Developing Strategies for Success in Era of Negative Growth

Developing Strategies for Success in Era of Negative Growth

By Maduabuchi Ubani

The African economy is facing a downturn, if not a complete recession for the next 12-24 months. Besides the fact that leading indicators such as GDP have softened in most countries, African organisations are facing dramatic forex fluctuations, Negative growth, Operating income shortages, low morale, and diminishing productivity.

If history serves, most leaders will prepare too little, too late, and too conservatively. Yet slowdowns bring tremendous opportunities despite the challenges. Organisations can benefit competitively during and after the recession, and a common set of actions can bring about that success. It is in light of this challenging but opportunity-laden operating context occasioned by the pandemic that TEXEM, UK presents her forthcoming programme to equip executives with valuable insights that will help them thrive during negative growth.

“Beyond Survival: Developing Actionable Strategies for Success in an Era of Negative Growth” will equip participants with skills needed to achieve strategic success, address adversity and prosperity.
With the insights shared by Texem’s world-renowned faculties, they would gain valuable knowledge on how to drive innovation, develop and implement winning strategies and secure sustainable success for your organisation in these challenging times.

Faculty

The programme would be delivered by TEXEM’s world-renowned team of academics and practitioner. This programme combines the unique competencies of Celine Bremaud, Vice President of Microsoft, and Professor John Peters (Formerly; Royal Air force fighter, Prisoner of war and Chair of Association of MBAs).

Professor John Peters has delivered sessions for Mandela while alive and recently for the UK royal family. A documentary on his life has been nominated for a BAFTA and won the Independent Documentary of the year award.

The third faculty is Professor Christian Stadler, and all three will help participants challenge assumptions, harness scarce opportunities, offer valuable insights and help them understand how to do more with less via a truly unique educational experience. A synopsis of their profile will be articulated to appreciate the unparalleled impressive pedigree of the faculties and how they could help your organisation to succeed.

Bremaud joined Microsoft in 1999, and she has held several senior roles in a variety of regions. Before her current role, she was Vice President of Small and Midmarket Services and Partner groups for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA). She has also worked in France, handling Original Enterprise Manufacturing (OEM) and retail business.

Bremaud has reliably built highly effective teams, developed healthy ecosystems, and driven substantial growth. Her expertise has adequately positioned Microsoft to take advantage of the growing cloud opportunities in the MEA region.

Also, Peters is one of the world’s best speakers on leadership, and he has immense international radio, television, and media experience. The professor has consulted for several senior leaders. He has followed Nelson Mandela on stage and spoken for royalty. He also mentors on resilience, uncertainty, agility, and the high-performance mindset.

Through his experiences as a former prisoner of war and soldier in the gulf conflict, Peters challenges the traditional leadership mindset and delivers practical leadership tools for effective organisational performance.

He has been Chair of the Association of MBAs and is currently a Trustee of the Royal Air Force Club, and Patron to KidsOut, a charity that supports disadvantaged children.

In the same vein, Stadler is a world-renowned Professor of Strategic management at Warwick business school, Christian Stadler is a leading authority on long-term success.

For the last ten years, he has studied the world’s most successful and established corporations to understand how they expand, adapt, and repeatedly beat their rivals to maintain their competitive advantage. Professor Stadler authored the bestselling book “enduring success. What we can learn from the history of outstanding corporations,” and his work has been published in the Harvard Business Review.

“In this TEXEM programme, you will learn to prepare for the looming economic recession and how to position your company to take advantage of the opportunities that may arise. There is going to be lots to learn on driving profitable growth, leveraging analytics to make us better strategic leaders and much more,” the organisers added in a statement.

To achieve superlative results in a crisis, you need a reliable business model that can outperform your rivals, the organisers stressed, adding that external factors, such as those brought about by a rapid technological change in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, have had a dramatic impact on African organisations.

“Technology is reshaping all industries on the African continent and has left many established organisations vulnerable to competition. Recessions tend to exacerbate competitive volatility, which means the ongoing emerging recession will likely amplify the potential risks and rewards of digital disruption.
“As a leader, through this programme, you will get to understand the specific environment in which your business operates and how to choose a proper resource allocation strategy,” they added.

Benefits

“This online programme will empower you to improve yourself and your team and equip you with the skills to guide your organisation through difficult times successfully. More specifically, you will: Learn to build strategic leadership quotient in prosperity and adversity; gain the ability to identify and develop opportunities in the digital era; develop analytical capacity for better strategic leadership, and acquire strategies for excellence in times of crisis and optimised performance in turbulent times.”

In addition, they would, “learn to make effective decisions that lead to profitable growth in challenging times; acquire insights into how to position your organisation for success in uncertain, volatile, and complex times; optimise decision-making processes for success in periods of difficulty, gain exposure to different leadership perspectives and learn to optimise organisational performance in times of low morale and slow growth.”

The programme is for experienced leaders and senior executives tasked with generating growth in established to medium-sized and large organisations, from a range of functional backgrounds such as research, operations, development, human resources, marketing and finance.

Chief Executive Officers, general managers, and division heads whose duties include business acquisition, strategy, and operations management.

“When you participate in a TEXEM learning programme, you gain from a powerful learning experience carefully planned to address your specific needs.
“Through live, engaging, and informative online sessions, you will interact directly with our excellent faculty to learn from their newest research. Our virtual peer groups will connect you to a global community and help you build a reliable network,” the organising firm added.

Testimonials

“It’s the first time I’m doing a local programme in Africa, and it’s actually quite interesting. The first thing I liked about it is the diversity of the participants. I also like the edgy conversations we had with Christian and Alim. It’s quite thought-provoking,” Effiong Okon, Operations Director, Seplat, who had participated in a previous programme organised by the company said.

Also, Director of e-Training Central Bank of Nigeria, Glory Idehen said: “The programme is an excellent one, it’s a world-class Institute, looking at the quality of materials, the quality of the Facilitators, I think it’s a world-class programme, it could be anywhere in the world, and it’s a good standard.”

“The content of the programme has been rich and educative, enlightening and thought-provoking. I enjoyed this programme, and I am looking forward to another,” Andy Uwejeyan — Previous TEXEM delegate and Managing Director of A&J Construction Company Ltd also revealed.

Similarly, the CEO and Publisher, Businessday, Frank Algbogun, in sharing his experience from previous programmes by the company he attended, said: “I found this programme very, very rewarding. In the past, I always thought sustainability-related only to policy. However, during this programme, it was broken down to the company level, and there were several takeaways I hope to implement once I get back home.”

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