Breakfast Briefings

The Breakfast Briefings are a series of face to face events, which will launch The Open University Business Network. At the Business School we realise that trading conditions are challenging and these events aim to foster collaboration and create an opportunity to explore together the latest and best of business thinking. We understand business and want to help your business flourish by sharing our insights into leadership and management at this series of collaborative events. 

In between briefings why not visit the Business Network blog or join in on LinkedIn.

Programme

Tuesday 24 September 2013

Professor Thomas Lawton, The Open University Business School

Aligning for Advantage - Competitive Strategies for the Political and Social Arenas

Now in 2013, while we are still in recession, the public sector including the NHS has to become increasingly competitive and responsive to market conditions. Equally, the private sector is increasingly subject to “non-market” forces. “Non-market” strategy considers how managers anticipate, preempt and respond to actors, influences and actions emanating from the cultural, social, political and regulatory arenas.

In this fascinating breakfast briefing, Professor Thomas Lawton will argue that the most successful organisations, regardless of the sector in which they operate, will align market and non-market strategy to achieve and sustain competitive advantage.

Drawing on real-world cases, Thomas will further argue that “public engagement” as a successful business strategy is not new; and he will offer templates and approaches that have worked in the past to the leaders and managers in today’s audience.

If you would like to attend this event, please contact us by email.  

Past events

Thursday 27th June 2013

Professor Brian D Smith, Visiting Research Fellow

How to adapt to changing markets - lessons from evolutionary science

Why do some firms survive for generations and others have the lifetimes of a mayfly? Why and how do new business models evolve in response to the changing business environment? What do firms need to do to choose survival over extinction? These and other questions are answered by evolutionary science, which sees industries and their markets as complex adaptive systems, directly analogous to biological systems like the rain forest or your immune system. In this presentation, Professor Brian D Smith will describe how evolutionary science can be applied to industries, how it explains and predicts their evolution and how those predictions can be used to inform and guide business strategy.

Thursday 17th January 2013

Martin Bean, Vice-Chancellor of the Open University

With a background in technology, business and pedagogy, Martin Bean – vice-chancellor of the UK’s largest university – has a unique take on the issues facing higher education today. Join him for a discussion about the opportunities and challenges presented by technological leaps forward, the need for constant evolution and innovation, and how the OU is working with some of the UK’s biggest employers to deliver the skills needed to get the economy moving again.

Thursday 29th November 2012

Elizabeth Daniel, Professor in Information Management and Associate Dean for Research and Scholarship

Benefits Management: Realising benefits from your projects

Many organisations fail to achieve the benefits from their projects or programmes. In this briefing, Professor Liz Daniel will present tools and frameworks that can be used to identify, manage and measure benefits arising from projects to ensure the expected benefits are realised. She will illustrate the talk with examples of use of the tools in a range of organisations.You can watch or read more about this event in our benefits management section.

Thursday 13th September 2012

Stephen Potter, Professor of Transport Strategy

Dr Clive Savory, Senior Lecturer in Information Systems and Technology Management

Delivering Large-Scale Change

Is it possible to change a whole system? If you work in health, education or in transport, that’s just what you are asked to do. But all sectors, faced with major shifts in the global economy, are having to think about managing large scale change. Learn lessons from studies of those who have done it.Professor Stephen Potter will talk about transport systems and Dr Clive Savory will explore how successfully the NHS rolls out NHS-generated innovation.This event was held in partnership with the Thames Valley Health Innovation and Education Cluster (HIEC).You can watch or read more about this event in our innovation section.

Thursday 5th July 2012

Mark Fenton-O’Creevy, Professor of Organisational Behaviour

Money and Emotions

Formal economic theories of financial behaviour and prescriptive models of decision-making have little to say about the role of emotions. However, to even the most casual observer of economic life, markets are awash with emotions and emotions colour our daily decision-making. Mark will draw on findings from a three year study of traders’ and investors’ decision-making and on a large survey conducted with the BBC of consumers’ emotional relationships with money. He will consider not just the ways in which poor emotion management can lead to bad decisions for financiers, managers and members of the public but also look at the positive role emotions can play in effective decision-making. He will describe some of the learning approaches his team have been developing to support more effective decision-making through working more effectively with emotions.You can watch or read more about this event in our money and emotions section.

Wednesday 25th April 2012

Dr Fiona Ellis-Chadwick, Senior Lecturer in Retail Management

How to Manage in Digital Markets

Digital Marketing is changing the way we communicate. During the two last decades the Internet has changed from an environment only for hard-wired computer specialists into an accessible global trading and social arena for consumers of all ages. This talk will de-bunk early predictions made about how the Internet might re-shape business practices, explore online trading in the current economic climate and focus on practical considerations for managing in the digital future.You can watch or read more about this event in our digital marketing section.

Thursday 12th January 2012

Professor Brian D Smith, Visiting Research Fellow

Making it Happen: Why much of what we do ensures that our strategy won’t be implemented

Without implementation, strategy is just a fantasy, yet many, perhaps most strategic plans are not implemented as intended. Instead, interdepartmental in-fighting and self-serving managers mean that what happens on the ground is very different from what the firm’s leaders instructed. Worse still, much of our traditional management practices - payment by results, team building, and stretching targets – actually make this situation worse.In a challenging and thought provoking session, Brian will share research that illuminates why implementation so often fails and what steps we can take to improve the process. The session will include a self-diagnostic exercise so attendees will leave with a clear picture of how they might improve their own organisations.You can watch or read more about this event in our strategy section.

Thursday 13th October 2011

Dr Siv Vangen, Senior Lecturer in Management

Achieving Collaborative Advantage

At the launch event, Siv will pursue an overarching question of why inertia rather than advantage so often characterises collaboration in practice. She will introduce concepts and frameworks that can aid understanding about key challenges inherent in collaboration and, ways of managing these. This will include contrasting ‘common wisdom’ with ‘common practice’ and looking at key themes through a ‘paradoxical lens’ with a view to unravelling myths and surprises. Participants will be invited to respond with views and experiences from the context within which they work. The idea is thus to share knowledge and understanding about collaboration while drawing on Siv's research and the experiences of those attending the breakfast briefing.You can read more about inter-organisational collaboration in our collaboration section.