Category: Events

Multidisciplinarity: a new discipline

Posted on | by Marta Re Ferrè | Leave a Comment on Multidisciplinarity: a new discipline

 

Conversation with Vittorio Chiesa, President of MIP Graduate School of Business

 

We live in a world characterised by increasing interaction between disciplines, in which the professional profiles required by companies are changing. What role can a business school play in this framework?

The business school sector evolves with companies and the wider role they play in society. Companies have been required to operate with a “purpose”, i.e. to act not only for profit but for higher aims, so that they have a positive impact on the system in which they participate. Markets and consumers are showing a growing awareness of this issue and it has become essential for companies to have a relationship with their stakeholders.

Business schools must pay the same attention to students and companies. It is with this objective in mind that this year we obtained Bcorp (Benefit Corporation) certification by joining the international community of companies that stand out for their commitment to combine profit, the pursuit of well-being for society, inclusion, and attention to the environment.

The “purpose” must become a fundamental part in the development of people’s skills, so we can train managers capable of conceiving companies at the service of society.
Companies are asking us to make this cultural leap and we can help by teaching our students how a company can and should contribute positively to the system and country.
Our role is to prepare professionals to introduce strongly purpose oriented innovations that are financially and socially important.

Multidisciplinarity is functional to this objective as it imposes breadth of vision, flexibility, critical spirit, and intuition. Modern training does not only include restricted specialisation but interaction with other disciplines to create more complete professional profiles. Such people must be capable of systemic level analysis and guide companies by defining and drawing inspiration from a “purpose.”

Multidisciplinarity as a tool for breadth of vision and adaptability towards the world. How to integrate it into training?

Traditionally, the multidisciplinary approach was to provide different perspectives within a training programme, and offer different contributions within basic and specialist training. The synthesis between multidisciplinarity and specialist skills is left to the individual.

But it is possible to apply a radically different approach by integrating multidisciplinarity into a training programme, regardless of the subject. The modern challenge is to manage the complexity of this new approach. For example by using innovative teaching techniques which change the interaction between professor and student to make this type of training more effective.
At the moment it is not widely and easily disseminated, but several experiments are underway.

It requires training programme planning and preparation of professors, or rather groups of professors, working in teams. Multidisciplinary training needs more interaction, and to be delivered to small groups using teaching formats that actively involve students.

I believe that the future distinctive element between teaching programmes will be initiatives with specialist standardised content for large numbers, and more transversal content and innovative teaching methods, dedicated to more restricted groups.

Lately there is much talk of life-long education as a key to the continuous updating of skills. Is it a dynamic that intersects with multidisciplinarity?

Lifelong learning means remaining aligned with the environment development and this only rarely or partially happens through vertical insights. More often it means widening the professional profile.

What has been said before applies to lifelong learning too – it must be based on broader contents, and different from the past, using specific platforms capable of dealing with broad disciplinary ranges.

Purpose and multidisciplinarity. What are MIP’s plans for the future of these aspects?

All training programmes will include modules on “purpose,” the role of the company and managers as leaders and innovators.

Opening “Purpose Labs”, i.e. training initiatives dedicated to in-depth studying and analysing how a company can build its purpose, and support companies’ top management in this development.

Finally, innovating our service formats, so that the school is not just a place for training, but a place that encourages a person’s growth. This includes the assessment of skills, guidance, and professional development.

The Financial Times European Business Schools Ranking 2020: Politecnico di Milano’s School of Management among the top three European business schools attached to “technical” universities, and is 41st outright.

Posted on | by Angela Leone | Leave a Comment on The Financial Times European Business Schools Ranking 2020: Politecnico di Milano’s School of Management among the top three European business schools attached to “technical” universities, and is 41st outright.

MIP Politecnico di Milano, part of the School of Management, makes further gains on 2019, and this year applications to its MBAs jumped up by 13% in Italy.

 

MIP Politecnico di Milano Graduate School of Business is delighted to announce that it joins Europe’s best business schools in The Financial Times European Business Schools Ranking 2020.

The School is placed third among European schools belonging to a technical university and, more generally, is 41st out of the 90 schools listed, four places higher than in 2019, where it was 45th out of 95.

Politecnico di Milano’s Business School gains three places in the ranking for MBAs, and is now in 38th place. The greatest improvement was for “Salary increase”, a criterion measuring the rise in earnings three years after graduating. Among the many excellent programmes offered by the School, the standout was Executive Education 2020, with its Open and Customised programmes, both up from 41st to 39th place. Another success is the rise in percentage of “Female faculty” (from 39 to 41%) and “Faculty with doctorate” (from 81 to 83%).

