by Olga Annushkina

SDA Professor of Strategic and Entrepreneurial Management

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Traditional econometric and statistical models may not be enough to predict future trends. The "new normal" disruptive macroeconomic, political, environmental events require different analytical tools.

In this interview Mr. Marco Podestà, Head of Strategy & Business Development Generali CEE, and Olga Annushkina, SDA Professor of Strategic and Entrepreneurial Management, discuss the challenges posed by business context uncertainty on strategic decision making.

Scenario building techniques allow organizations to look at future options without necessarily anchoring them to the past events. Independent definition of the most probable future outcomes is leading to substantial gains in the quality of the strategic thinking and in increased decision-making freedom.

by Markus Venzin

SDA Professor of Strategic and Entrepreneurial Management

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On a scale from 1 (not at all) to 10 (very much), how satisfied are you with your strategy meetings?

My feeling is that most managers are reasonably good at running meetings that are concerned with operational, short-term issues. But when they are called to organize a strategy workshop, many of them miserably fail.

by Markus Venzin

SDA Professor of Strategic and Entrepreneurial Management

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Lo scenario della “Nuova Normalità” è destinato a perdurare, pertanto le aziende devono diventare più forti se vogliono sopravvivere alle sfide odierne e future. Markus Venzin, Direttore CDR, Claudio Dematté Research in SDA Bocconi, ha sviluppato un modello denominato VOLARE (Volatility + Return of Equity), che misura la resilienza di un’azienda e la sua capacità di sopravvivere in tempi di instabilità sulla base degli indicatori chiave di performance. Il Prof. Venzin ritiene che la performance debba essere misurata in modo diverso e spiega cosa deve fare un’azienda per sviluppare una crescita proficua sostenuta oggi e negli anni a venire.

The new normal is here to stay and companies must become more resilient if they are going to survive challenging times of today and tomorrow. Markus Venzin, Director of the Strategic & Entrepreneurial Management Department at SDA Bocconi has created a model called VOLARE (Volatility +Return of Equity) which measures a company’s resilence and ability to survive these turbulent times based on key performance indicators. Prof. Venzin asserts that business performance needs to be measured differently and discusses what exactly it takes for a company to have sustained profitable growth today and in years ahead.

by Mikkel Draebye

SDA Professor of Strategic and Entrepreneurial Management

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In 1982, Dietrich Mateschitz was marketing director for a toothpaste company. Like many other people in Thaliand, especially workers, he bought and drank Krating Daeng ("Red Bull") to give him a boost of energy and to fight jet-lag.
Observing that there was a strong domestic demand for the drink, Mateschitz hooked up with Chaleo Yoovidhya, founder of TC Pharmaceuticals that had launched Krating Daeng in Thaliand back in 1976 on a project aimed at introducing the product in Europe. Mateschitz invested all his savings and the European version of Redbull (a carbonated energy drink with an adapted taste) was launched in Austria in 1987 and is now the world's leading brand in the energy drink category.

In 2008 CocaCola decided to launch their own energy drink (Monster) and in 2009 Pepsi followed with signing a distribution deal with Rockstar Energy.
There might be several reasons for why CocaCola and Pepsi, with their existing brand, production facilities, market intelligence units, marketing research and customer monitoring, did not pick up and experimented with this new category before 10 years after Mateschitz “couped” the market, but the situation is not atypical. In spite of being present on the market, having money to pay consultants and marketing people to follow market developments and trends and in spite of having existing distribution networks and therefore easy access to market data, many large companies are struggling to be pro-active, fast, entrepreneurial and innovative.

by Olga Annushkina

SDA Professor of Strategic and Entrepreneurial Management

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International markets expose firms to an ample variety of risks, comprising the currency exchange rate fluctuations. In the past two months many firms had to deal with a number of “surprises” that confirmed the two mantras of the expert scenario planners: one cannot “cheat” forever the laws of economics and the unsustainable trends will reverse, at a certain point.

It is certainly easy to discuss and interpret the past events and fish out the “early warnings” that could have indicated to us the Russian Rouble’s plunge against most of the world currencies, the Swiss franc’s appreciation and the Euro’s decline against the US Dollar. But the ability to read between the lines and to imagine the key possible scenarios of the macroeconomic, social and political context evolution is the starting point for any manager or entrepreneur.