Strategic Management (VW Group France)

Intended Audience

Dealership Managers and Regional/Sales Managers (15 participants per promotion).

Programme objectives

To homogenize the executives’ skills in terms of strategic management and concession’s operational management.
To deepen the knowledge and practice of all managerial levers in the automotive distribution environment
To enable executives to build a strategic development plan for their company, taking into account the group and brand’ issues.

Programme Description

Duration: 37 days of training over 24 months, structured around 7 modules: running a concession in the current economic, societal and regulatory environment of the automobile industry; Understanding and controlling costs and financial levers; The HR challenges of a business executive operating in the automotive distribution; Quality at the service of customer satisfaction; Personal development; Team management.
Writing of a Business Project thesis designed to put into practice all of the concepts encountered during the programme. A true leitmotive of the training, this work allows the candidate to reflect upon a strategic problem of his company and come up with concrete solutions in order to answer it.
Learning modalities and methods: content input, simulations, role-playing games, individual and group work, coaching, personalised support, etc…

BADGE® validation: continuous assessment for each module, individual case synthesis, Business Project file and project defence in front of an examination board.

Company testimonial

“A programme relevant to the daily life of our concessionaires”

M. Benoit Sys, Human Resources Director of Volkswagen Group France

“Our concessionaire managers and their teams are more than ever the key players between VGF brands and their customers. It is therefore particularly important to reach out to them, to support them and to give them not only a sense of the brand’s actions but also the resources needed to develop themselves. The training is one of our commitments in the context of a win-win process. The design of this customised BADGE, built with MBS, has a specific focus on both global and cross-cutting issues of our sector (strategic management, finance, human resources, marketing, quality & customer satisfaction, personal development and team management). Therefore, executives have a common base made up of skills and knowledge.

We asked ourselves what were the basics of running a business? Finance, management, HR, marketing, leadership, etc. From there, we issued an invitation to tender to our partner schools, requesting the production of a knowledge standardisation programme. MBS has been showed the most responsive with a programme framework taking into account the concessionaires’ opinion in order to avoid doing anything too academic. This was in fact one of our prerequisites: the fact of having topics directly relevant to their daily professional life.

We’ve got really good feedbacks. Our best indicator is the full involvement of those who were initially the most sceptical of all. As soon as they returned to their concession, they reflected and implemented everything they have learned. The most complicated moment is when they have to register. The fact that they have to go “back to school” is not always attractive, but it is an opportunity and almost a second chance school for some of them. Training is totally compatible with the activity and what is really effective is the real interaction between the participants.”

Candidate Testimonial

“A real improvement of skills in terms of strategic diagnosis”

Sylvain Somprou, Commercial Director of Audi and Volkswagen concessions (Jeannin Group) in Maux (77).

“I wanted to follow the Volkswagen Strategic Management BADGE training at Montpellier Business School in order to develop my skills and be able to manage a full-fledged unit. This was agreed with my employer as part of my career development within the Jeannin Group. The training lasted two years and I still retain many good points. For example, we have all experienced a real improvement of our skills in terms of strategic diagnosis to develop projects and promote changes necessary for our companies or in the field of human resources management. And this is essential in the current context, because it is undoubtedly the least mastered aspect by business executives today. I chose as the topic of my thesis, the development of a digitalisation strategy in order to increase sales. I think we took some initial steps toward this goal which makes this a critical topic. We are only at the beginning of the digitalisation process and this may upset the established hierarchy of the major automotive industry groups. It is therefore necessary to instill this orientation and to join immediately this movement. I now feel better prepared to anticipate this and hope to be a precursor in these global model changes.”

Candidate testimonial 2

“A chance to rethink things over”

Adrien Moine, Marketing Director of Audi and Volkswagen concessions (Central Autos) in Lyon.

“Initially, it was an opportunity offered by Volkswagen and my department; I seized it with great pleasure and envy. I have been a marketing director since the beginning of 2017 and this training programme has accompanied the change in my environment. If I had to summarize these two years, I would say that I have experienced a higher enrichment of my skills with many interesting exchanges with my classmates. All of that, at an intensive pace with 2 days of classes per month. In fact I strongly recommend this pathway because it’s a real chance to rethink thinks over.”