global retailers and tech companies. 

Very much like the typical career progression in the top consulting firms, 2-3 years in Corporate Strategy can easily shorten your career progression by 8-10 years! This is what makes a career in Corporate Strategy so exciting and desirable for young professionals who are still in the early stages of their professional development.

What makes a good Corporate Strategist?

Unfortunately, roles in Corporate Strategy are relatively rare, and entry criteria can be equally tough (and in some cases even tougher) than entry criteria of the top management consulting firms. With only 1-2 openings per year in typical Corporate Strategy teams in Thai companies, recruiters are very selective, and candidates need to bring to the table not only outstanding qualifications and the required technical and "soft" skills, but also a great cultural fit to both company and team in order to be successful. 

So here is my personal list of the seven most important skills and traits an aspiring Corporate Strategist should have:

(1) Problem-Solving Skills

The most important skill for any consultant: The ability to get to the root of a complex problem, break it down into smaller (solvable) portions and then prioritizing and focusing on what is required to solve the problem. This also includes the ability to separate facts from fiction, moving away from gut-feel ("I think we should...") or experience-based decision-making ("When I was working at XYZ in 1989, we ...") and towards a fact-based way of looking at problems.

McKinsey's "7-step Problem Solving Method" is a great tool and framework for a structured Problem-Solving process.

(2) Data Analytics

In order to take a fact-based approach to problem solving, the Corporate Strategist must be equipped with a very solid analytics tool kit. This involves advanced quantitative and data analytics skills. In practice, this usually involves being well versed in using Microsoft Excel or Microsoft Access - but in recent years, more advanced data management skills are increasingly important (Python, R Programming, etc.).

It is important to note here that Data Analytics doesn't stop with with analysis of data, but must always lead to true "insights" - the "so-what" of the analysis (a big rookie-mistake: presenting management with a bunch of complex analyses and data tables without having ready an interpretation and pointing towards the meaning of the data).

(3) Top Management Communication

Which leads us to the next point: One of the top skills required in a consultant's day-to-day work is the ability to communicate to Top Management - in a very concise, "to-the-point" manner that cuts through the complexity and focuses on the information decision-makers truly need. This particularly includes providing an independent and fact-based opinion (more under point #7: maintaining integrity)

A great tool or method to learn about Top Management Communication is Barbara Minto's "Pyramid Principle". 

(4) Collaboration & Team Work

Key to being successful at Corporate Strategy work is to have deep knowledge of all aspects of the business. With the complexity of large businesses, literally nobody - not even the CEO - has that indepth round view of the entire business. Therefore, it is absolutely crucial for Corporate Strategy teams to be well embedded in the corporate setting and maintain strong and good relationships with all Departments and all parts of the business. Collaborating with others, jointly working on business problems, and constantly being together with BU Heads and their teams at the forefront of what is happening (new projects, unexpected events, major competitor movements) is an integral part of the day-to-day job of a Corporate Strategy team.

This also means that the Strategy team itself has to be a well-functioning team, tightly knit together. As I like to tell my team: 'We can argue and fight among each other to get to the best solution - but when we talk to others outside our team, we MUST speak with one voice'. This takes a considerable amount of team building, but even prior to that, it requires careful recruiting to make sure to build a team that "clicks" - i.e. where every team member is the right cultural fit.

Important: This does not mean, by the way, to assemble a team of "conformists", i.e. people who all think alike or all oblige and give in to the majority opinion. On the contrary, I like to surround myself with people who challenge me and each other, who question common ways of thinking and are not afraid to sometimes take a contrarian stance towards a topic. Only that truly pushes the thinking forward and makes a difference.

Organization Behavior Theory has plenty of tools to analyze team work and help struggling teams overcome their challenges.

(5) Influencing Techniques

One flaw of working in the Strategy function of a company is that you are typically not in charge of the decision-making and the implementation of that Strategy. That privilege is given to the CEO, the COO or other BU Heads. The Chief Strategy Officer is often "just" the trusted advisor, who works on the plans, but then has to stand on the sidelines (not always, though: sometimes the CSO owns and leads projects to completion, but I would say this is the case in less than 20% of the time).

Therefore, to ensure that the company indeed moves into the desired direction and that the strategy gets implemented successfully, the Strategy team must master the skills of convincing and influencing key decision-makers in the organization. This is hard work, time consuming, and requires quite a bit of patience and the ability to read people. 

