Close

    Location IMD campus, UEFA and IOC Headquarters

    Length 3 weeks liVe virtual (4h per week), 1 week face to face

    Fee CHF 10,900

    Next program starts 2 October 2024

    Gain a comprehensive toolbox for innovation breakthroughs and build your entrepreneurial skills

    What is the common thread between Yamaha, Alibaba, Microsoft, Uber, and Amazon? These companies are all clear leaders in their industries, and all embrace innovation and entrepreneurial thinking as part of their overall business strategy. To survive and maintain a competitive edge, companies must continuously innovate and re-invent themselves. However, innovation in theory is one thing but applying it in practice to real-world business problems is quite another.

    IMD has partnered with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) to bring you the Innovation In Action program. You will put innovation and your entrepreneurial thinking into practice with a real-world innovation challenge, bolster your leadership skills, and apply what you have learned to your own business with a concrete action plan.

    Uncover the secrets of innovation

    Get hands-on training in ideation, design-thinking and prototyping techniques.
    Learn the skills of successful entrepreneurs

    Learn to deal with failure and iterate your thinking by making sense of experiments that don’t work.
    Turn promising ideas into business opportunities

    Identify factors that can derail or slow down your efforts to innovate.
    Bolster your leadership to lead innovation

    Engage people in your vision with powerful rhetorical and storytelling techniques.
    You and your class

    This program welcomes participants from all industries. A typical class includes 50% of participants from sports and entertainment and 50% from other industries.

    • Are you trying to grow and sharpen your innovation capabilities as a leader or as a team?
    • Are you working for an established organization that needs to escape the business as usual and explore disruptive new trajectories and business ideas?
    • Are you facing deep customer shifts and searching for a toolbox that will let you imagine new experiences and drive change in your industry?

     

    This program is designed for individual entrepreneurs, managers and executives who want to learn the mindset and skills required to steer customer innovations from early concept development to validated breakthrough solutions. It will appeal to people from a wide range of industry sectors, operating both within and beyond the world of sports and entertainment.

    Boost your innovation and entrepreneurial skills

    Put innovation and your entrepreneurial thinking into practice with a real-world innovation. See the program in action and hear from the program director.

    Innovation skills are best acquired through concrete hands-on experience

    During the program, partnering with UEFA and the IOC, you will practice innovation and hone your entrepreneurship skills. The program is delivered as an immersive experience at the IMD campus as well as 2 days at UEFA and IOC Headquarters in Lausanne. You will get the chance to meet and get inspired by renowned keynote speakers from the entertainment industry and top-level professional athletes.

    Throughout the program you will be working on a concrete, real-world challenge and explore innovative ways to rethink customer journey’s during and after major sporting events.

    Embrace design thinking and learn key innovation frameworks.
    Dive into real-world innovation challenges.
    Learn from inspirational industry keynote speakers.
    Reflect on and improve your leadership style and effectiveness.
    Your learning journey
    Module 1 – Launch

    Immerse yourself – liVe virtual classroom
    3 sessions of 4 hours

    • Session 1 (2 Oct, 13:30-17:30 CET):
      • Kick-off
      • Think like a designer
    • Session 2 (9 Oct, 13:30-17:30 CET):
      • Understand what your customers want
      • Leverage power of new technologies
    • Session 3 (16 Oct, 13:30-17:30 CET):
      • Innovate the business model
      • Capture learning and define objectives
    • Individual coaching session (1 hour)
    Module 2 – Design

    Learn, apply and reflect – Lausanne area
    30 Oct – 4 Nov 2023

    • 3 days at IMD campus
    • 1 day at a start-up incubator
    • 2 days at UEFA and IOC Headquarters
    • 1 evening at the Olympic Museum
    Module 3 – Transform

    Transfer learning to your own context – liVe virtual classroom

    • 1 individual coaching session (1 hour) between 23 and 27 October
    Getting out of the comfort zone with a real-world challenge

    Participants are given an innovation challenge in the kitchen. Limited resources, very few instructions and the task to bring something unique to the table. Participants loved it!

