The participants of the Executive MBA become a consulting agency and deliver their strategic recommendations to SMEs in the region: immersion in the Capstone project
Mobilising the expertise of the EMBA participants to address the concrete problems of local organizations
Every year, the Capstone project recruits businesses to challenge the participants of the Executive MBA Program with concrete issues that appeal to all areas of the training (strategy, marketing, innovation, finance, etc.).
This year, Cécile, Isabelle, Catherine and Myriam have combined their skills to become the auditors of “Le GRAPh“, a popular education association dedicated to photography in Carcassonne, which is becoming a Contemporary Art Center of National Interest that operates for its territory. “We asked MBS to support us in this evolution and understand how to adapt the management of our organization to these new challenges, without disavowing its structure and its founding values,” explains Eric Sinatora, director of Le GRAPh.
Steering, leading, implementing and communicating
After conducting a strategic analysis of the market and the organization’s business model, the participants, accompanied by a professor coach, deliver a series of strategic recommendations to the managers.
“The role of the coach is to lead all the groups to challenge their ability to “report” and offer a real consulting service: understanding the sector and the company’s problems, adopting a strategic vision, drawing up a diagnosis and coming up with an action plan. The aim is not only to deliver strategic recommendations but also to monitor organizations by pinpointing concrete areas for implementation,” explains Dr. Audrey Missonier, Research Professor and one of the Capstone Project coaches.
“Among the challenges, we ask participants to evaluate the social impact of their strategic recommendations, which is crucial to get organizations to integrate social and/or environmental dimensions into their strategy,” adds Dr. Walid Nakara, Capstone Project Leader and holder of the Social Entrepreneurship & Inclusion Chair.
A challenge that seeks also to develop the participants’ soft skills
The Capstone project with the GRAPh offered the opportunity to four participants of the MBS EMBA to mobilize their expertise to accompany the association in a historic shift in its structure. “The problem integrated the whole organization: how to rethink the association in organizational, financial and strategic terms in order to allow it to develop its activities and to position itself, in the medium term, as a Center of Contemporary Art of National Interest?” explains Myriam Ledoux.
Facing an associative public composed notably of volunteers, the group of four auditors adopted a different stance from the classical corporate consultant. “Given all the people we interviewed to build our recommendations, we could not have a classic entrepreneurial approach. The project made us work on our emotional posture and empathy to understand the concerns that such a change in structure can generate among its members. The objective was therefore not to talk about profitability or classic management tools, but rather to build a plan that would guarantee a financial balance and sustainability in this mission of general interest,” says Cécile Lachaise, an EMBA participant.
Are you interested in the Capstone project and the Executive MBA program? Please contact us: 04 67 10 26 08 or 04 67 10 60 08, or by email: emba@montpellier-bs.com.