Luckily, the consulting tool-kit contains a set of useful techniques to "influence with integrity". 

(6) Managing complexity and uncertainty

Probably no need dwelling too long on this point, but needless to say that today's corporate world, economic and competitive environment is getting increasingly complex (the word "disruption" comes to mind), especially as technologies evolve at an ever faster pace, and speed is of utmost importance - speed of recognizing what is going on, speed of defining what the problem is, speed of evaluating potential solutions, speed of implementing the solutions, and speed of reacting and adjusting if something is off. 

Along with this complexity and the need for speed comes a great level of uncertainty. Being aware of the uncertainty, evaluating risks and being comfortable taking decisions with the well-calculated risk in mind is essential. The key word here is "comfortable"...

(7) Maintaining integrity

Last, but definitely not least, leaning on a sentence I picked up from the mission statement of the consulting company A.T. Kearney a few years ago: Corporate Strategists to be worth their salt needs act with utmost sincerity and integrity - speaking the truth as they see it and not necessarily what the key stakeholders in the organization want to hear. (Can you see the potential conflict with point #4?)

This is definitely not always easy, and sometimes might not make you the most popular person in a meeting or in a working team, but it is absolutely essential. Otherwise, what is the value of having a Corporate Strategy team in the first place if the team does not dare to challenge the status quo if they see the need?

Of course, in most situations, people across the organization understand the strategic direction  of the company and are aligned, but there is the odd case where - after thorough analysis, problem-solving and reaching a consensus within the Strategy team - the team's viewpoint turns out contrarian to pretty much everyone else's. And in these situations, it is important to stand up for your conviction and speak out. 

For me, this is part of the ethos of a good consultant - whether external or internal.  

Putting the 7 skills to action

These are the 7 skills I would consider most crucial in becoming - and being - a good Corporate Strategist. There are probably a dozen others that are part of the job, but these are the ones I found most helpful in my career. Excelling at all of them is not easy (and if you ask my colleagues, they would certainly be able to come up with war-stories where I failed miserably at some of them...), but being aware of them, doing an honest self-assessment of the level of proficiency against each of the 7 points, and then investing time to master them is the first step towards a great and successful career in one of the most exciting areas of a business. 

Transfer Pricing

What is Transfer Pricing?

One of the concepts I teach as part of my Business Strategy course is Transfer Pricing. I define Transfer Pricing as a "management tool" for governing (some people might say "manipulating") transactions among related parties. Thereby, the transfer price is an artificially set price for a good or service that one party has to pay to another related party. If the transfer price varies from the market price, this pricing mechanism will make one party better off, at the expense of the other party.

 

How does Transfer Pricing work?

Let me give you the following example. Assume a company has two subsidiaries: 

Business Unit A is a manufacturing business unit located in Thailand which produces products to sell to internal and external business customers (not to consumers).

Business Unit B is our company's retail / distribution arm for the European Market. It gets its products from Business Unit A and sells it to end-consumers across Europe.

 

Scenario 1: Transaction at Market Prices

Let's assume the production cost for BU A is $50.- and it could sell its product to external businesses at a B2B market price of $100.-. The resulting profit per unit before tax would be $100 - $50 = $50. At 20% corporate tax rate in Thailand, the Net Profit After Tax (NPAT) of BU A is $50 - $10 = $40 per unit.

Assuming BU B buys the product from BU A at the B2B market price of $100 and can sell its products to European consumers at $200, BU B's profit before tax would be $200 - $100 = $100. At 30% corporate tax rate in Europe, BU B's NPAT is $100 - $30 = $70 per unit.

With this, our total consolidated company profit would be $40 + $70 = $110 per unit.

Exhibit 1 shows the details of this internal transaction at market prices.

Scenario 2: Transaction at Transfer Pricing (with factor 1.5)

Now, let's assume our company decides to implement a new transfer pricing policy that would allow BU A to charge to BU B at 1.5x market price. The production cost of $50.- remain unchanged. 

Under this new scheme, BU A can now sell its product to BU B at a transfer price of $100.- x 1.5 = $150. As a result, profit per unit before tax increases from $50 previously to now $150 - $50 = $100. With 20% corporate tax rate in Thailand, the Net Profit After Tax (NPAT) of BU A increases to $100 - $20 = $80 per unit. Therefore, BU A doubles its NPAT from $40 to $80.

