Blog

In 2013, Solvay Brussels School was selected by TOTAL to deploy a worldwide leadership programme. Since then, no less than 35 sessions have taken place, and participants are thrilled. What is the secret behind that success? 

When a corporation looks for a university to conduct such a strategic programme, it looks for excellence at all levels.

TOTAL contacted 12 institutes to seek the best proposal to rejuvenate their ‘Total Management Programme – level 3’, or TMP3. Level 3 means the programme is intended for...

📚 Wisdom that Inspires Life

According to John Metselaar ↴↴↴

In my quest to better understand, appreciate, live and love life over my 30+ years career, I have devoured books seeking wisdom on a range of topics including (personal) leadership, culture, balance, change, business, innovation, history. One of my leaders referred to me as “scholar”! 
I then find myself applying helpful and inspiring insights and concepts, as well as referring to them in my classes, lectures, and speeches. I increasingly get asked...

In December 2018, we started the first session of the MediaMarkt University, a programme aimed at high-potential managers of the electronics retail specialist. Our objective: to give them the tools that will enable them to transform the way they do business, to apply their newly gained knowledge to actionable projects and act as role models inside the company. 

When MediaMarkt first contacted us about setting up a tailor-made programme for their high-potential managers, we found the challenge very stimulating...

“People in my organisation don’t want to transform. They’re afraid of the digital transformation or don’t see the benefit. How can I inspire them?” That is a question I get asked a lot.

Read the rest of the article here.

Learn more about the practical and intensive one-year postgraduate programs offered by the Solvay Brussels School.

You are finishing your studies, you have no (or little) professional experience? Are you looking to give your career a good start by building it on a solid foundation? Solvay Advanced Masters provide you with learnings based on tomorrow's practice and new skills. At the end of this one-year programs, you increase your chances to find not just any job, but an exciting job and build a brilliant...

A little more than a year ago, Pfizer came to us with a very specific demand. They wanted the Solvay Brussels School to develop a one-week training programme for their business unit leaders and their successors. Their aim? To provide them with the necessary skills to develop their business acumen and make them better leaders in a changing business environment. 

The Pfizer Brussels Headquarters and the Solvay Brussels School (SBS) are almost neighbours, and there is a longstanding relationship between us, as...

Lifelong learning is a must in an ever-changing world. Still, it can be difficult for busy professionals to dedicate time to learning outside of their daily activities. With this in mind, Solvay Brussels School is organising the second edition of its flexible Leadership Summer Camp - a series of “à la carte” workshops taking place during the Summer. Interview with Valérie Vangeel, Academic Director.

What does "being a leader" mean today?

Whereas integrity can be defined as "doing the right thing even when...

In Human Resources as in many other business activities, there is a deep disconnection between the academic and the business worlds. But even within a business, HR is too often disconnected from strategic thinking. Time to bridge the gaps?

Even today, HR finds itself too often restricted to or perceived as “the department that takes care of payroll and admin”, when it can be so much more, even when it is also tasked with organising talent development training schemes. To quote David Ducheyne, HR Practice...

In a fast-changing business environment, large companies are thought to be at a disadvantage when it comes to finding new disruptive ideas and bringing them to market. But are they? While they may move slower than start-ups, they have vastly superior financial and technological means. And they are increasingly willing to accept help and inspiration from the outside. The reactions to an inspirational speech I gave to managers of Generali, an insurance company, proved my point. 

Insurance is not the first...

Close your eyes and imagine. You have just been appointed to the Executive Board of an airline operating in Southeast Asia. You and other new board members are replacing the previous members, who have all just been fired. You have about an hour to digest financial and market information in order to make business decisions for the next six months…

That, in a nutshell, is how we start the business game we have been developing over the past decade as a learning tool in our executive education programmes at the...

Here is the testimonial of Robin Vervaeke, student in the Advanced Master in Financial Markets, on how he lived this experience :

"Right after the exams of...

Thanks to digitalisation, most companies have been sitting on a trove of data for quite a while. Their next challenge is to exploit these data to maintain or improve their competitive positions. To meet this challenge, their management teams must at the same time acquire enough mastery of the data analytics tools and develop a thorough understanding of their market and what lies beyond… or beside it. 

Business analytics presents an interesting challenge for management teams. On one hand, executives and...

Here is the testimonial of Bram Houben, student in the Advanced Master in Quantitative Finance, on how he lived this experience :

"In the third term of the...

Three times a year, Solvay Brussels School organises an “MBA-essentials” programme for Pfizer. During our last session, I gave an intensive one-day workshop on innovation leadership. Here are a few insights about the creation of an innovation mindset.

