Leading Customer-Centric Strategies program

Frédéric Dalsace focuses on two distinct areas – B2B issues such as customer centricity, buyer-seller relationships, and value management, and sustainability, inclusive business models, and alleviating poverty.

He is Co-Director of IMD’s new Leading Customer-Centric Strategies (LCCS) program and believes that companies need to rethink their approach to customer centricity. He says many organizations only consider customer centricity when they are defining their offers, but that they also need to incorporate it into the value delivery and value capture dimensions of their business models. One way of doing this is through risk-sharing business models including fully service-based offerings, such as Rolls Royce's Power by the Hour model, or performance-based and outcome-based contracts in which payments depend on the value created, with the result that the interests of suppliers and customers are aligned.

Risk-sharing business models are also relevant in Dalsace’s work on sustainability because they lead to more circular and more efficient solutions. He previously worked with 2006 Nobel prize winner Professor Muhammad Yunus on inclusive business models, and is currently helping firms to integrate sustainability into their broader strategy by making the business case for sustainability, for example. Many companies have been naive about sustainability and have made the mistake of decoupling it from their overall strategy, he says.

He is also collaborating with IMD’s Professor of Strategy Arnaud Chevallier on a project to identify and evaluate the types of questions that leaders should be asking of those around them. As this is not something that is formally taught, leaders tend to learn by doing, which can lead to blind spots. Using a database of more than 600 executives, the pair have therefore developed a template for the types of questions that leaders need to ask – and how to ask them.

Dalsace has worked with a range of firms including Atlas Copco, UCB, Valmet, VAT Group, Grundfos, MANE, Porsche and STADA, and he has published in academic journals such as Harvard Business Review, Business Horizons, Strategic Management Journal and Revue Française de Gestion.

Before joining IMD in 2019, he was a Professor at HEC Paris for 16 years, holding the Social Business/Enterprise and Poverty Chair, and he has won numerous awards for his teaching, research, and publications.

Prior to his academic life, he held a series of senior positions in the business world, including marketing roles at Michelin and CarnaudMetalbox and as a strategy consultant with McKinsey.

Selected publications

Mindset drives success: Selling beneficial products at the base of the pyramid (Business Horizons, 2021)

The friend or foe fallacy: Why your best customers may not need your friendship (Business Horizons, 2017)

Reaching the rich world’s poorest consumers (Harvard Business Review, 2015)

Do make or buy decisions matter? The influence of organizational governance on technological performance (Strategic Management Journal, 2002)

L’entreprise contre la pauvreté (Fondation Jean Jaurès, 2011)

Recognition

HEC Montreal CSR Challenge Case Writing Competition Award (2022)

Named on Case Centre list of best-selling cases (2021)

Strategy Management Society (Strategy Process Interest Group) Best Paper Prize (2019)

Business Horizons Best Article Award (2017)

Named on Poets & Quants list of MBA graduates’ favorite professors (2017)

HEC Paris MBA Program Best Permanent Professor (Specialized Phase) (2016, 2017)

Case Centre Award for Best Marketing Case (2015)

Best Teacher Award, HEC (2006)

HEC Foundation Prize for best article published by HEC Faculty (2004)

Winner of Institute for the Study of Business Markets Doctoral Competition (2000)

Education

MSc (Business Administration)

HEC Paris

MBA

Harvard Business School

MSc (Management)

INSEAD

PhD (Management)

INSEAD

Katharina Lange specializes in teaching executives globally about leading self, leading teams, and leading organizations, and in building resilience at the individual, team, and organizational level as well as leading customer-centric organizations. She has a strong track record of designing and directing innovative executive education programs for virtual, face-to-face, and blended learning.

She currently directs IMD custom programs for Mondelez, BAE Systems and E&Y, and is Co-director of IMD’s signature program Orchestrating Winning Performance (OWP). She also co-directs the new Leading Customer-Centric Strategies (LCCS) program, which takes a fresh approach to customer centricity, integrating strategic, digital, and leadership angles.

Lange’s teaching on self-leadership focuses on creating better awareness of a leader’s bright and dark sides. In her sessions, executives discover the key values that motivate and inspire them. Just as importantly, they discuss how to integrate their weaknesses with courage and humility into their (professional) lives and learn to speak from the heart.

Her work on leading teams focuses on psychodynamics, analyzing subconscious and conscious drivers, and building resilience, particularly in relation to boards.

Lange’s PhD in pharmacology adds the empirical lens of a natural scientist to her profile and she appreciates insights provided by data and assessments. She has certifications in all major assessment instruments and makes particular use of IMD’s newly developed 5s2 model. This model assesses leaders’ ability to transform their present business model for higher performance, and at the same time transform the organization for a successful future. These “dual transformations” require ambidextrous leadership in five behavioral dimensions: leading strategy, execution, stakeholders, people, and self.