Looking at the ranking of technical universities with a Business School and/or a Department of Management, the School of Management confirms its third place in the classification, behind Imperial College (UK) and Aalto University (Finland). If we also consider generalist universities with technical expertise and a business school, the School of Management is placed 11th.

The School’s place in the ranking is joined by equally important results in terms of student interest. In the particularly complex situation caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, MIP received 13% more applications from candidates living in Italy, with a substantial increase in the overall number of participants taking MBAs and Specialising Master programmes.

In the words of Vittorio Chiesa and Federico Frattini, President and Dean of MIP Politecnico di Milano, respectively: “Our Business School was able to perform superbly even amid all the difficulties of the year now coming to an end. We are pleased to share our pleasure in the recognition awarded to us by the Financial Times with our ever-increasing number of current and future students, and with everyone who has worked with us day in and day out to help us achieve these results”.

 

Inspiration from evolutionary approaches: algorithms and challenges in finance

Posted on | by Marta Re Ferrè | Leave a Comment on Inspiration from evolutionary approaches: algorithms and challenges in finance

Advanced analytical techniques borrowed from a heterogeneous literature to extract valuable insights from data are gaining momentum within the finance community. This article briefly introduces how financial ecosystems are increasingly responsive to the application of biological and evolutionary algorithms aimed to analyze the behavior and dynamics of their participants.

Andrea Flori, Assistant Professor in Management and Finance at School of Management, Politecnico di Milano

 

In a popular 1973 work, Burton Malkiel showed how a blindfolded monkey throwing darts at the financial pages of a newspaper could select a portfolio which would perform just as well as one carefully constructed by experts (“A Random Walk Down Wall Street”, 1973), helping to fuel the debate on the possibility of extracting information from financial data and from the behaviour of market operators.

Financial markets are an arena where predictive techniques and algorithms attempt to challenge market efficiency using pattern identification.

Within this framework, numerous methodologies borrowed from various scientific fields have spread and combined to provide a new perspective for studying the dynamics of complex financial systems and the interdependencies that govern their participants’ relationships.

Market infrastructure, the role of information and the behaviour of the operators represent, therefore, some typical pillars employed to define such approaches of analysis within financial contexts.

In particular, approaches inspired by biological perspectives have captured the attention of many financial operators interested in a new generation of intelligent techniques of analysis and calculation that mimic human actions.

Hence, genetic algorithms and neural networks have pervaded financial literature and contributed to the dissemination of methodological innovations inspired by the biological evolution and human functioning. By relying on a multidisciplinary and computationally evolved perspective of analysis, these approaches have shown to obtain promising results compared to traditional methods of statistical analysis.

Specifically, genetic algorithms employ natural selection and genetics tools and perspectives to identify the best solution to problems. By mimicking biological evolution, an initial population is iteratively mutated and recombined to determine subsequent generations, so that changes with a desirable impact are retained in the gene pool of future generations in an attempt to converge towards optimal solutions. Each individual, i.e. candidate solution, is assigned a fitness value, and individuals with more promising characteristics are assigned a higher probability of mating to generate new individuals, i.e. potentially better performing solutions to problems, thus in line with the Darwinian theory of the “survival of the fittest”. Neural networks, instead, learn from data structure and process a signal through interconnected artificial neurons creating a configuration similar to the human nervous system. Each connection is associated with a weight that contains information about the input signal that inhibits or stimulates the signal that is communicated to the neurons to accomplish a specific task. External information is used as input and processed internally in one or more layers of analysis by activating specific neurons that transmit the signal to others before determining an output with a predictive accuracy that can be increased by a learning process of previous actions. Neural networks are a complex adaptive system which can change and adapt its internal structure based on the situation and information that crosses it.

These approaches are therefore flexible and able to adapt to new circumstances, possibly learning from past experience and reacting to stimuli coming from new signals in the system.

It is not surprising, therefore, that such techniques, either separately or combined with each other, are increasingly being applied in many financial areas, such as predictive market analysis and portfolio allocation rules, hedging of financial instruments, and robo-advisor applications.

