OpportunityBooster�

Why "Management by Opportunity"?

Innovation is recognized as a key driver for corporate growth and career development. Trouble is, sources for innovation are often overlooked, under analyzed or misunderstood. Technical innovation often overshadows non-tech solutions, which can actually deliver faster results with fewer resources.

Business plans often collapse into failure because the underlying opportunities they are trying to seize have not been properly analyzed.

The novel "Management by Opportunity" approach provides the missing link that will support "intraprises", which are created when innovation (a new service, process, product, management tool, etc.) is implemented, be it within profit or non-profit organizations. Entrepreneurial behavior in a medium or large organization ("intrapreneurship") contributes to its development while boosting the career of those individuals who choose to become intrapreneurs.

Through action learning and by using an actual business opportunity, participants learn how to manage and stimulate innovation. This “best practice” seminar shows how and why multinationals, banks, startups as well as non-profit and public sector organizations have adopted "Innovation by Opportunity" to stimulate innovation.

The "Innovation by Opportunity" step-by-step toolbox, at the core of "Management by Opportunity" helps entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs identify and turn an opportunity into a feasible plan of action, or realize that it is not worth pursuing. Validating the feasibility and potential of each project is a prerequisite to any business initiative for both intrapreneurs and their management.

• Create the right climate and environment to seize business opportunities
• Manage innovation according to a standard process throughout the organization
• Encourage initiatives aligned with the objectives and constraints of the organization
• Promote innovation of products, services or management approaches, in line with corporate strategy (empowerment)
• Use the tools to turn an idea into a feasible and validated action plan
• Stimulate the motivation and engagement of the employees (retention of the star performers)
• Reduce the “silo” attitude and promote cross-boundaries activities and cooperation
• Turn executives into « change agents »
• Decrease the resistance to change

Impact of "Management by Opportunity"

• Promotes initiative within the objectives and constraints of the organization
• Encourages innovation (products, services as well as management techniques)
  in line with the overall strategy
• Empowers executives with real tools to turn their ideas into action
• Stimulates staff motivation and effectiveness
• Turns executives into change agents
• Reduces resistance to change
• Boosts project management
  

Who Should Attend OpportunityBooster™?

• Executives and managers who want to contribute to their organizations and give a boost to their career by showing what they are capable of through innovation and intrapreneurial behavior
• Innovators, entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs who want to present their project to investors or their superiors in a more convincing manner
• Marketing, R&D as well as business development experts who want to use a structured model to supervise and assess projects at the “ideation” stage
• Anyone who wants to increase the chances of success of an existing or future project
• Senior management as well as board members who want to monitor innovation as well as encourage employees to innovate.

Training Methodology

• During the workshop, participants use the Management by Opportunity tools (all supported by written hand-outs) to solve a real innovation project selected by their organization's senior management (action learning). They will then be able to use these tools on their own as soon as they identify an opportunity.
• At the end of the workshop, participants are encouraged to select innovation opportunities in their area of expertise and seize them, provided they fit the overall mission of their organization. Those who have decided to pursue such an opportunity could, if they request it and provided management supports it, get individual coaching.
• Practical and easy-to-use creativity techniques can also be taught during the workshop to give participants those tools necessary to find innovative solutions, which can be used in their daily work.
• In order to integrate the human dimension when launching innovation projects (if time permits), tools to improve communication, interpersonal skills and teamwork can also be introduced.
  

OpportunityBooster™ Facilitator

Raphaël H Cohen, PhD. is the CEO of a Swiss-based international group of companies, including several start-ups. His working experience on 3 continents led him to develop expertise in strategic analysis and business development, management, negotiation, HR, coaching and mentoring, financial engineering, legal affairs (intl. taxation, licensing, real estate, M&A, etc.), asset management, turning-around businesses, interim and crisis management.

As active CEO and business angel, he brings his hands-on experience in his lecturing and consulting activities providing coaching and management services to senior executives, directors and entrepreneurs. He serves on the board of several companies and is a regular contributor for several business publications. He is currently writing a book on "Innovation by Opportunity".

In addition to his lecturing and teaching activities, he designed and manages the University of Geneva Certificate of Continuous Education in Entrepreneurship, which leads to an Executive MBA in Entrepreneurship, as well as the management skills education program for physicians and executives at HUG (the Geneva University Hospitals). He has, until 2002, managed the first four CREATE courses of Entrepreneurship at both University of Geneva and EPFL (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology) designed for engineers and scientists.