Throughout the study tour, led by Professor Alexander Hahn, our 2024-2026 cohort engaged with entrepreneurs and innovation leaders, gaining valuable insights into how German organisations lead, scale, and transform in a leading European innovation hub.
The study trip covered topics like AI, process intelligence, venture building, and digital hospitality, and it helped participants link classroom concepts to real-world entrepreneurial practice.
The study tour began at OMMAX, a consultancy at the crossroads of strategy, data, artificial intelligence, and digital growth. The session gave participants an inside look at how organisations accelerate transformation and create value by merging strategic thinking with operational implementation.
What particularly appealed to the group was OMMAX’s emphasis on translating strategy into measurable outcomes. Discussions explored topics ranging from AI-enabled transformation and development acceleration to the role of private equity in scaling businesses.
As participant Paul Sarrazin reflected, the company’s approach stood out because it focused not only on defining strategy, but also on “driving execution and measurable impact” for clients across industries and company sizes.
The afternoon took the cohort to Celonis, one of Germany’s most successful technology scale-ups and a global leader in process intelligence. There, participants were introduced to process mining and gained important insights into the role of user experience research in product development.
Members of the Celonis UX Research team shared how understanding users early in the development process helps organisations build solutions that tackle genuine needs before significant engineering resources are committed. The visit underscored the importance of combining technological sophistication with deep customer understanding—an idea that would recur throughout the week.
Later, during their visit to Kaiser X Labs - A Company of Allianz, our EMBA participants gained insight into how the organisation supports Allianz across three major transformation journeys: digital transformation, the development of high-quality digital products and services, and AI transformation. After exploring Kaiser X Labs’ organisational setup, interdisciplinary capabilities, and operating model, they discussed a challenge many organisations continue to face: how to make UX impact measurable.
Through a series of real-world case studies, they saw how UX activities can be directly linked to tangible business outcomes, including customer satisfaction, adoption, operational efficiency, product success, and strategic value creation. A key message throughout the session was that UX is not simply about making things look better, but enabling better decisions.
The second day opened with a deep investigation of artificial intelligence, led by Alasco's AI transformation specialist and product leader, Julia Bastian. Moving beyond popular discussions of AI tools, the session explored the foundations of large language models, how they are developed, and why they behave as they do.
Participants were encouraged to look beyond the user interface to understand the mechanisms of modern AI systems. The discussion also covered prompt engineering and linked technical concepts to practical applications.
As participant Marco Pellegrino noted, understanding what happens under the surface “changes how you think about these tools and brings a new appreciation for both their capabilities and limitations".
The afternoon shifted the focus from technology to innovation management with a visit to HYVE – The Innovation Company. Operating at the crossroads of strategic planning, design thinking, user research, product development, AI, and venture building, HYVE offered participants a comprehensive view of how organisations systematically create innovation.
The session emphasised the importance of starting with customer needs and future scenarios before moving toward solution development. Topics included navigating uncertainty in a volatile business environment, applying design thinking methodologies, leveraging user research, and integrating AI while keeping human decision-making firmly at the centre.
Participants also explored HYVE’s practical approach concerning innovation, from identifying opportunities and prototyping concepts to developing products and launching new ventures. The visit reinforced a central theme of the study tour: successful innovation requires both structured methodologies and a willingness to experiment.
The third day brought participants closer to the realities of startup creation and scale-up.
The morning began at DeskBot.io, a young Munich-based startup founded in 2024. The company works to improve communication within physiotherapy practices, reduce administrative burdens, and enable healthcare professionals to focus more on patient care.
For the EMBA participants, the visit offered a significant lesson in entrepreneurial discipline. Rather than beginning with a technology solution, the founders first deeply understood the problem. Through interviews, observation, and direct user involvement, they identified a true market need before building their product.
The founders also shared how AI-enabled prototyping accelerated development while emphasising that human insight remains indispensable. Our cohort learned about the importance of validating demand early through customer commitments and saw firsthand how complementary founding teams can accelerate both product development and market traction.
Participant Acerina Trejo Machin especially noted how inspiring it was to “hear this from founders who were MBA students themselves not long ago.”
Later that day, the cohort visited Limehome, one of Europe’s most notable hospitality technology success stories. Founded on the observation that traditional hospitality and real estate models lacked flexibility and consistency, Limehome has built a highly digitalised platform for apartment-style accommodation across multiple European markets.
Participants learned how the company expanded rapidly, scaling across numerous cities while upholding operational efficiency through technology and automation. Beyond the growth story itself, the visit challenged participants to think strategically as they worked through a business case prepared specifically for our EMBA cohort.
The discussion provided a practical illustration of entrepreneurial scaling, tactical decision-making, and the challenges of maintaining growth while preserving the customer experience.
Across every company visit and discussion, several common themes emerged: customer centricity stood out as a foundation of successful entrepreneurship. Across all organisations, understanding customer needs before designing solutions was central.
Artificial intelligence featured prominently, transforming industries and enabling innovation. However, the importance of human judgement, strategic oversight, and ethical responsibility was continuously reinforced.
Like our participant Kathleen Dejaeghere observed, while AI offers powerful opportunities to accelerate innovation, “human judgement, strategy and steering cannot be replaced.” The discussions also highlighted ongoing concerns about data sensitivity, privacy, and responsible implementation.
Another key lesson was the practical use of methodologies like Design Thinking, Lean Startup, and rapid prototyping. These frameworks were applied in both startups and established firms, driving transformation and growth without losing sight of experimentation and customer discovery.
The Munich tour went beyond company visits, granting our cohort direct engagement with founders, executives, and technology leaders, enabling them to connect academia with business practice, and grounding their understanding of entrepreneurial success.
As participant Geoffrey Huet summarised, the trip was “far more than a study trip, an opportunity to explore entrepreneurial ecosystems, challenge perspectives, and connect theory with practice”.
Our editorial team would like to thank our EMBA participants: Paul Sarrazin, Xander Staquet, Marco Pellegrino, Christophe S, Acerina Trejo Machin, Damien Bravin, Geoffrey Huet, and Kathleen Dejaeghere, for their testimonials and pictures that contributed to this article.