The fact that the first word of this “Leading and Living Innovation” seminar is about leadership is no coincidence. I believe all significant advances in life start with leadership. While innovation also starts with leadership, it doesn’t end there.

We’ve come...

The Advanced Master in Political Economy is a postgraduate course (1 year, full-time, 60 ECTS, in English) that Solvay Brussels School jointly offers with Georgetown University in Washington DC, for Master students with no or limited professional experience.

The programme provides students with the knowledge and the skills needed to evaluate and address global and local economic challenges. It gives them a solid understanding of the institutions and political settings in which they arise.

Within the framework...

Leveraging Big Data is one of the major challenges businesses are facing nowadays. To confront it and develop new competitive edges, corporations hire a host of data scientists, business analytics specialists and computing experts. But are they aware this strategy actually lacks one key element?

Business analytics is a fashionable topic in the corporate world nowadays. Companies are becoming aware that they are sitting on heaps of valuable data from their daily operations. These data contain precious insights...

I often get this question from leaders: “Can I change the organisation if my management team doesn’t change? I want to apply these new business techniques, but my management team still functions with the techniques of the past.”

This is a great question. Unfortunately, the answer is not black or white.

The level of consciousness of an organisation cannot surpass the level of consciousness of its leader. If you have a CEO (or management team) that still functions at a low level of consciousness (demand &...

Is diversity an asset for companies or an additional difficulty to manage? According to an analysis published in 2010 in the Journal of International Business Studies (summarizing 108 diversity studies conducted over 10.632 diverse teams) diversity can have as many positive as negative effects.

What this study also suggests is that a sound diversity management strategy is always associated with positive effects such as higher engagement from the employees, higher business productivity and better organisational...

For business students, both in Belgium and worldwide, the beginning of March has a special flavour: for two days, they compete in teams in a series of business cases evaluated by a jury of teachers and business professionals. Backstage, Solvay Brussels School students work for more than a year to make it happen.

It was an unusually busy Saturday evening at the Sheraton Brussels Airport Hotel. Hundreds of business students from Belgium, Europe and even further afield were eagerly awaiting the moment when the...

This year’s C-Suite Challenge painted a clear picture of how corporations’ most senior executives see the future, and what priorities and interventions are required to succeed in it. We have been looking at the insights through an Innovation & Productivity lens to help Innovation leaders best influence the priorities and efforts ahead.  And there are plenty of opportunities for these leaders to take charge in today’s world – innovation clearly is center stage!

The criticality of living the future, today

CEOs,...

On Tuesday 26 of March, the Executive Education team was very excited to meet and greet a large number of participants in the Atrium of Solvay Brussels School of Economics & Management.

It was a dynamic evening full of vivid interactions and a great exchange of ideas on different topics related to the most pressing business challenges of today and tomorrow! Together with our Academic Directors, the participants had the prime opportunity to discover an experiential approach to executive education and leadership...

It has often been bon ton to bash HR and criticise the lack of proof of its impact. And surely enough, it would be fair to admit that HR is partly to blame for this. But every time someone clamours that HR should be abolished they talk about a function. And very often that person has had a personal frustrating experience with an HR professional in the past. Talk about bias!

6 reasons why HR is not well seen

1. HRM is not a function; it is a process that deals with human issues within any given organisation....

Earlier this year, the Board of Manufast initiated a strategic thinking process aimed at enabling them to face the challenges brought about by changing market conditions. Solvay Brussels School (SBS) was asked to act as a facilitator.

Sheltered workshops like Brussels-based Manufast have been around for quite a while. For a long time, many of them operated on a business model that relied on profit-making activities to finance other activities that were making losses but provided meaningful employment...

A couple of years ago, life was slower.

The requests for your time and attention came from fewer communication channels and were less frequent. Our work was more delimited; we often knew when a project started and when it was finished. The need to collaborate was not as high because projects were simpler and the technology that allows us to be connected 24/7 was not yet mainstream. We had to bring physical files home if we wanted to work. People had to call us or come over if they wanted to reach us.

Those...

Another successful edition of the Lisboa Web Summit took place in 2018. Forbes calls it “the best tech conference on the planet.”

John Metselaar, Professor in “Leading Innovation" at the Solvay Brussels School was there for the second time to enjoy the "Learning Expedition" together with a group of Solvay's Executive MBA students, as one way to ensure they stay at the forefront of developments in the Innovation space.

It has been a fruitful journey that contributed to the cutting-edge competencies we bring to...

