BI receives international recognition

It is the renowned European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD), which recently organized the annual case competition "Excellence in Practice (EiP)". BI participated with two business cases in various categories, and secured second and fourth place in the well-established competition.

– BI competes with several of the most prestigious business schools in the world. The results confirm our position as an internationally oriented business school with close ties to business, Lise Hammergren, Division Director at BI Executive, said.

The competition is an arena to showcase best practice interaction between academia and industry or the public sector. Each year, EFMD's 900 members have the opportunity to submit contributions that are being considered by a jury consisting of 28 leaders from different sectors. The contributions are judged by which solutions demonstrate a strong business impact for the customer, good programme management and operational excellence.

– This year’s results show that the market for enterprise-based programmes is changing rapidly. We see that there are several consulting companies in the top end, some of them in collaboration with academia. The customer is increasingly seeking good interaction across participants to solve their challenges, create value and make change, Tom Lindtein, Business Development Director at BI, said.

Silver to BI's security master

BI's master's degree programme with specialization in security management and culture understanding, was awarded the Excellence in Practice SILVER Award in the category "Ecosystem Development" for the case of "The Story of How a Business School Became Involved in Working with National Security".

The task illustrates how the Army has gone about finding a solution to the system breach that was picked up in the national security apparatus after the attack on July 22.

The head of the Defence Research Centre, Per Audun Bech, draws attention to BI's research relevance as a strength in this work.

–The army emphasizes BI's ability to develop educational solutions that are research-based, up-to-date and practical, Bech said.

During the EFMD Executive Development Conference, hosted by Politecnico di Milano School of Management October 18th -20th, the EiP Awards Gold and Silver winners will present their cases and receive a prize for their outstanding collaboration.

BI excelled in several categories

In collaboration with BI, Nortura has developed and implemented the company programme "Development for increased competitiveness" over several years. The case is based on this collaboration and excelled with a fourth place in the Executive Development category, in the company of Babson Executive Education and Saïd Business School - University of Oxford.

Nortura’s tailor made programme has been based on real challenges to remain competitive in a constantly evolving market. The strategic partnership with BI resulted in a development initiative, the main purpose being to enable participants to operationalize and realize Nortura's corporate strategy. The case was excellent because of the added value the cooperation has resulted in.

According to Nortura, the investment of around 12 million over a 3-year period with BI has provided a proven value of over 300 million.

– Our close partnership with BI, focusing on building internal competence across the organization, is one of the better investments the company has made, " Arne Kristian Kolberg, CEO of Nortura, said.

About EFMD

EFMD represents one of the largest international networks in leadership development in the world, and is an important forum for information, research, networking and debate on best practices in executive education. In addition, it is a recognized accreditation body for quality and impact assessment in management, which manages the international quality accreditation called Equis. BI has had EQUIS accreditation since 1999, and was among the first to achieve this status.

BI's contribution to the competition:
Nortura & BI Norwegian Business School: “Staying Competitive in an Intensified Market”. Academic responsible for Nortura’s programme: Espen Skaldehaug, Jon Lerheim, Per Ingvar Olsen.

Norwegian Armed Forces Study Centre & BI Norwegian Business School: “The Story of how a Business School got involved in Working with National Security”. Academic responsible for the security master: Kjell Eliasen, Nick Sitter, Gillian Warner-Søderholm, Thorvald Hærem.