Italy Responds to Holistic Enterprise Thinking

What did MIT Professional Education bring to Italy with the two professional programs in January? In the two-day programs in Milan and Rome on “Architecting the Future Enterprise,” the MIT faculty leaders delivered new lean tools to understand complex organizations and a framework to envision their futures. The audiences, close to 100 business executives and industry leaders, were delighted to learn concrete ways to lead their organizations in new directions. This offering was unique for Italy.

“In our partnership with MIT Professional Education, we realized that there are two main reasons that make an MIT course a unique experience for Italian managers,” says Danilo Simoni, director of excellence programs for Asset Management, the company that handled course logistics.

“First, there is the mystique that surrounds MIT as the temple of knowledge and the cathedral of innovation. Participating in an MIT event means that you can breathe that mystique and be part of it,” says the Italian event organizer.

“The second reason, which I think is peculiar to southern Europe, is the systematic and pragmatic approach that MIT faculty are able to provide to attendees. Our leaders and managers are incredibly smart and fast thinkers in terms of strategy and understanding, what they probably lack are discipline and execution. The MIT approach provides us a systematic and disciplined approach to executing innovative and creative ideas.”

The program leaders, Deborah Nightingale and Donna Rhodes, delivered key elements of the short program they offer on campus each summer but adapted it for their audience. Industry and organizational leaders in Italy face challenges from a changing regulatory environment and the unsteady euro-zone economy as well as the usual competitive business pressures.

Nightingale and Rhodes helped the participants— chief strategy officers, human resources managers, chief engineers, and sales managers, for example— examine eight elements that must interact smoothly in a high-functioning enterprise: strategy, infrastructure, processes, products, services, knowledge, information, and organization. Through case studies, they helped participants re-imagine their own organizations in a comprehensive way.

“We teach a holistic approach to guide enterprise leaders in understanding their ‘as-is’ enterprise, generating and evaluating alternative concepts, and selecting a ‘to-be’ architecture concept,” they say.

One participant, Ericsson Telecomunicazioni SPA human resources manager Ugo Marrone, appreciated the concrete approach that allowed participants to design a realistic “future proof” model that considered their company’s internal and external elements, social context, and market perspective.

“It’s clear that the methodology proposed is based on the result of a large number of study cases,” says Marrone. “The summing up for managers is an organic and global view of these experiences. It opens your eyes on strategy, positioning, economics, people, communication.”

MIT Professional Education continues to extend MIT’s education resources globally with programs in Mexico and Chile in 2011 and seven international programs in the pipeline for 2012.