Digital technologies are reshaping the business world as we know it - and doing so quickly. Yet despite this trend, surprisingly few companies are appropriately responding to digital disruption. In fact, most use digitisation to only optimise and improve the business rather than leverage technologies for reinvention and disruptive purposes.

That being said, there’s still a window for putting a bold digital strategy in place. But this window may not stay open long, so you must act now.   

Read the full article...

This month, the WHITE PAPER of the European Cyber Security Organisation came out, with a special focus on the Information and Cyber Security Professional Certification and Education.

We are happy to see our school proudly representing Belgium among other countries as a leading education and expert in Information Security and Cyber Security certifying top professionals in five domains of knowledge with three modules each. The major concept behind these modules relies on Digital Trust and Transformation founded...

A l’ère du numérique et de la digitalisation, les technologies et les comportements humains ne peuvent plus être perçus comme des éléments distincts. Plus que jamais, nous disposons d'une diversité d'outils digitaux qui nous permettent de transformer radicalement notre manière de faire les choses au quotidien : nos façons de consommer, travailler, se divertir, explorer sont complètement bouleversées. Notre société, nos cultures et nos organisations s’en retrouvent transformées.

Si auparavant nous associons...

Master the international association management techniques with Solvay Executive Education!

Following an Executive Master in International Association Management (EMIAM), you will have the opportunity to enhance your leadership skills required to face the daily management challenges, and to grasp the main fundamental strategic and functional areas in management. The programme also allows you to share the best practices across the association sector.

The HQ Magazine, our trusted partner, interviewed a couple...

You have heard of the Basel III regulation on banks introduced after the 2007 financial crisis. You may even have heard of the so-called Basel III finalisation (called by some Basel IV) package of rules that pitched European versus US banks' interests.

Check the short note on the subject by Tommy De Temmerman, who follows these issues at the European Commission, as Policy Officer, Bank Regulation and Supervision at DG FISMA and co-teaches with Mario Nava, the course of European Integration and Bank...

A civil engineer by training, Elke Robbrecht first began working in energy, a sector she finds it fascinating but following an MBA at the Solvay Brussels School of Economics & Management, enabled her to take her career in a new direction - business and finance.

Learn everything about the tipping point in Elke's career in our new article.

• Quelle est votre impression de l'EMM ?

Rien n’est laissé au hasard : comme le programme s’appuie essentiellement sur le travail en groupes et moins sur les cours ex cathedra on pourrait croire que les participants sont laissés à eux-mêmes, mais rien n’est moins vrai. Il y a une vraie logique derrière, façonnée sans aucun doute au cours des années, qui pousse les participants à sortir des sentiers battus.

• Si vous deviez retenir 3 choses, quelles seraient-elles ?

La diversité et la richesse des...

Le business analytics est devenu si important tant pour la prise de décision que pour la découverte de nouvelles idées, que de nombreux dirigeants d’entreprises voudraient maintenant l’étendre à l’entreprise toute entière. De nombreuses organisations renforcent leurs ressources technologiques pour devenir plus analytiques et adaptent leurs politiques de recrutement afin d’attirer davantage de talents dans ce domaine.

Malgré ce désir grandissant d’adopter l’analytique par le biais de nouvelles technologies et...

In November and December 2017, the Company-Specific Programmes department of Solvay Executive Education and BESIX Group co-created and organised a series of dynamic workshops, part of the Unleash Design Bootcamp. 

This initiative reunited and encouraged professionals from across different departments in the group to interact, generate ideas and find creative solutions to real-life common challenges in their areas of concern. The Besix Bootcamp was the perfect opportunity for them to rise to challenges and...

Comment susciter les dynamiques collectives intra-team et inter-team ?

Regardez la vidéo d'Alain Goudsmet et découvrez la différence entre les notions de collaboration et de coopération au sein de l'entreprise. 

Now more than ever, the continuing education plays a crucial role in the development of our lifelong learning skills. It represents a perfect opportunity for all working professionals, managers of organizations and heads of departments to discover new key areas of management capable of propelling them even further in their career.

Read the article « 8 good reasons to take an Executive Education Management programme » to discover how a professional training can help you take your career to the next level!

Over the course of the past few years, we've been witnessing a growing interest in the impacts of digital on companies and on human societies in general. We see considerable attention on technology and tools presented as outside the realm of and independent from culture. There is also considerable focus on the idea of transformation and on the ways in which it can be achieved to help businesses and institutions remain relevant in what is often referred to as the digital era. However, the challenge facing...

