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Digital Leadership and Innovation

Ongoing growth of digital technologies lastingly changes nearly every industry. Through the exponential increase in momentum at which new technologies revolutionise companies and even complete business areas, the uncertainty in the global business context increases as well. Innovative business models and rapidly-growing market participants set the pace, intensify the competition and threaten established leaders. On the other hand, digitisation is creating unforeseen business opportunities and all the required resources are openly accessible. Along six proven building blocks “Digital Leadership and Innovation” encourages leaders to become drivers of digital transformation and provides them with the necessary tools to establish a digital mind set in their companies.

Course content

'Digital Leadership and Innovation' will prepare you for your challenges as digital leader. You will be taught the key concepts of digital innovation and will apply these concepts directly in your digital innovation Capstone Project. The course content is structured along six building blocks that are required to master the transformation to a digital company. The journey to becoming a digital leader is accompanied by a Capstone Project that helps you to turn the theoretical insights into results.

All modules can be booked separately. Prices and further information can be found under the respective section below.

Module 1: Digital Marketing Strategy

Module 2: Digital Strategy Implementation and Operations

In this module, you will learn how a digitalisation strategy can be effectively implemented in operations and supply chain processes. This learning will draw from a framework that links market positioning with operational capabilities, ensuring that performance objectives are cascaded into and reinforced by operational configurations. You will also develop skills for leading digitalisation initiatives in operational contexts.

Dates: 27.- 28.09.2019 (Fri-Sat)

Duration: 1.5 days

Module 3: Digital Business Model Innovation

In this module, you will learn about the clash between existing and digitally enhanced business models emphasizing platforms and ecosystems. You will learn to treat and exploit “information” as the core resource of modern value creation, and understand the economic and technological key trends that are at the heart of the digital transformation. You will also learn what “Data-Centricity” means for today’s companies, which role data play for innovating business models, and the fundamental difference of digital products and services compared to “traditional” physical goods. You will develop an agenda for how to meet challenges of digital innovation and how Business Model Innovation and business patterns can help firms transform themselves.

This module can be booked separately for 1.450€.

Dates: 10.- 11.10.2019 (Thu-Fri)

Duration: 1.5 days

Module 4: Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship encompasses proactive, innovative and risk-taking behavior in the face of uncertainty. In this module, you will obtain a detailed understanding how entrepreneurship helps coping with the duality of a) exploiting new business opportunities and b) flexibly dealing with unforeseen challenges. The course provides you with tools and concepts that allow for mastering the entrepreneurial process - from idea generation, over prototyping to market testing - in the fast changing environment of the digital age.

This module can be booked separately for 1.450€.

Dates: 11.- 12.10.2019 (Fri-Sat)

Duration: 1.5 days

Module 5: Digital Innovation Leadership and Management

In this module, you will learn to develop innovation capabilities in your teams and workforce in a systematic, reproducible and consistent way. Building on approaches such as Lean and Design Thinking, the approach builds on four different thinking styles around creative ideas and presents a holistic method for considering technological opportunities, organisational problems and strategic imperatives. You will learn a procedure model for creating, testing, implementing and exploiting digital innovations, growing your organisational ability to turn innovative ideas in measurable business results.

This module can be booked separately for 1.450€.

Dates: 24.-25.10.2019 (Thu-Fri)

Duration: 1.5 days

Module 6: Agile and Lean Organising for Innovation

In this module, you will learn ways and methods in which you can create an innovation-ready organisational structure, with processes and rules designed to foster creativity, experimentation, responsibility and ambition to innovate. Using real-life case studies and the latest organisational theories such as Agile Project Management and Lean Start-Ups, you will learn to understand the benefits and disadvantages of organising, agile project management and flexible teams to support innovation.

This module can be booked separately for 1.450€.

Dates: 25.-26.10.2019 (Fri-Sat)

Duration: 1.5 days

Module 7: Digital Innovation Capstone Project

To cap off your learning experience, the capstone project will enable you to apply your new knowledge to a real in company digital innovation challenge. You will be tasked with identifying and analysing a digital innovation challenge or opportunity that your organisation faces. Your objective is then to design and deliver a digital innovation solution.

Date: One day of presentation (in agreement with Prof. Jan Recker)

How you benefit

Obtain a University of Cologne Executive School Certificate in Digital Leadership Innovation.
Put your new skills into practice immediately, thanks to the Capstone project.
Learn how to implement digital business model innovation.
Understand how to implement digital business model innovation.
Explore the latest digital technology trends from thought leaders and expert practitioners.
Gain hands-on experience in tools and techniques for creativity and innovation.

Target Audience

Our certificate programme is specifically tailored to suit management teams in organisations faced with digital technology challenges, who have the desire and capacity to tackle these challenges. Suitable participants iclude, but are not limited to, team leaders, project managers and managers of business units in large organisations and directors and executive staff in small to medium sized companies.

Key Facts

10 days in Sept.- Oct. 2019 (Thu-Sat)
Taught at the University of Cologne
In English
Max. 30 participants
9,475 Euro

Your faculty:

Experts in the Science and Practice of Digital Innovation

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Prof. Jan Recker, Ph.D.

Chaired Professor for Information Systems and Systems Development at the University of Cologne. Prof. Recker is the most accomplished business and management researcher under 40 years of age according to a ranking by the magazine Wirtschaftswoche. He is Alexander-von-Humboldt Fellow, Chaired Professor for Information Systems and Systems Development at the University of Cologne, and Adjunct Professor at the QUT Business School in Brisbane, Australia. In 2018 he was also made the youngest ever AIS Fellow.

Prof. Dr Christian Schwens

Full Professor of Business Administration and Head of the Endowed Chair for Interdisciplinary Management Science at the University of Cologne. Prof. Schwens also serves as the scientific director of the board of directors of the Excellence-Start-up Center (ESC) GATEWAY – the business incubator of the University of Cologne. His work focuses on interdisciplinary management, start-up entrepreneurship, corporate entrepreneurship and international entrepreneurship.

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Prof. Dr. Fabian J. Sting

Professor of Supply Chain Management, Strategy and Innovation at the University of Cologne and at Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam School of Management. Prof Sting’s research and teaching interests are in Operations and Technology Strategy. He studies and teaches effective implementations of strategy and innovation in projects and processes.

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Prof. Dr. Detlef Schoder

Professor for Information Systems and Information Management at the University of Cologne. His focuses on data-centric product, process, and business model innovations. For the application of Artificial Intelligence, he won together with partner companies several awards including IATA Innovation Award 2016 and the German Innovation Prize (Finalist). He also won the “Innovation Award” by the German Gesellschaft für Informatik (GI) and the VHB Text Book award 2017.

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Prof. Dr. Hernán Bruno

Professor of Marketing and Digital Environment at the University of Cologne. Prof. Bruno was a Marketing Professor at INSEAD (2008-2015), Erasmus University in Rotterdam (2007-2008), and a consultant at McKinsey & Company (2000-2002). He holds a PhD from London Business School. Professor Bruno research focuses on statistical modelling to support marketing decision-making, or to generate insights into marketing phenomena.