With the recent increase in computational power and resources and their wide availability, advanced techniques for massive data analysis are, in fact, gaining momentum within the finance community, contributing to a rapidly growing body of literature that exploits, in addition to the techniques mentioned above, a large-scale use of statistical and deep learning concepts to identify patterns in financial markets, study the complex non-linear relationships between and within financial time series, and identify market anomalies.

In addition, repeated episodes of financial crisis with their far-reaching externalities and cascading effects on financial markets and the real economy have driven the study and provision of new tools to monitor and predict the spread of instability in financial systems and manage critical issues that may emerge.

However, adopting statistical learning approaches and deep learning techniques in the study of financial systems requires new paradigms, knowledge and practical skills necessary to develop a solid base of models and algorithms that are properly applied in the reference domains while exploiting the potential arising from a transdisciplinary approach to scientific investigation.

In the world of finance, such tools of analysis are of the utmost importance for future technological development and play a fundamental role in many financial ecosystems. Massive data analysis using advanced statistical and deep learning techniques is in great demand in many areas and in a wide range of applications, which include in addition to forecasting market trends, also for example the study of dependencies between financial systems, the approval of credit lines, the efficient management of financial resources, the detection of anomalies and frauds, and risk assessment.

These challenges seem to indicate therefore a new research perspective, at the crossroads between data mining, predictive analysis and causal modelling, which can allow us to exploit the strength of these algorithms of analysis and calculation to investigate economic and social problems of real and changing environments.

Between soft skills, personalization, and empowerment: management according to MIP

Posted on | by Angela Leone | Leave a Comment on Between soft skills, personalization, and empowerment: management according to MIP

Today’s manager must deal with new challenges and opportunities, like that presented by digital. And if hard skills are essential, soft skills make the difference. Simone Franzò, director of the Executive Master in Management, explains

 

A deep knowledge of the principles of management and a good balance between soft and hard skills. These are the foundations on which a manager must build their success. Simone Franzò, director of the ’Executive Master in Management (EMIM) at MIP Politecnico di Milano, explains. «It seems obvious, but too often managerial figures have serious gaps in training. Today more than ever, instead, it is fundamental to be able to count on solid skills. Also because digital is changing the boundaries of this profession».

 

Facing challenges, seizing opportunities

The increasingly pervasive diffusion of digital technologies is playing an important role: «On one hand we have challenges, on the other opportunities», explains Franzò. «Think about the spread of smart working. It certainly poses a challenge from the point of view of team management. But there’s also the other side of the coin: «New technologies enable new opportunities; they can improve  productivity and the effectiveness of the work performed. However, they are not the panacea for all ills: they must be properly managed. Only in this way can they become a “virtuous tool” to the benefit of the company». The challenge is also cultural: «A change of mindset is necessary. Just as physical presence in the workplace cannot be considered an essential value, in the same way the adoption of digital requires training that involves both managers and human resources. Let us take an example: the issue of data management and knowledge. You can’t digitize without knowing how to manage the flow related to knowledge management». But technologies in fact, are not everything. Indeed, they are not anything, without skills. «Today more than ever», continues Franzò, «it’s clear that there’s a need to combine hard skills, that is more notional skills, that you learn through classic educational programmes, with soft skills: for example, the management of leadership, of the team, public speaking. These are the skills that increasingly become a source of success and a competitive advantage for some managers compared to others».

 

A master’s degree for those who want to strengthen their skills

The Executive Master in Management offers training in line with these principles. «It’s a master’s in general management and is directed at those who typically have a consolidated work experience and feel the need to update and reinforce their skills in key areas of managerial knowledge», says Franzò. «The programme structure is divided in four macro-blocks. The first set of courses is based on management fundamentals, within which the student can choose between six or eight courses. The second block is made up of elective courses: we offer over one hundred courses, and among these the students choose between six and eight. The third block is the executive programme: a programme of eight pre-established modules that address a macro-theme from several complementary points of view (digital transformation, project management, energy management etcetera). Lastly, project work, which has the objective of applying the notions learned up until then on a real managerial problem».

 

From networking to soft skills and career empowerment

The master’s degree, which can be pursued online following the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, is therefore characterized by a high level of content personalization. «This is its strength. Not only because every student can choose which areas to study in depth, but also because this will allow everyone to meet a large number of different colleagues from one course to another, all who share the same educational and training needs. Approximately, networking could reach over one hundred people, all linked by common interests». Particular emphasis is also given to soft skills, as well as to empowerment: «In addition to the courses more focused on soft skills, we have planned a series of career development support initiatives for our students. For example, our students will have the opportunity to meet with managers and head hunters, who will illustrate the most attractive skills on the market», concludes Franzò.