BU B, on the other side, now has to pay significantly more for its products. It buys from BU A at the transfer price of $150, and with consumer market price unchanged at $200, BU B's profit before tax reduces to $200 - $150 = $50. At 30% corporate tax rate in Europe, BU B's NPAT is now $50 - $15 = $35 per unit. Therefore, BU B is significantly worse off compared to before.

However, our total consolidated company profit improves from $110 per unit to $80 + $35 = $115 per unit. 

Exhibit 2 shows the details of the transaction with transfer pricing.

 

It is worth to note that our consolidated profit before tax has remained unchanged: At market prices, it was $50 + $100 = $150; at transfer prices it is now $100 + $50 = $150. All transfer pricing has done is to make one BU look better on paper, while the other BU looks worse. Operationally, nothing has changed, so the change in financial performance literally just happened on paper.

After tax, however, with the help of transfer pricing, we have managed to increase our total after-tax profit. The improvement comes from tax savings: Previously, we paid a total of ($10) + ($30) = ($40) in taxes. With transfer pricing, our taxes decrease to ($20) + ($15) = ($35).

Pros and Cons of Transfer Pricing

The benefit of transfer pricing is obvious from the example above: With tax rates varying among between countries, multinational companies can benefit from tax arbitrage by shifting profits to geographies with lower tax rates. 

Other reasons for transfer pricing could be that management tries to "push" BUs to improve their performance by "storing" profits at a particular BU, forcing the other BUs to lower their cost, increase their prices, etc. in order to manage their performance.

The challenge with transfer pricing is that it artificially increases / decreases the performance of BUs without underlying operational rationale. With this, there is a risk that investment decisions are made in favor of a BU that benefits from transfer pricing, while another BU might be disadvantaged as its result look unfavorable, while its actual operating performance is stronger than Accounting numbers might suggest.

Similarly, managers and staff working in the "disadvantaged" BU might be wrongly considered as under-performers, while one of the key contributors to the financial performance of their BU might in fact the transfer pricing mechanism.

This requires close monitoring from management in order to avoid driving wrong investment and performance management decisions.

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Sources:

https://www.cesim.com/

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/transferprice.asp

What is Strategy ?

Starting from the origins

When talking about a new topic or subject, it makes sense to start off with a clear definition of what we it actually is we are talking about. For the subject of "Strategy", one good starting point is the root of the word itself (also because it gives me the rare chance to show-off my classical education in Ancient Greek and Latin...). 

Looking at the etymology of the word "strategy", it actually originates from two Ancient Greek words: "ho stratos" (the army) and "agein" (to lead). So, the word "strategy" is actually war terminology: It literally refers to the art of leading an army in a war or a battle - to victory, of course! Please note that embedded in the word "strategy" is not only the plan on how to win the war, but also the aspect of "leadership" - a concept we will get back to repeatedly when discussing the subject of strategy.

Taking this concept to the business world, strategy means having a plan on how we as leaders can steer our business to beat the competition and get ahead of the market, and then act on the plan by implementing these strategies and lead our business to outperform our competitors.

 

A formal definition of "Strategy"

Any academic discussion of a subject needs to kick off with a proper formal definition of the subject. If you look through literature, you will find a myriad of definitions, all with slight variations. Here a few:

• Alfred D. Chandler (1963):
  

  "(...) the determination of the long-run goals and objectives of an enterprise and the adoption of courses of action and the allocation of resource necessary for carrying out these goals"

• Michael E. Porter (1996):
  

  "Competitive strategy is about being different. It means deliberately choosing a different set of activities to delivery a unique mix of value"

• Henry Mintzberg (2007):
  

  "(...) a pattern in a stream of decisions"

• Gerry Johnson et al. (2015):
  

  "strategy is the long-term direction of an organization"  

Personally, the one I like best and the one I refer to in my lectures is from Hitt, Ireland, Hoskisson (2019):

"An integrated and coordinated set of commitments and actions, designed to exploit core competencies, with the aim to gain a competitive advantage".

 In a nutshell: Strategy is a well crafted plan that lays out how to win against competition. 

Strategy vs. Tactics

Finally, one important distinction we need to make is the difference of Strategy as opposed to Tactics. Many times I have heard people say: "My strategy for next week's promotion is...". The way I like to look at it, strategy is something for the longer-term: a plan that covers at least the next full year period, but many companies looking at 3-5 year horizons. This longer-term strategic plan should be closely aligned with the even longer-term vision and mission of the company (more about this in a separate post).