    Participant reviews

    I totally recommend this course to anyone who leads a team, not only sport professionals. The diversity of the group and activities bring the athletic mindset together with managerial style. The power of the group is a main takeaway as well as the ability to use the innovation frameworks. Also, being creative and working in a group helped me better understand the value each person brings in forming a great and complex project.

    Diana Pirciu Vasile Head of Education, Federatia Romana de Fotbal, Romania

    Innovation in Action shows you how to reshape your innovation approach and channel creativity to be more efficient. More than tools, you come back with powerful insights and an extended network to help you improve your impact. My top takeaway – embrace an ambidextrous mindset: manage the present and create the future!

    Romuald Boillon CSR & Quality Director, CHANEL, Switzerland
    1/2

    Many organizations tell us they want to be fast, agile, and re-invent the value they can bring to business and society, but game-changing offerings are hard to come by. Most executives struggle to define what it means to be truly innovative. And they want tools that will help them keep up with the rapid pace of change occurring in their business environments.

    Read more

    Cyril Bouquet Program Director
    Cyril Bouquet’s publications
    Article
    Setting business priorities on the slow road to COP targets

    On 26 October, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development brought together representatives from global companies, academia, policymakers, and NGOs to discuss the priorities for business as the world approaches the first “Global Stockta…

    Sustainability
    By Cyril Bouquet
    04 November 2022
    Read more
    Article
    ALIEN thinking: Innovating our way to a net-zero future

    How can we best accelerate our search for the new practices our planet needs to ensure its future? By adopting the habits of ALIEN thought, says Cyril Bouquet, IMD Professor of Strategy and Innovation, talking at the World Business Council for Sus…

    Innovation Sustainability
    By Cyril Bouquet
    31 October 2022
    Read more
    Article
    Driving diversity into product innovation

    Some companies are recognizing the benefits of creating new products and services for traditionally under-served audiences. But many more would benefit from doing the same.

    Strategy Sustainability Marketing
    By Cyril Bouquet
    30 September 2022
    Read more
    Article
    Still waiting for the Eureka moment?: Five lessons to boost your innovation practices

    Innovation ain’t what it was. It was once the province of a department, with a clear remit: new product development. Today, it’s everywhere. It concerns not only products and services, but also processes, technologies, business models, pricing pla…

    Strategy Innovation
    By Cyril Bouquet and Jean-Louis Barsoux
    01 May 2011
    Read more
    Next start & fee

    Length: 3 liVe sessions over 3 weeks plus one week face-to-face at Lausanne campus, IOC, and UEFA headquarters.

    Dates
    2 Oct – 2 Nov 2024
    Location
    IMD campus, UEFA and IOC Headquarters
    Length
    3 weeks liVe virtual (4h per week), 1 week face to face (Lausanne)
    Price
    CHF 10,900
    Apply

    Tuition, teaching materials, and lunch are included.
    All fees quoted are exclusive of any value-added or other indirect taxes that may be due in any country.
    IMD reserves the right to modify the program dates, location, and fee at any time.

    One step closer to joining IMD alumni network

    Successful completion of this program takes you one step closer to joining IMD’s powerful alumni network.

    125k+ alumni

    Networking

    250+ events per year

    Communities

    50 clubs worldwide

    Resources

    Learn more about IMD alumni network
    Related programs
    On campus
    Driving Strategic Innovation

    Achieving high performance throughout the value chain

    Changes the way business leaders think about innovation and technology strategy, and provides a comprehensive roadmap for achieving breakthrough performance across the value chain.

    Find out more
    Sprint format
    Business Creativity and Innovation Sprint

    Unlock your creative genius

    Boost your innovation mindset, generate better ideas and transform them into breakthrough solutions.

    Find out more
    Online
    Disruptive Innovation

    Grow your business through innovation

    Take inspiration from successful innovators and equip yourself with powerful skills and techniques to drive innovation more effectively within your organization.

    Find out more
    What would you like to learn?
    Explore programs
    Learn more about IMD
    Explore IMD's history