 

 

 

 

Involving family caregivers in designing assistance services

Posted on | by Marta Re Ferrè | Leave a Comment on Involving family caregivers in designing assistance services

The Place4Carers project was conceived to co-produce a new community social service, promoting the involvement of family caregivers of elderly people residing in remote, rural areas of the Camonica Valley (Lombardy Region).

 

Cristina Masella, Professor of Business Administration, School of Management, Politecnico di Milano

Eleonora Gheduzzi, PhD Candidate, School of Management, Politecnico di Milano

 

The current health emergency has provided the opportunity to reflect on the importance of community assistance and home care, especially in favour of fragile elderly people. In Italy, community assistance is entrusted primarily to 7 million family caregivers, a category that mostly goes unnoticed. Family caregivers are predominantly women aged 50 to 60. During the health emergency, more than 50% of these caregivers suspended or reduced their work activities because of the increased burden of caring for their loved ones.

 

“We have a thousand worries. Our life is very hard. We haven’t even the smallest moment to ourselves; a time in which to recharge our batteries. And community assistance is steadily decreasing,” Caregiver (55), Breno.

 

In addition to the psychological hardship of seeing a loved one suffer, family caregivers experience intense stress, a sense of impotence, and solitude due to their ‘burden of assistance’. To prevent the emergence of new vulnerabilities on the territory, a network of healthcare and social service providers must be created that can collaborate closely with family caregivers and provide them with the assistance they need in caring for the elderly. The goal of establishing such a network is twofold: to support caregivers, improving their psychological and social condition, and to strengthen the provision of community assistance to vulnerable elderly people.

 

“We have a greater awareness, both of ourselves and of the relationship we can establish with healthcare operators and professionals to assist our loved ones. I have matured a lot because I now realise what I can do,” Caregiver (77), Breno

 

The Place4Carers project has responded to these needs through participatory scientific research actions involving family caregivers who look after dependant elderly people living in the Camonica Valley. This mountainous, hard-to-reach area was chosen as the scope of the project because here, the caregivers’ assistance is truly crucial given their limited access to healthcare and social services.

The three-year project was funded by Fondazione Cariplo and coordinated by the EngageMinds HUB of the Università Cattolica, in collaboration with the School of Management (SOM) of the Politecnico di Milano, the Need Institute, and Azienda Territoriale per i Servizi alla Persona (ATSP), the local social welfare centre in Breno, Brescia.

In particular, the Politecnico di Milano’s SOM team was entrusted with mapping the needs and the psychological and social condition of family caregivers in the Camonica Valley. This study revealed that caregivers spend an average of 75 hours per week caring for their loved one, experiencing greater physical and psychological fatigue than those who benefit from greater healthcare and social services.

These and other results formed the basis for a new, co-designed service, “S.O.S CAREGIVERS: feeling well to help others feel well”, comprising four co-designed workshops involving 26 family caregivers, 6 researchers and 3 ATSP representatives.

The School of Management team supported ATSP in the implementation of the service, by evaluating its feasibility first and then its impact. The service comprises four macro-activities and has helped more than 150 caregivers:

  • Know more, know better: training courses aimed at providing family caregivers with know-how and practical skills for more effective management of their loved ones.
  • Tradition and memory: a sociable support group offering family caregivers the chance to exchange stories relating to life in the Camonica Valley, mediated by the support and supervision of a psychologist.
  • Information is good for the heart: the establishment of various local information channels, both online and offline, to inform caregivers about the community services available to fragile elderly people and to promote the new SOS Caregiver service.
  • Citizens’ Committee: a participatory organisational structure managing the service, supervising its performance and providing suggestions to improve its effectiveness. The Committee is made up of family caregivers, ATSP representatives, and researchers.

The results were more than satisfactory. For a more comprehensive, overall evaluation of the service, the School of Management team involved all the stakeholders who collaborated in implementing the service: family caregivers, ATSP representatives, researchers, trainers, professionals, and four local care homes. Overall, the service met with a very high level of satisfaction (around 90%), good understanding of course contents (around 88%), and a considerable participation rate, given the hard-to-reach context (around 20%). Moreover, the ATSP representatives, the professionals, and the managers of the four care homes involved were interested in continuing the service, highlighting the importance of supporting family caregivers in caring for the elderly at home.