Supporting the longer-term strategic plan are a number of smaller tactical initiatives (like next week's promotion campaign, for example), which become the "operationalization" of our strategy. 

The key challenge for business leaders is to ensure that all these small tactical initiatives indeed are fully aligned with the long-term strategic plan. In my 15+ years experience working in various strategic functions (as a consultant as well as in corporate strategy functions across several businesses), whenever I have seen strategies fail, it was due to management taking too many short-term tactical actions that were not aligned with overall strategy, and that distracted the organization from its original direction. 

If you take the analogy: If your long-term goal is to lose weight, it doesn't help if you eat too many sweets, chips and drink too many sugary drinks... :)

 

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Sources:

Chandler, A.D. (1963): "Strategy and Structure: Chapters in the History of American Enterprise"; MIT Press, 1963, p. 13.

Hitt, M.; Ireland, R.D.; Hoskisson, R. (2019): "Strategic Management: Concepts and Cases: Competitiveness and Globalization"; 13th edition, CENGAGE Learning Custom Publishing, 2019.

Johnson, G; Whittington, R.; Scholes, K.; Angwin, D.; Regner, P. (2015): "Fundamentals of Strategy"; 3rd edition, Pearson, 2015.

Mintzbert, H. (2007): "Tracking Strategies: Towards a General Theory"; Oxford University Press, 2007, p. 3.

Porter, M.E. (1996): "What is Strategy?"; Harvard Business Review, Nov-Dec 1996, p. 60.

The “Holy Grail” of Successful Transformations

A Framework for Making Behavioural Change Happen

70% of transformations fail!

According to McKinsey research, “70 percent of complex, large-scale change programs don’t reach their stated goals” (Bucy et al., 2016). This seems pretty daunting for change leaders and managers whose primary task it is to transform businesses for the better. Especially at a time where change comes more rapidly and demands on organisations to keep up with constantly evolving trends and customer needs are higher and higher, this is bad news.

For the past 15 years, I have been working on large-scale transformations in various businesses, across various industries across the globe, and this question has often kept me up at night: If my chances of success are only 30%, what can I do to beat the odds? How can I ensure that I don’t end up in the 70%?   

 

People don’t like change

Of course, there are many reasons why a transformation program might not reach its desired goals. Sudden shifts in the industry, major organisational changes, a change in funding or project financing, changes in direction from top management, system failures or other technical issues, unrealistic goals and expectations, or dismal external circumstances – many things may cause a transformation project to fail. However, from my experience, these are rather rare occurrences. Most, if not all, transformation programs I was involved in were off to a good start, didn’t face any major external or internal blockages at launch.

In most cases, a transformation program failed because the people affected by the transformation resisted the change and carried on with (or quickly returned to) the same behaviours as before. I think this little illustration from McKinsey’s Lean Training materials captures it pretty well: It shows the difference between the 70% that fall back to old habits and the 30% that manage to sustain and maybe even further improve their performance by instilling the right behaviours across the organisation.

People don’t like change – it is uncomfortable, it unsettles long standing routines, it may make work harder at first. So, by definition, resistance from the people affected is a major obstacle for all transformation programs. We have to accept that as a fact of life. 

Yet, 3 out of 10 programs manage to overcome these issues. Their starting point has probably been no different: People don’t want to change – but then eventually they do. 

We may get a clue if we understand first what happens in the cases that fail.

 

Four reasons why people don’t change their behaviours

Let me tell you four stories of transformations that failed:

1. An American logistics company with a strong historic track record faced increasing competition and consequently lower profitability. This forced the management to launch a major lean transformation program and hire consultants to help with the implementation across the entire business. The top management was aligned – however, middle management and staff did not understand the sudden urgency to change. The business had been growing for decades, shipping volumes were high, there was apparently no shortage of work. What workers did not know was that the company was starting to lose money on most shipments. Staff saw no need to change, and hence showed little commitment to the transformation program. Even though the lean transformation initiative launched by the consultant had been successful, just weeks after the consulting team had handed over to the client team and departed, things went back to the way they were before. Not even three years later, the company was forced to shut several of its logistics centres, layoff staff and give business to their competitors.
   
