During the ‘Future House of Rewards’ conference at the Brussels Vlerick campus, the large audience gained a lot of insights. After a presentation of the white paper ‘Future House of Rewards’, inspiring practical examples followed from Ontex and KBC. The highlight: an animated panel debate with a number of big players from the Belgian entrepreneurial landscape. We discussed the subject with Ivan De Witte and Xavier Baeten, Professor of Reward & Sustainability at Vlerick.

Podcast with Professor Xavier Baeten and Dirk De Backer, Secretary General of Ter Beke, on the renewed Foundation Partnership within the Centre for Excellence in Executive Remuneration.

In mid-March, Professor David Veredas together with our Global Community Partner AXA organised an Insurance Challenge. It is a business simulation game, enhanced with theory lectures and keynote presentations by AXA professionals. Within the space of one week, our Masters students in Financial Management had to set up their own insurance company. Along with AXA experts and David himself, they discovered the risks and balances of the insurance industry.

Put together the knowledge and experience of experts, academics and, especially, fellow entrepreneurs and your next ‘shot’ will be a whole lot better. Learning from each other, that is what the Impulse Centre “Growth Management for Medium Sized Enterprises” (iGMO) is all about. At the beginning of this year, Marc Cosaert, a Partner at EY, and Patrick Couttenier, Director of Corporate Banking at KBC, extended their iGMO Prime Foundation Partnership with Vlerick. They and Professor Hans Crijns explain why.

With the smart metering proof of concept and pilot phases completed, Eandis can take pride in the upcoming roll-out of an ambitious project that started way back in 2007. Heads-up with Jean-Pierre Hollevoet from Eandis, Professor Behzad Samii and researcher Olga Varganova.

Half of the organisations surveyed in the Rising Star Monitor, a report on the trends and challenges for young, high potential ventures in Belgium, intend to grow, but not always at very high speed. A second major finding refers to the fact that founders often forget to enter into a proper shareholder agreement, which is worrying as one in four founders leaves their company within the first three years. To support high-potential ventures in their path to rapid growth, attention should be paid to attracting potential employees in a more professional manner and providing existing employees with more feedback and a clearly defined career path.

On Thursday 1st March our Brussels campus welcomed 20 companies and around 80 MBA participants for the Meet the Corporates – MBA Talent event. A workshop led by Professor Ralf Wetzel paved the way for speeding up a true connection during the networking afterwards.

The wage pressure in Belgium, i.e. the salary tension between younger and older employees, is one of the highest in Europe. On average, 55-year-old employees earn 45% more than their 30-year-old colleagues doing the same job. Furthermore, we are living longer so our working lives are also longer. Consequently, a new wage structure is required, based on a mix of experience, performance and flexible rewards. That is what Professor Xavier Baeten, researcher Saïd Loyens (Vlerick Business School) and Bert De Greve (Hudson) propose in a white paper that offers a fresh perspective on the future house of rewards.

Piva eGov is a provincial internal independent agency, originally set up to provide operational ICT support to local authorities in East Flanders. “But if you want them to be able to take on the challenges of today, changes must primarily be made at the strategic ICT level,” says Dirk Goeminne, the agency's director. Together with Vlerick, piva eGov has developed a new customised service provision to help local authorities with their digital transformation.

On your marks, get set, go! In early February, for the second year running, Professor Steve Muylle organised a "digital sprint" course. Within the space of just one week Masters students, our partner Accenture, its client Vente-Exclusive.com and Steve himself worked together in a digital ecosystem. The opportunity to challenge one another and share knowledge and insight created substantial value for all the parties involved. Learning innovation, the Vlerick way.