DCU Executive MBA Strategic Consultancy Project – Towards Value Innovation: Introducing a ‘Remote First’ Initiative

DCU Executive MBA Strategic Consultancy Project – Towards Value Innovation: Introducing a ‘Remote First’ Initiative

The Strategic Consultancy Project is an educational collaboration between industry enterprises and DCU Business School.  Working in research consulting teams, our Executive MBAs are placed in highly complex, fragmented, and ambiguous business environments to deliver value adding projects to participating client organisations.  Strategic projects have engaged with clients across a wide breath of industries within multinational, indigenous, semi-state, public sector, and not for profit organisations.  Participating client organisations benefit from a team of experienced MBA executive leaders, who bring their considerable managerial knowledge and skills to explore real-world challenges.  The strategic projects benefit from joint mentoring between enterprise and academia, concluding with a presentation, attended by the client strategic leadership team and DCU Business School.

One such client project this year will focus on creating value innovating opportunities with the introduction of a Remote First initiative.  From the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the client adopted large-scale changes to their work practices. They shifted to remote working for all employees on a permanent basis, joining hundreds of millions of workers globally.  Prior to this change, the clients in-office culture was dynamic and innovative.  The Remote First initiative seeks to build on this culture, fostering a value creating virtual landscape that each employee and team can experience regardless of location.  Promoting and leveraging management teams and individuals’ strengths and competencies in the organisation within this new environment has been identified by the client as key to the successful delivery of its strategic objectives, a more dynamic and innovative culture, happier customers, and an engaged workforce.

The research consulting team will explore challenges associated with such a cultural transformation.  Of particular interest, are exploring the requisite digital capabilities associated with a ‘remote first’ culture, which can leverage competitive advantage, alter business model approaches, and create value innovation opportunities.  Throughout the project, an action research methodology is adopted that supports continuous engagement and learning by all stakeholders.  This strategic project is offering the MBA team an opportunity to explore a topical transformational initiative within a post-pandemic environment while equally supporting the client to gain valuable insights during its transition phase to a ‘remote first’ culture.

Interested in finding out more about the DCU Executive Part-Time MBA programme – https://business.dcu.ie/course/executive-mba/