   
2. An oil company facing profitability pressures due to declining oil prices was forced to launch a major cost reduction effort. The company's management team held town hall meetings to inform staff and managed to get wide-spread commitment to the changes. However, the teams responsible for generating cost savings did not have the capabilities to lead the change, create a new way of working and sustain those savings. With a lot of top management support, the short-term goals were met – however, as management started to shift attention to other priorities and their immediate project support subsided, the working teams were not able to sustain the cost reduction effort and performance started to drop.
   
   
3. A family-run real estate developer saw its Returns on Capital drop due to increasing competition and market saturation. Management decided to launch a major cost reduction initiative. However, the company lacked proper systems to systematically track cost performance in a timely manner. More than that, the management style and culture of the company did not reward performance. With no KPIs in place, there simply was no real incentive for middle management and staff to change. While small improvements were made, the overall program fell far behind its expected value creation.
   
   
4. A brick-and-mortar retailer was forced to significantly reduce costs due to increasingly fierce online and offline competition. At the same time, it launched a customer-first initiative to transform and significantly step up its customer service function. The company had a strong performance culture and capabilities of its people were above industry average. The cost savings program quickly gained traction. However, the company’s top management – while demanding significant cuts from middle management and frontline staff – continued to enjoy the same perks and benefits, went on expensive business trips, spent money on meetings at top-ranking hotels, etc. Also, despite most top managers having drivers, management did not want to give up the convenience of front-row parking, while staff and customers had to park further away. Soon, the transformation program was met with a lot of cynicism by middle managers and staff. While the cost reduction program barely achieved its targets, the customer service initiative failed to really take off. Top management simply did not “walk the talk” and therefore lost credibility with their staff.

A powerful change framework – McKinsey’s Influence Model

It is these experiences that made me a big fan of and believer in McKinsey’s “Influence Model” framework (see Basford & Schaninger 2016 for an excellent summary of the model). I came across this model in 2007 and have applied it ever since to all transformation programs I have been part of. It was a big eye-opener for me back then, and until today I believe it is the most powerful change framework I have come across so far – also because it is so simple and easy to grasp and understand.

In its basics, it says that four conditions need to be in place in order to sustainably change behaviours. As a middle manager or staff member, I will adopt the new way if each of these four conditions are fulfilled: 

1. First of all, I need to have a solid understanding why I need to change and need to be convinced that change indeed is necessary / beneficial.
2. Secondly, I need to have the skills and capabilities to behave in the new way. If I want to change, but I don’t know what to do, it is not going to happen.
3. Then, I need to have an incentive (some kind of reinforcing mechanism) to motivate me to change. This can be a positive incentive, the knowledge of (potentially negative) consequences – or simply having some "stake in the game" (stock options?). Just like paying for a gym membership: If it’s free, I might not feel the urge to go (at least that would be the case for me…).
4. Finally, I need to see that others are equally committed to change their behaviours. Particularly, I expect my managers to be good role models and to lead by example. If I see my boss is committed, I am very likely to become committed myself as well.

An illustration: Teaching your child how to pray

My friend and former colleague Tobias Mangelmann used a great example when teaching the Influence Model to clients: Teaching a child to pray. It does not matter which religion – parents who want their child to grow up religiously will inevitably want their children to pray. So how do I do that as a parent?

First, I will explain to my children why it is a good thing to pray. I might tell them that it is how their wish might become true, that they can ask for strength in difficult situations or simply tell them that praying is an important tradition.

Then, I need to teach them how to actually do the prayer. How to start, how to end, what exactly to say. In Christianity, many children’s prayers rhyme, so they are easy to remember. Without teaching them the how-to, it will be impossible for them to know what to do.

Next, we need a little enforcing mechanism for children to have an incentive to pray. That’s where heaven and hell come to play. If you behave well, pray regularly, and follow the rules, you will go to heaven – otherwise, hell it is! On a side note, some Thai Buddhist temples have beautiful illustrations of the Buddhist hell – and the different tortures poor souls have to endure - very effective to teach children...

Finally, all of the above will not have much of an impression on children if they don’t see their parents behave in the same way: ‘If daddy is not afraid of hell, why should I be?’

 

It’s a puzzle – you can’t miss a piece

The key about this framework is that it is a puzzle, with all the parts connected to each other. Even one missing piece makes the entire puzzle incomplete. And this is from my experience: if you miss out on any of the four elements, it puts the entire transformation at risk. Often though, companies miss out on multiple parts, which makes the likelihood of failure even higher.