 

“While we didn’t receive any physical help, the training and assistance we received has helped us manage better our day-to-day problems”, Caregiver (78), Breno.
“We were able to gain a better insight of the day-to-day difficulties experienced by family caregivers in caring for the elderly, and this helped us to review our services in order to address the needs not just of the elderly but of the family as a whole”, an ATSP member of staff, Breno.

 

This project has kicked off the establishment of a community network involving caregivers, researchers, ATSP, ATS Montagna (the mountain health protection agency), ASST Vallecamonica (the local community social healthcare company), Comunità Montana (the Italian mountain community), Assemblea dei Sindaci (the assembly of local mayors), four care homes in the Camonica Valley and a number of cooperatives.

The project may have come to an end, but Place4carers keeps on going!

For further information on the Place4Carers project, please click here to watch the project video and here to the final presentation.

MIP Politecnico di Milano Graduate School of Business and BNL Gruppo BNP Paribas together for your future

Posted on | by Angela Leone | Leave a Comment on MIP Politecnico di Milano Graduate School of Business and BNL Gruppo BNP Paribas together for your future

BNL Gruppo BNP Paribas is offering MIP Graduate School of Business students resident in Italy the possibility of accessing a loan to enable you to plan your future with greater freedom and security.

The BNL Futuriamo loan is designed to help you deal with the needs your study programme entails, both in Italy and abroad: tuition fees, study materials, housing and transport costs, the purchase of a PC or tablet.

BNL Futuriamo can finance from 5,000 to 70,000 euros in a single payment, repayable over a period of up to 10 years, with the possibility of postponing the repayment of the capital from 12 to 36 months from the disbursement.

For younger students, there will be joint registration with a parent/guardian resident in Italy.

The loan is managed entirely by BNL Gruppo BNP Paribas. The granting of the loan is subject to the approval of the bank. For all information, together with contractual and economic conditions, please visit BNL.it or make an appointment at one of the BNL branches.

 

Are you a Junior candidate? For further information click here

Are you an Executive candidate? For further information click here

 

To contact the BNL consultants and request a loan, simply click on “Call me back” and fill in the request form.

Regaining spirituality (to become a more aware and efficient manager)

Posted on | by Angela Leone | Leave a Comment on Regaining spirituality (to become a more aware and efficient manager)

Going beyond soft skills. The executive programme in spirituality and management aims to guide students to acquire a deeper level of understanding of humankind and to give life to a virtuous contamination with topics that are more closely tied to business. «We are targeting those who want to know themselves better in order to take a leap forward», explains Professor Luciano Traquandi

 

The importance of soft skills in education, training and work is now accepted by everyone. However, there’s a deeper level to explore, seemingly antithetical to concepts like business, productivity and technology, but fundamental to finding a deep balance: spirituality. «We live in a period in which the excess of technology, with its defined paths, can lead to an entropic state, and thus of decline. The spirit, instead, is deeply human and, by nature, anti-entropic. And that’s exactly what we need», explains Professor Luciano Traquandi, who oversees the executive programme in spirituality and management (SPEM) for MIP Politecnico di Milano.

 

The balance between humans and technology

But what does spirituality mean exactly? And why did MIP decide to devote an entire course to this topic? «We decided to use this term because it was the one that most of all indicated something inmeasurable and intangible, something that escapes any kind of measurement. To understand its nature better, think about the term “culture”», explains Traquandi. «You can’t “weigh” culture. But different cultures lead to different outcomes. With the SPEM programme we want to go beyond this, and address issues that are often elusive».

This course required a lengthy preparation: «We’ve been working on it for about ten years. But it comes at the ideal moment, in an historic period in which we are deeply shaken by something that is apparently insignificant and intangible», explains Traquandi, referring to the coronavirus. But this need for spirituality is also tied to the enormous technological acceleration seen in recent years: «The futurologist John Naisbitt stated that high tech needs to strike a balance with high touch: that is a human touch that balances out technology. But let’s not make the mistake of putting these two areas in contrast: technique benefits from spirituality, and spirituality is helped by technique; think, for example, of those Buddhist monks who are also theoretical physicists», says Traquandi.

