Executive Education at Saïd Business School, in partnership with the WHU Otto Beisheim School of Management and MAN SE, has won the prestigious Excellence in Practice Award 2010 of the EFMD (the European Foundation for Management Development) in the category of Executive Development for their programmes for the German company MAN SE.
This is the first time that the Award has been made to a trio of partners, a major company and two business schools in two different countries. The international dimension and business impact of the programmes were the key criteria on which the award was based.
The two business schools have worked together since May 2008, developing and rolling out two programmes for MAN’s senior management tiers, up to board level. These programmes had three outstanding features. Firstly, they addressed a major contemporary corporate challenge – helping a traditional German company to successfully globalise its strategy, structures and operations. MAN is one of Europe’s leading companies in the field of transport-related engineering, specialising in the manufacture of trucks, buses, diesel engines, turbo-machinery and transmission systems but has increasingly taken on a much wider international role.
Oxford provided access to leading-edge thinking in a broader international context and bringing wide-ranging academic resources to bear on the phenomenon of business globalisation, while WHU drew on its corresponding strengths in innovation, entrepreneurship and value creation.
Secondly, mid-way through the programmes the two business schools had to contend with international economic turmoil – and respond to it in their approach and content. Participants, for instance, undertook a number of group projects focusing on key areas such as the company’s use of its working capital in the changed financial context.
Gerd Islei, Director of the MAN programme at Oxford commented: ‘To mobilise the strengths of three very different European organisations in order to help turn a traditional German engineering firm into an international company at a time of unprecedented global turbulence we believe marks a significant step forward in executive and corporate education - and we are delighted EFMD has recognised our contribution by this Award.’
Thirdly, the success of the partnership involved an unusually close degree of collaboration and trust between the two business schools. Professor Lutz Kaufmann, director of the MAN programme at WHU agrees: ‘The partnership of MAN, WHU and Oxford far exceeded our expectations. Underpinning its success was a detailed understanding of the business, mutual trust, rapid implementation of changes and, in particular, a constant willingness to work out joint solutions to the strategic challenges posed by the difficult economic context.’
Board member and Chief HR Officer Jörg Schwitalla and Tatjana Thiel, Head of Management Development of MAN pay tribute to the success of the programmes: ‘The WHU-Oxford-MAN programmes, with their opportunities for dialogue, has greatly strengthened the open exchange of ideas and global networking among our employees. Participants from all over the world and from very different business units have described them as state-of-the-art on the basis of their design, content and faculty. Projects and learning have a clear positive business impact.’
Gay Haskins, Dean of Executive Education at Said Business School, Steve Ludlow Director of Custom Programmes and their colleague Bernadette Conraths, Head of Executive Development at WHU, look forward to further developing the partnership that they jointly launched two years ago: ‘The Award is a wonderful recognition, both an honour and an incentive to continue to grow the partnership proactively.’
The Prize will be awarded at the EFMD Annual Conference 7 - 8 June 2010 in Wiesbaden at which the MAN-WHU-Oxford Team will make a joint presentation on their successful project.