The good news is: a strong transformation leader can proactively manage and increase her odds of success in a transformation program by focusing on the four elements of the Influence Model. Over the years, I have seen incredibly creative approaches for each of the four elements – but more on this in a later post.

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References:

• Basford, T.; Schaninger, B. (2016)
  "The four building blocks of change"
  Published in: McKinsey Insights, April 2016
  https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our-insights/the-four-building-blocks--of-change
• Bucy, M.; Finlayson, A.; Kelly, G.; Moye, Ch. (2016)
  "The How of Transformations"
  Published in: McKinsey Insights, May 2016
  https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/retail/our-insights/the-how-of-transformation

Getting Started

Introductions

My name is Dr. Oliver Gottschall. I am a lecturer at the Faculty of Commerce & Accountancy at Chulalongkorn University. In my full-time job I am Chief Strategy Officer at one of the major Retailers and Shopping Mall Developers here in Thailand.

The subjects I teach are Business Strategy and International Business, mostly to undergraduate students in their third and forth year. I also teach Human Resource Management in the Master of Arts in Business Economics (MABE) Program at the Faculty of Economics, as well as Organizational Behaviour and Business Ethics in one of the Executive MBA programs at Ho Chi Minh University of Technology (Bach Khoa) in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

Those who are familiar with Thailand and Thai culture will know that “Ajarn” is the Thai title for "lecturer" or "professor", and students have been calling me “Ajarn Olli” ever since I started teaching – hence the name of the blog.

This is my very first blog post (ever), and I would like to start by outlining my story and my motivation for starting this blog. So here it goes…

Teaching = Learning

A bit more than eleven years ago, I started teaching my very first class at Chulalongkorn University. What was supposed to be a one-year stint during my sabbatical year to write up my PhD thesis turned into a hobby and then into a true passion. I LOVE teaching, because I love learning with and from my students.

When I started off eleven years ago, my teaching methods were very basic, I would even say boring. I mostly rattled down PowerPoint slides, which I had pulled together in consulting style (small print, complicated graphs) – admittedly not very “user-friendly” for my audience of second and third year undergraduate students. Looking back, I feel sorry for the groups of students, who had to suffer through my not-very-engaging lectures during my first two years of teaching.

One thing, however, that I have always done is listening to students’ feedback. (I have a method of collecting students’ feedback, but more about this in a later blog). Over time, and with the great help of hundreds of individual pieces of feedback, I have been constantly adjusting to the demands and needs of my audience. For example, Facebook Groups (and lately Line Groups) replaced the old intranet-hosted “Blackboard”; I occasionally record short “video lectures” when I feel the point might not have come across in class or if I suddenly can think of a better way to explain something; absent students can dial in via video calls.

In short, more than anything, teaching has become a learning journey for me.

Why this blog?

There are three reasons for me to start this blog:

Firstly, I received feedback from my students that they would prefer the option of additional readings about the stories, the case studies and the materials I share in class. I had thought about writing a text book to accompany my classes. However, (1) text books are very “static” and the case studies, etc. expire relatively quickly as the world moves on; and (2) I do not think that people actually enjoy reading text books – well, I never did, and during the few attempts I made to actually sit down and write, I quickly became bored with my own writing and gave up. I think a blog is a much more agile and flexible way to write and also more suitable for Gen Y and Gen Z students.

Secondly, I hope that this blog will open up the things I like to teach, the topics I am passionate about and my personal learnings to a wider audience – to former and future students, and to basically anyone who is interested to listen in. I do not think that I can measure up to geniuses like Michael Porter or teaching legends like Aswath Damodaran, but there are a few things I picked up during my time as a consultant and business executive that I wished I had known before, so I take this as an opportunity to share these with the world.

Finally, I love learning as much as I love teaching, and I hope that at least some of my posts will trigger debates and bring out some new aspects that I might not have thought about. I love getting feedback, so I am very much looking forward to any comments to the blog posts. It is another reason why I think a blog that facilitates two-way communication is a better fit for me than writing a book (which by nature is a one-way means of communication).

About this blog

My personal and academic interests are very wide, spanning economics, business, strategy, investment, music, sports, literature, and many other things. However, this blog will mostly focus on two topics of my professional life that I am very passionate about: Strategy and Transformation. Transforming businesses has been my full-time job over the past 15 years or so, and (as I do in class) I intend to share some of the lessons I learned in this blog.  

A new experience for me, so let’s see how it goes!