Since 2015, Rode Kruis-Vlaanderen (Red Cross Flanders) has collaborated with Vlerick Business School to support its international capacity building programmes in Sub-Saharan Africa. Every year, a small group of Vlerick students is dispatched to one of the partner countries of Rode Kruis-Vlaanderen to work on a wide variety of different projects.
Despite the ongoing CoVID-19 crisis, this year was no exception. While the Vlerick team worked remotely, they were tasked with developing an evidence-based and contextualised Business Game to train the employees of various Commercial First Aid (CoFA) departments associated with the various African Red Cross Societies with whom Rode Kruis-Vlaanderen has a partnership. Our students happily explain how their In-Company Project came to life and how they brought it to a successful end…

Over the last two months 1351 executive programme participants, 264 masters students and 220 MBA students took the leap to learn online with us. We count our blessings for being surrounded with such a warm and supportive Vlerick community. So from all of us to all of you: THANK YOU! You rock!

The crisis calls for contemplation. Decisions that directors take now can help to make companies future-proof, with the added benefit of strongly embedding them in society. Professor Xavier Baeten argues that it would be courageous to take advantage of this crisis to rethink corporate remuneration policies. Not so we can still pay bonuses in spite of everything, but in order to bring them much more into line with the company's strategy.

Due to the current health crisis, our lives have become digitalized at an overwhelming speed. Despite of this new digital literacy, we have also developed new, potentially more demanding needs for satisfying digital connectivity. According to Professor Fredrik Hacklin, we may not necessarily experience a fatigue from the digital medium per se, but simply from the type of content. We seem to be on a transition of silently moving away from a one-to-many based social media, broadcasting easy-to-consume content, that is of mere informative intent and accessible to a large audience. Instead, we are embracing one-to-one or one-to-fewer interaction: direct connection, longer periods of engagement, deeper levels of insight.

Even a small but sudden change in consumer demand may lead to large demand variations upstream. This bullwhip effect is observed in today’s supply chains. The inventory dynamics downstream in the supply chain will determine how the recovery from the Covid-19 bullwhip will look like. At the same time, it is vital to keep an eye to our upstream supply companies, as they should remain resilient to the large swings in demand. If they collapse, it will create supply shortages and prevent us from fully taking advantage of the market recovery when demand picks up again.

“Just like De Tijd and L’Echo, Vlerick encourages entrepreneurs to remain inquisitive and, in a well-informed way, to take the lead and keep trying new things. So, it's not that we have to but that we want to do things together; we share the same ambitions. For us, these are the best partnerships”, says Isabel Albers, General Editor of the business newspapers De Tijd and L’Echo.

Vlerick’s Masters in Financial Management programme has improved its position in this year’s Financial Times Global Masters in Finance Ranking by 3 spots. We are now ranked at 23 worldwide, thus entering the global top 25. On a European level, we also rise 3 places going from 22 to 19. And in the Benelux, we maintain our number 1 position. Our CFA-accredited programme provides an excellent broad and in-depth corporate finance education, complemented with relevant managerial skills. Currently, the programme has 62 students representing 19 different nationalities.

Covid-19 has forced companies to accelerate their digitisation efforts. Further digitisation is necessary because it allows us to do things smarter, faster and cheaper, thus boosting our productivity. However, a recent CFO study shows that the productivity of most finance departments has decreased by 60% to 80% since the start of this pandemic. Covid-19 has been the first real test of how far finance departments have progressed in their digital transformation. So, we can learn a lot from successful digital CFOs. Professor Kristof Stouthuysen explains the road to digital success in 10 key steps.

Technologies are enhancing each other, processes are connected, the computing power is enormous and all this means that the previously unthinkable is now possible. ‘It’s leading to an explosion of interesting applications.’ But what should companies do with it? Professor of Operations & Supply Chain Management Ann Vereecke explains the possibilities offered by industry 4.0.

Making vaccine technology freely available to everyone sounds good. According to Professor Walter Van Dyck, patent prohibition however will slow down access to vaccine technology and, worse still, dry up innovation. To tackle the debilitating battle with the virus, you need a small number of global, capital-rich pharmaceutical companies at the heart of an ecosystem that builds on initial university research and has the scale to lead global distribution.