Curriculum

During the six residential modules of the programme, participants acquire a firm understanding of the most recent developments in the different management disciplines. At the same time, participants learn to apply the management frameworks to their own financial institution. It’s this application of general concepts to the financial services industry that sets the MBA-FSI apart from general MBA programmes.

Module 1 - Ghent/Brussels (Belgium)
Module 2 - Marbach/ Zurich (Switzerland)
- Creating customer value in the financial services industry
  - Marketing management is introduced as a concept with a particular emphasis on what it means for a firm to be market-driven. Participants will see that marketing is a continuous process of creating customer value, and learn how customer orientation, production and administration fit into each other. During this course, we deal with the following topics:
    
    Functional thinking: seeing the company through the eyes of the customer
    
    Understanding the task-oriented approach in marketing
    
    Developing a successful STP (segmenting, targeting, positioning) strategy
    
    Achieving competitive multi-channel distribution
    
    Making use of the extended product concept
    
    Realising financial services within networks
    
    Financial services strategies in a cross-industry perspective
- Financial services in a digital world
  - Given the ongoing development of e-business models and the increasing use and power of the internet and social networks, this course investigates the opportunities for financial services firms in these fields. Besides understanding the digital economy and how this leads to a changing marketing approach, this course also investigates how bankers and insurers can modify their business model to benefit optimally from the E-commerce potential.
Module 3 - Montreal / Toronto (Canada)
Module 4 - Beijing (China)
Module 5 - Mexico City (Mexico)
- Exploiting the full potential of IT - How to achieve process excellence?
  - In today’s information society, the operations and technology department plays a vital role within the company. In the past few years, IT has shown to play a critical part in optimising the operational efficiency, productivity, innovative capacity and competitiveness of businesses. The course is designed to demonstrate how firms can gain competitive advantage through the use and management of information systems. The focus is on the relationship between information technology, operations, human resources and corporate strategy. Participants will learn of the implications that arise when these aspects are not balanced.
- Managing the human potential of the organisation
  - One of the critical success factors is the human resources part of the business. Insurance companies, banks and other financial firms are already witnessing that the competitive struggle in today’s market environment is more and more the result of intellectual limitations. As such, talent management will be a core topic dealt with during this course. The corporate strategy, structure and culture will influence the HRM. It is therefore of utmost importance to dedicate sufficient attention to the development of a strategic and integrated human resources management model for financial firms. Running a global financial firm will entail substantial challenges for this HRM.
Module 6 - New York (US)
- Building the right organisation - Leading change
  - Current developments in the finance and risk markets demand new strategic responses. Research demonstrates that projects often fail because of inconsistent and sluggish implementation. Change management and organisational development measures are therefore of eminent importance. This is particularly true as the establishment of international financial firms entails the integration of companies with different cultures and identities. New strategic objectives, new target groups, new areas of business, more comprehensive products and services call for new competencies. Instruments and measures to foster a culture of organisational learning and effective knowledge management will secure a competitive edge.
- Cultivating innovative ideas
  - Innovation Management not only concerns designing, developing and bringing new products/services to the market, it also encompasses the renewal of business models and changing the rules of competition. This course on innovation delivers insights into how innovation management can be a source of growth and profitability for a company, by understanding the behaviour of innovative organisations and their culture. Further attention is given to how to generate the necessary entrepreneurship and designing the different roles in the innovation process. By making use of practical cases from the banking and insurance industries, a direct translation into financial services innovation takes place.
Graduation
- Graduation of MBA FSI
  - The MBA-FSI Graduation Ceremony is more than presenting diplomas and celebrating graduates. The event lasts for 3 days and also has a considerable content part. For every event we select a central theme, brought by a management expert, e.g. 'Negotiation' (by Prof David Venter in 2010), ‘Purpose’ (by Nikos Mourkogiannis in 2008), ‘Re-inventing the Corporation‘ (by Jonas Ridderstråle in 2008), ‘Blue Ocean Strategy’ (by George Eapen in 2006), etc. Furthermore, also business speakers are invited to share insights on the central topic and the financial services market where the event takes place.

Curriculum

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