IMD Annual Report 2019

9

IMD continuously evolves its ecosystem to respond to the challenges and needs of executives and organizations, now and in the future. The challenges faced by businesses and their leaders today are immense and uncertain. From digital disruption, political upheaval, intense competition, failing trust in business leaders, trade wars to social and environmental impact, executives and companiesareunder increasing pressure to continuously learn and adapt in real time, while also being expected to be better and more successful at what they do today. development providers are rightly asking themselves what role they should play. How can we best support ambitious individuals and organizations to not just survive or navigate change, but to see and harness the opportunities of that change? How can we help them have a positive impact on the world? How do we equip, inspire and empower them to be responsible, mindful masters of their own, and the world’s destinies? In this intense arena, business schools and executive

continued through 2018 and reached a few important conclusions in 2019. One of the questions we asked ourselves, as a part of this reflection, was “how do we define ourselves?” We now give the following answer: “Founded by business executives for business executives, we are an independent academic institution with Swiss roots and global reach. We strive to be the trusted learning partner of choice for ambitious individuals and organizations worldwide.” One important dimension of this definition is “independent academic institution”, which reaffirms clearly our academic heritage and nature, and the pivotal importance of IMD’s degree programs beyond the percentage of revenues they represent today. Unlike most modern academic institutions, however, IMD was not founded by a government or a pre-existing university. It was “founded by executives, for executives”. IMD’s independence also means that it must be financially self-sufficient, which canonlybeachieved ifwe remain extremely relevant to executives and organizations.

While it is important to continue to provide the leaders of today and tomorrow with the classic toolkits they need to unlock their potential, addressing the above questions actually requires us to reflect - to rethink our own purpose and to endeavor to put ourselves ahead of the curve. Our reflection in 2019 led us to articulate a clear strategic positioning, a strong purpose and an unwavering point of view. A clear strategic positioning Over the last decade, a large number of professional service firms, ranging from specialized providers to HR consulting firms to strategy consultants, have extended their activities and started competing with business schools in what was then the fastest growing component of their portfolio, i.e., custom programs. At the same time, several large corporations developed their own Corporate University, while many small, entrepreneurial technology- based competitors also appeared. In this increasingly crowded and heterogeneous marketplace, IMD needed to be clear on where we play and how we win.

We started working on this strategic clarity in 2017,