Globalization, technological innovation, regulatory restructuring, demographic shifts, and environmental pressures have all conspired to change the competitive landscape. One of the most pervasive changes over the last few years has been the transformation of industry boundaries. In the past, industry sectors were clear-cut. Firms could easily identify their competition, manage their supply base and organize their downstream access. This has given way to sets of business or ecosystems where firms collaborate and compete with the purpose of providing complex and all-encompassing value propositions.

Such changes have brought the need to really understand the customer – and the customer’s customer. Businesses are shedding their “B2B” mentality, transforming into “B2B2C”. The speed of competition makes firms revisit how they compete and what their value is.

Professor Jacobides will focus on how value is created and captured in this shifting landscape and propose a set of concrete strategy tools to help organisations win in today’s hyper-competitive world.

 

MICHAEL JACOBIDES

Associate Professor of Strategy, London Business School

Jacobides works and researches industry evolution, new business models, value migration and structural change in firms and sectors. His work has appeared in top academic journals such as SMJ, AMJ, AMR, OrgSci, ResPol, and ICC, where he is the Co-Editor. He also publishes in HBR, FT and Forbes.com, has been interviewed by the FT, BBC, and appears regularly on CNN.

A frequent speaker at corporate events, Jacobides works on strategy and leadership development, with organisations such as Telenor, Vodafone, Nokia, McKinsey, Accenture, PwC, KPMG, Santander, Credit Suisse, Airbus, Lufthansa, Zurich, MerckSerono and the NHS. He has also worked on various policies with the UK parliament (on the future of financial services) and the European Council (with the high-level group on innovation in Europe), and has spearheaded the Redesign Greece initiative.

Jacobides has served on the Global Agenda Council of the World Economic Forum, and has presented talks at the Davos Annual meetings.