 

It’s not quantified: it’s perceived

The goals of the SPEM programme are tied precisely to this: providing keys to understanding the dimension of the spirit, with the aim for a virtuous contamination with the world of production. And spirituality has repercussions on numerous fields: change management, economics, law, decision making, even artificial intelligence. «The category of the spirit is pervasive», explains Traquandi. «But take note: it’s not possible to measure it. In the face of it, we must give in. We can feel it and perceive it but not control it. And although this course is strictly secular, it’s worth recalling cases of companies which, following problematic acquisitions, accepted to undergo theological analyses that then allowed them to overcome critical issues identified. And it’s normal that this is the case: we all live this profound dimension. Maybe it’s not easy to confess it to ourselves, but we live it».

 

A study path that aims for understanding

The SPEM course addresses all these themes: «It is directed towards courageous and sensitive people, with great skills», explains Traquandi. «People who feel the need to take a leap forward, both for work and for themselves. Precisely becase self-knowledge is a fundamental element of this course. The approach is complex. Each module will be dedicated to a theme.

And seeing that, as we were saying earlier, the spirit is pervasive, we will have speakers from a wide variety of fields: doctors, theologians, members of the military, entrepreneurs, experts from the world of research and the economy. We’ll offer students a variety of stimuli, necessary to arrive at a full understanding. There aren’t and can’t be unified theories and results. Every participant’s experience will be a personal one that will draw from their own reservoir of spirituality. For this reason, participation will be fundamental: discussions within the group will be decisive for the success of this experience», concludes Traquandi.

86 candidates from 24 different countries have just begun the digital journey of MIP’s International Flex EMBA

Posted on | by Angela Leone | Leave a Comment on 86 candidates from 24 different countries have just begun the digital journey of MIP’s International Flex EMBA

The new edition of our International Flex EMBA has just begun with a large number of participants from all over the world, each ready to live an unforgettable distance learning experience.

Dozens of candidates, connected from 26 different countries in Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Latin America, officially started the MIP’s distance-learning Executive MBA on Friday, 6 November, providing tangible proof of the unstoppable nature of training!

Our Business School has set up a class made up on average of professionals aged between 30 and 40, primarily with an educational background in engineering and economics and over 10 years of experience chiefly in the fields of Information Technology and Construction, in their various capacities as Project, Sales or General Managers.

This success goes to show that plenty of professionals continue to be driven by the desire to improve, to refine their managerial skills and above all, to look to the future with positivity and far-sightedness. But it is also shows the perseverance with which MIP Politecnico di Milano intends to exploit the potential of digital learning to pursue its goal of training innovators capable of leveraging digital technologies to drive economic and social development. This commitment has helped us scale major global rankings, coming in 5th in the QS Online MBA Ranking 2020 and 9th in the Financial Times Online MBA Ranking 2020.

Our School is delighted with the diversity of this year’s EMBA, its international reach and the varied backgrounds of its participants, all of which will undoubtedly enrich the participants’ cultural and personal baggage. At the Master’s opening ceremony, the students themselves commented profusely on the class’s “incredible blend of skills and experiences” and on its “representation of the entire business world”, also in geographical terms.

Congratulations to everyone involved for deciding to invest in training!

And congratulations to the hundreds of young graduates and professionals who, since September, have chosen MIP for their professional and human growth.

Digital transformation: now or never

Posted on | by Angela Leone | Leave a Comment on Digital transformation: now or never

Professor Antonio Ghezzi presents the International Master in Digital Transformation: from the strategic to the organizational repercussions, moving from the need to develop an entrepreneurial mindset to managing a now inescapable change. For every company

 

Digital transformation yes. As long as you talk about it in the right way, deeply understanding its nature and repercussions for companies. «Today we’re seeing an abuse of this term on the part of many groups, in order to position and reposition themselves», explains Antonio Ghezzi, Associate Professor and Director of the International Master in Digital Transformation at MIP Politecnico di Milano. «What we need to do, instead, is to establish the boundaries of this concept. Too much emphasis risks leading to an inflation, with a bubble like that seen with dotcoms in the early 2000s. Instead we must try to understand the nature of technological waves, what they can bring to business and how the role will change of managers, who can no longer ignore the transformations underway».

 

An opportunity even for the smallest

According to Ghezzi, implementing a digital transformation leads first of all to transformation processes that must be interpreted. «The first theme is of a strategic nature. Through the combination of different technologies, new markets can be created. In addition, the nature of competition changes, it evolves, abandons the shapes of the past. The second theme is of an entrepreneurial nature», continues Ghezzi. «This phenomenon leads to the emergence of new business opportunities, that you need to know how to seize. Creativity becomes fundamental, from this perspective. And it allows startups and all these born digital companies to compete with companies that are much more structured». The third and last theme is the organizational one: «It’s difficult to implement a strategic plan, if the organization isn’t aligned. And then you need to think of the impact of digital: what impact does it have on the macrostructure? And the microstructure? Are there the appropriate skills to bring forward the plan?».

