CASE STUDY
E ducation is one of the primary industries aected by the major changes currently taking place in society. As Thomas Frey of the DaVinci Institute points out: “By 2030, the world’s largest internet company will be an organisation in the field of education that we don’t even know yet.” In 2019, the board of trustees at the UPF Barcelona School of Management decided to start the transformation process. The methodology used followed the model proposed by Professor Behnam Tabrizi from Stanford University. The school is a private, non-profit foundation that oers master’s degrees and postgraduate programmes. It was founded in 1993 by Pompeu Fabra University, as well as by a number of other leading companies and institutions.
there were few full-time faculty members and no career development plans under the tenure-track scheme. This meant there was a need for greater commitment on the part of the teaching sta; with more than 2,000 lecturers, only a few were fully dedicated to the school. There was also a low level of diversity among teaching sta in terms of both gender and nationality. In addition, the research and knowledge transfer culture was considered poor, the school had no international accreditations, most courses were in need of innovation and the number of academic programmes was too high. To cap it o, revenues had declined in recent years and this was in fact one of the major reasons behind the decision to implement a transformation process. Kick-starting the process The initial stages of the transformation process took place in July 2019. As it was necessary to have strong teams and numerous meetings, some 18 rapid response teams (RRT) were formed. These were interdisciplinary teams, including people from several departments. Over the course of 90 days, each team worked on one of the key issues to be transformed based on the following areas: strategy, programmes, branding and marketing, student journey, administration sta, faculty, research and knowledge transfer, internationalisation, alumni and quality control. In theory, these teams usually comprise between three and seven people, integrating reluctant participants so they become drivers
At the start of 2019, the school could count on significant strengths. In terms of degrees awarded, UPF is a public university occupying a good place in the main international rankings. For instance, in the Times Higher Education ranking by discipline for 2022 in the field of business and economics, UPF was ranked first in Spain and 85th worldwide. Moreover, it is also an active member of the main international networks, has a solid financial track record and can count on good infrastructure in the heart of the Catalan capital. However, the school also had significant challenges and weaknesses. Firstly, its strategy was not aligned with the parent university and
Ambition APRIL 2023 | 27
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