Digital Madrid for Change Energy members: La Liga, The Cube and new insights

Even in the season of business budgeting, managers find time for development. The third module of the “Change Energy” Executive Program on Digital Thinking took place on October 7-10 in Spain, on the IE Business School Campus.

The module was devoted to the study of the goal, key processes, problems of digital transformation, the potential of new technologies and the development of data literacy.

The pre-modular activities began with business visits to Spanish and international companies to delve deeper into business models as a basis for building companies capable of dealing with new opportunities and challenges posed by social, economic and technological transformations.

Participants visited La Liga company, the top professional men's football division of the Spanish Football League system and one of the most popular sports leagues in the world.

Pedro Pemartín González-Adalid, Strategic Partner and Academic Manager at LaLiga Business School immersed participants in the context of the company's digital business models and challenges they faced during a time of turbulent changes.

The next emotional business highlight was a visit to the innovative business incubator The Cube - an ecosystem designed to stimulate innovation and creativity of large corporations.

Fabiola Perez, CEO of the startup Metiora (an integrator of Internet of Things solutions) at The Cube, spoke about the experience of creating innovative solutions for corporations on a turnkey basis - a unique system “from idea to exit”, as well as resources, experience and necessary methodologies for generating ideas setting up and launching new businesses in collaboration with corporations.

After pre-modular activities, participants of Change Energy Program dived into the education.

Bernardo Crespo, Investor, Entrepreneur, and Startup Advisor for a variety of organizations and venture capital firms, and Academic Director of the Digital Transformation Executive Program at IE Business School, provided a comprehensive overview of digital competitiveness and digital literacy from a variety of contexts.

Salvador Aragon, Director of Innovation and Professor of Information Systems at IE Business School for over 20 years, who combines his teaching with research work on the theoretical concept of digital convergence and the development of new markets and services in the digital domain, spoke about new business models in digitalization and development information sciences.

After the completion of the module, key insights were shared by the leaders:

• Trust and honesty are key triggers for change, but don't forget about building the database.
• Key to success = Talented people + Radical honesty + Freedom (responsibility).
• The way to the heart of the consumer lies through the creation of the Eco-system.
• It is important to create databases, store them and cooperate with competitors.
• Hybridization and synthesis in the implementation of the digitalization process are gaining popularity for the development of data processing methods and the integration of artificial intelligence into this process.
• In developing people, use information and technology. Transforms, change the environment, take responsibility, and if it fails, start over.

After the third module, participants began working with mentors to create an individual roadmap for the phased implementation of changes in their individual projects.

The Executive Development Program «Change Energy» is a practical 5-modular program for managers to develop managerial and innovative potential to perceive changes as opportunities for realizing strategic business goals and developing a culture of business transformation. The result of training on the program will be the formation of a roadmap of changes.