 

The digital company must experiment

Obviously, the role of the manager becomes fundamental in the face of a change that is inescapable and so necessary. «It’s important to recognize that, by now, the world is digital», explains Ghezzi. «Even those who have managed to position themselves in a confined space must know that, sooner or later, that niche will be eroded. To find new paths, companies must experiment, investing a little bit in different directions, learning to test the quality of their choices, to understand which are the best. In such a turbulent context, where discontinuities aren’t only of a technological nature, classic planning becomes impossible. This has also been understood by the largest companies, which are now starting to imitate this approach that up until now has been typical of startups». To face these challenges, according to Ghezzi, the entrepreneurial mindset is ideal: «The search for business opportunities must be constant. The discontinuity in which we live forces us to do so. Unless companies want to be supplanted. Think about how much digital companies like Amazon, Airbnb, Uber have achieved in such little time».

 

From know-how to know-where

However, you need to know the technologies in play. Better yet, you need to know where to find them. «We’re moving from the know-how model to the know-where model. It’s unlikely that a single company possesses all the technologies that are now characterizing the digital transformation. If we put artificial intelligence at the top of the pyramid, descending we would see that this will require machine learning, big data and data collection that can happen at the consumer level, or through the Internet of Things. And all this data, then, has to be put into the cloud. So it becomes hard for a single company to manage this complexity, and for this reason it becomes important to know where to find these digital services».

MIP Politecnico di Milano has created the ’International Master in Digital Transformation in order to train professionals at ease in this environment. «First of all, we provide general management fundamentals to our students, along with notions of marketing and finance strategy. Then we examine the technologies closely, evaluating their managerial impact. The third part includes an analysis of lean start-up and design thinking approaches. Students will have the opportunity to put into practice what they studied. There’s no better moment than now to enrol. Organizations that don’t put into place this process risk ending up on the sidelines», concludes Ghezzi.

QS MBA Career Specialization Rankings 2021: work, research and placement make the School of Management of Politecnico di Milano one of the best in the world

Posted on | by Angela Leone | Leave a Comment on QS MBA Career Specialization Rankings 2021: work, research and placement make the School of Management of Politecnico di Milano one of the best in the world

QS ranking recognises MIP’s MBAs in six areas, with special emphasis on the excellent score achieved in Operations Management, followed by Entrepreneurship and Marketing. Such a recognition bears out the labour market’s appreciation for both the training endeavours of the school and its alumni.

 

MIP’s MBAs rank among the best in the world, including in terms of specialisations in the different working fields. This is revealed by the QS MBA by Career Specialization Rankings 2021 drawn up by Quacquarelli Symonds, a company that engages in analysing academic curricula available worldwide. According to this ranking, built on the results achieved by the different schools and alumni in a variety of business areas, the School of Management of Milan Polytechnic ranks among the top 100 in as many as six categories, standing out in particular in Operations Management, Entrepreneurship and Marketing.

 

More specifically, the best result was scored in Operations Management, where the School ranked 5th, while it reached the 35th position in Entrepreneurship and the 43rd in Marketing. Acting as key enablers of this remarkable achievement is above all the very high score awarded to research, together with reputation among employers and career placement.

 

These results are even more relevant if benchmarked against the method used to draw up the ranking, as over 37 thousand employers were considered and millions of academic publications and statistics on alumni employment were reviewed. First and foremost, this goes to show that the labour market recognises the prowess of the people trained at the School of Management, and that these very people then pursue top-level careers, either as independent professionals or within leading organisations.

 

The variety of the considered areas is also striking, confirming the school’s commitment to pursuing a path where management, economics and technology meet and blend together to form an educational whole.

 

In addition to the three areas mentioned above, the School of Business also ranks among the top 100 in the areas of Consulting, Information Management and Technology.

 

This is the third confirmation in a few days of the quality of the School educational offer. MIP Politecnico di Milano Graduate School of Business has been included for the second time in its history in the prestigious international Financial Times Executive MBA 2020 ranking, while MIP courses have been celebrated in the QS Business Masters Rankings 2021. A double recognition further enhanced by the result achieved in the QS MBA by Career Specialization Rankings 2021.