Lange has held leadership positions herself, and what she teaches in class has been tested in reality. This   ensures the real impact of her sessions. Before joining IMD in 2019, she led the Office of Executive Development at Singapore Management University (SMU). This role gave her valuable insights into leading cross-cultural teams. Previously, she was Program Director and Head of Life Science Industries and head of Open Enrollment Programs at the European School of Management and Technology (ESMT) in Berlin. Before embarking on her academic career, she worked for 10 years in senior roles with Arthur Andersen and Deloitte Consulting.

She also serves on the Board of UNICON, the global consortium for university-based executive education. She currently co-chairs its research committee, having previously headed its membership and benchmarking committee.

Selected publications

Courageous leadership is needed now to address systemic challenges (IMD, 2022)

Business on the move (IMD, 2022)

Why talent management is crucial in transforming business models (I by IMD, 2021)

Fuse soft skills and digital for customer centricity on steroids (I by IMD, 2021)

Zuellig Pharma: A case for transformation (IMD, 2020)

Agility and resilience: The essential qualities of leadership in the digital age (The European Business Review, 2019)

Leadership capabilities: Transforming your organisation for the digital age (Asian Management Insights, 2019)

Education

Master’s degree (Pharmacy)

University of Freiburg

PhD (Pharmacology and toxicology)

Free University of Berlin 

Didier Bonnet focuses on digital economics, digital strategy, disruptive innovation, and the process of large-scale digital transformation for global corporations. A globally recognized thought leader on digital transformation, he was a precursor in anticipating the scale and impact of the digital revolution that is now sweeping through our economies. He is also the author of a bestselling book that makes the provocative argument that the next phase of digital technology adoption will make everything that’s happened so far look like a prelude.

Bonnet helps boards and management teams make the shift to the new digital economy and implement the changes in business models, operations, and customer experiences that this requires.

With over 30 years’ experience in strategy and transformation consulting, he is a trusted advisor and coach to senior executives who are leading their organizations through complex digital transformations.

His work spans information economics, digital transformation, platform strategies, digital innovation, the future of work, and organizational transformation. He also leads research programs on how the digital economy is impacting individuals, corporations, and society at large.

He has designed and directed customized digital transformation programs for large global B2C and B2B organizations and provided coaching advice to senior leaders in a variety of industries, including telecoms, banking, high-tech, insurance, consumer goods, media, transport, and industrial goods.

At IMD, Bonnet is Co-Director of the Digital Transformation in Practice (DTIP), Digital Transformation for Boards (DTB) and Leading Customer-Centric Strategies (LCCS) programs, and he teaches strategy and digital transformation in several other open programs. For the last 10 years, he has led a joint research program with the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy (IDE), at the Sloan School of Management, on the impact of digital technology on business models and society. He is also a non-executive board member of the SKEMA Foundation.

Bonnet is co-author of the bestselling book, Leading Digital: Turning Technology into Business Transformation, which has been described as the “source code” for understanding the DNA of successful digital transformation. The book’s insights won praise from former EMC Chair and CEO Joe Tucci and former Pernod Ricard CEO Pierre Pringuet. This was followed in 2021 by Hacking Digital: Best Practices to Implement and Accelerate your Business Transformation, which provides a practical guide for how to navigate the challenges of digital transformation execution.

Bonnet’s research has been published in top management journals such as Harvard Business Review, MIT Sloan Management Review, R&D Management, Quarterly Review of Marketing, Strategy Direction, and Business Strategy Review. He is also a public speaker on digital transformation and has frequently been published and quoted in the media, including the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, the Financial Times, The Economist, the BBC, CNN, and CNBC.

Bonnet joined IMD in 2019 after a 30-year career in strategy consulting. He was Global Digital Transformation Practice Leader at Capgemini Invent and Global Leader of the Telecom, Media & Entertainment practice at Gemini Consulting. He started his career in hi tech and consulting with Coopers & Lybrand Consulting and Putnam Hayes & Bartlett. 

Selected publications  

Hacking Digital: Best Practices to Implement and Accelerate your Business Transformation (McGraw Hill, 2021)

The new elements of digital transformation (MIT Sloan Management Review, 2021)

Why innovation’s future isn’t (just) open (MIT Sloan Management Review, 2020)

Lifting the lid on disruption fever (Journal of Strategy and Management, 2020)

Busting the myths of digital transformation: Don’t buy the hype (Indian Management Journal, 2020)

Reframing growth strategy in a digital economy (MIT Sloan Management Review, 2017)

It’s time for boards to cross the digital divide (Harvard Business Review, 2014)

Leading Digital: Turning Technology into Business Transformation (Harvard Business Review Press, 2014)

Recognition

Named as one of the Top 50 Global Thought Leaders and Influencers on Digital Transformation and Disruption by Thinkers360 (2021)

CDO Conclave Global Digital Leader of the Year (2018)

Education

MSc

SKEMA Business School, France

DPhil

University of Oxford