"I recently attended the Web Summit in Lisbon - a 60.000-attendees, week-long, full immersion into "The New Digital"!

This extraordinary annual event proved to be an eye-opening experience so much that I decided to summarize my top-10 impressions in a blog:

1. The “tech world” is a parallel universe!

The average age of the 59,000+ participants must have been around 30 years old. At 56 I felt slightly out of place but got over it quickly! It soon became crystal clear to me that the current generation’s...

As any good HR manager, you have probably spent a long time assessing the needs of your management teams in order to identify the right skills and training objectives.

You evaluated timeless and promising proposals from several specialised institutions, business schools, and universities. But here is one question:

Do you have any certainty that the new skills your team learns will be applied from day one when they come back?

To answer this question, you will have to take a step back and look at the big...

Watch our video and find out how to protect your assets against cyber-attacks using 3 key steps!

To protect our businesses, we need to know very well our landscape and apply the best practices and strategies in our fight against hackers, cybercriminals and even nation states who might use our information to their own advantage:

1. Prevent: prepare in advance a defense model
2. Detect: identify what you could omit or not handle very well
3. Respond: act in case of the attack.

If you have an interest in such hot...

Le journaliste Fabrice Lambert s'est intéressé à notre Executive Programme en Management et Philosophies et à l'apport de la philosophie aux pratiques managériales. Il en a fait l'objet principal de son article intitulé "Quand la philo s'en mêle" paru dans le magazine Trends Tendances du 19 octobre 2017.

In his article, Laurent Bouty, the Academic Director of the Advanced Master in Creativity and Marketing at Solvay Brussels School of Economics & Management, highlights the importance of revenues in your marketing strategy as they are highly influenced by the Total Experience you give to your customers/clients. The stronger your Total Experience is, the most revenues you can generate in the long run. 

Laurent Bouty, Academic Director of the Advanced Master in Creativity and Marketing at Solvay Brussels School of Economics & Management, explores in his article the key concepts and dimensions of the new version of Marketing Canvas: MARKETING CANVAS 2.0. 

Alain Goudsmet, chargé de conférences à l'Executive Master in Management (EMM) et Directeur du Mentally Fit Institute introduit le concept de Dream Team pour une organisation. Il y définit également la différence entre le leadership et le membership.  

Pour plus d'informations, visionnez notre vidéo.

What is marketing ?

Surprisingly, few people know how to correctly answer this question. Most believe that marketing is communication, though communication is only a tiny fraction of it. By going back to the origin of the word, we understand that MARKETING is choosing a MARKET and doING what is needed to impact it.

MARKET-ING, therefore, involves a vast number of management disciplines in which you might get lost, unless you have a powerful methodology to coordinate everyone's efforts.

GROW: GOAL - REALITY...

Innovation stays at the base of growth in every organization.

It has never been more important to innovate in our volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) world. Making a company more innovative means working on four key pillars: Leadership, Strategy, Process & Culture.

In this video, John Metselaar, Professor of Management Practice in “Leading Innovation” and former Head of Innovation at Procter & Gamble Belgium, explains the main drivers and benefits of implementing innovation within an...

It is difficult for me to explain how ‘intellectually starved’ I was before cherishing the mental challenge this programme represents. Not only have I come to grasp the basic tenets of finance, but this Course has generated in me a new hunger for knowledge in the field of Financial Management.

The programme faculty come from diverse backgrounds, with different interests and experiences both professionally and academically. Its approach not only shows a tremendously high standard of professionalism but also,...

The new European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) imposes, in certain cases, the appointment of a Data Protection Officer (DPO). Public and private sector organizations are struggling with the need for them to create an additional responsibility or merge it with the existing Chief Information Security Officer function (CISO). When responding to interrogations, I regularly advise the inquirer to verify three basic criteria:

The first involves the availability of an overall CISO, driving Information...

Alain Goudsmet, conférencier à L'Executive Master in Management et Directeur du Mentally fit Institute, explique comment le manager peux améliorer ses performances au travail en retrouvant le sens de son travail. 

La méthode des cas telle qu’appliquée lors de l’EMM est surprenante. Partant d’une méthode connue, la déclinaison de cette dernière selon deux angles différents a été pour moi une véritable remise en question.

Le premier angle, la résolution du cas en travail personnel a créé avant tout l’obligation de remettre en question toutes sortes d’acquis.
Les cas balayent des sujets et contextes si variés qu’ils forcent à sortir de sa zone de confort, autant que de son domaine d’activité. Il faut alors tenter...