Annual Report 2021

Learning

IMD Pathfinder®: Business Transformation Initiative

IMD deploys the strength of its thought leadership and expertise in executive education into advisory activities, helping clients address strategic growth and transformation opportunities. One of its advisory value propositions, IMD Pathfinder®, supports CEOs and senior executives to deliver today and shape the future.

IMD Pathfinder® is based on a pedagogy developed over years of working with CEOs and senior teams worldwide. The four building blocks include: i) a rigorous diagnostic of the current state of the business; ii) develop diverging perspectives through deep and wide organizational engagement; iii) converge on a shared strategic agenda; and iv) enable acceleration.

As opposed to providing clients with pre-determined solutions, IMD Pathfinder® harnesses the collective expertise of the organization, empowering executives to create their own solutions. IMD acts as an advisor, topic expert and provocateur to the CEO, C-suite and senior teams.

Highlights from 2021

IMD Pathfinder®, continued to consolidate in 2021, successfully completing journeys with new and existing clients.

The Business Transformation Initiative (BTI) saw increased client interest in formulating and activating corporate purpose across projects. Building on in-house expertise and thought leadership, BTI strengthened its work in this area, innovating on its approach and tools. Furthermore, the team reinforced its analytical and delivery capability, engaging an extended group of faculty and project team.

A key purpose related project that the team worked on was a nine-month journey with a US-based insurance company which ranks among the top 10 players in the country. The two-pronged mandate was to help the company develop its new corporate purpose, and to work with teams to define how it would influence strategic elements such as business models, customer centricity, disruptive innovation, digital/data platforms, and stakeholder management.

This high-value project involved work with the C-suite, the client’s strategy office and 25 senior executives, successfully delivered by six IMD faculty and four staff. In a pandemic-stricken world, IMD created impact by enabling the client to frame and embed purpose at the core of its business.

Another highlight of the year was a successful intervention with the 10-member C-suite of a repeat client, a B2B services company, which features among the top three global players in its industry. Previously, in 2018-19, BTI had worked with them to help create Strategy 2023. In 2021, the client came back to IMD for an objective assessment of their progress through a rigorous diagnostic.

Upon conclusion of the diagnostic, the BTI team brought the entire C-suite together to identify execution gaps and create priorities for accelerating strategy implementation in order to achieve 2023 targets as communicated to the market. The client’s trust in IMD is evidenced through its new commitment to a capability development program on digitalization with a broader group of executives in 2022.

Client feedback from journeys conducted from 2019 through 2021 show IMD Pathfinder® journeys have contributed to: i) creating strategic alignment; ii) adopting an outside-in approach to exploration and learning; and iii) transforming behaviors and ways of working across the organization.

The IMD Pathfinder® journey The IMD Pathfinder® journey

Pathfinder impact
“The magic happened”

The BTI team worked with the Straumann Group, one of the global leaders in esthetic dentistry, to help it shape the strategic direction of the organization, by empowering people and engaging the executive team.

The Straumann Group understood that, in an external environment that was starting to change, what had led it to the top might not lead it to future success.

To stay ahead of market trends and shape the future of their company, the leadership team partnered with IMD on a Pathfinder® journey. The aim was to listen to the organization, explore themes relevant for the future of the business, and shape the strategic direction. The journey consisted of four stages (diagnostics, divergence, convergence and acceleration), over the course of 16 months. It involved working with the executive team and six teams of senior leaders from across regions and business areas, overall engaging 150 employees in the organization.

The journey resulted in an evolved strategic direction for the Group, a united leadership team as owner of the strategic direction, and an engaged and energized organization.

“Going through the process helped all of us to become clearer about what our aspiration could be, what themes we needed to work on, how much of this was related to our core and how much of it was new, what was needed to make it happen, and how we should make sure to maintain the innovation and the investment needed while financing everything else.”
GILBERT ACHERMANN CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD, STRAUMANN GROUP

“We wanted to have IMD as a partner for two important reasons. The first was to help us with the approach, facilitating it and guiding our leaders in asking the right questions so that we develop our own answers. And the second was the academic rigor and quality of insights that the IMD faculty brought to us, challenging our teams to think broader.”
GUILLAUME DANIELLOT CEO, STRAUMANN GROUP

Shaping the Straumann Group’s strategic direction
Shaping the Straumann Group’s strategic direction