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Sustainable business development: a meaningful purpose for today and tomorrow

13-06-2018

On Friday 8 June 2018 MSM concluded another Sustainable Business Development executive education program. This two-week program consisted of two courses: Corporate Social Responsibility (SCR) and Value Chain Analysis.

Coming from 9 different countries all over the world, 13 participants joined the 2 week CSR and Value Chain Analysis Program. This program was specially developed to help senior managers, policy officers, educators and researchers to improve their analytical value chain skills as well as their knowledge on CSR and their practical skills on how to develop a CSR strategy.

In the first week the focus was on CSR. During this week both Diederik de Boer, Assistant Professor in Sustainable Business Development at MSM and Mirjana Stanisic, lecturer in Project Management at MSM discussed many cases on CSR and provided insights on how to develop a CSR strategy for an organization. Because nowadays notions like ‘People – Planet – Profit’ (triple P) and CSR are on the agenda of every organization. They increasingly take social, economic and environmental issues into account in their strategy and daily operations. This all to have a “license to operate” within a society.

The second week was lectured by Joris Stadhouders, Assistant Professor for Management Information Systems (MIS) at MSM, Stuart Dixon, Academic Coordinator MSM’s Global MBA programs, Hans Nijhoff, Director at Pioneers Consulting and Diederik de Boer. During this week the participants were introduced to social and economic developments being building blocks for local economic and business development and its link to the global economy. In order to assess this interplay the participants were showed how to analyze a value chain. A value chain is a perfect tool to assess the upgrading possibilities in a chain and can as such provide input in creating value additions for the local economy and involved businesses. Various value chains were discussed and participants practiced on how to analyze a value chain.

During both courses the trainers assessed the complex interplay between public, private and civil society actors and simulated a multiple stakeholder process. During the course two working visits were organized: one to a highly professional farm and one to the Gulpener Beer Brewery (a leading company in CSR in the region). Ms. Christinne Mwangi from Kenya stated: “This has been a good experience and I have gained a lot of skills. The discussions were great and they have broaden my mind in solving different issues”.

Curious how to develop skills to analyze value chains and assess ways for sustainable business development?
We will run another CSR program from 26 November – 30 November 2018 and a Value Chain Analysis program from 3 December – 7 December 2018. Will we meet in Maastricht soon?

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