Today was our second Strategy class with Canadian professor James Henderson. He’s a bit goofy, using accents and emphatic gestures in class, but he is already impressing me with how little I apparently know about strategy–which is ostensibly one of my strong suits! Jim led the case discussion of my IMD application interview (Part of everyone’s application is a case preparation and discussion with other interviewees moderated by an IMD professor.) and the insights to which he led us constituted a major reason I decided to come to IMD. I found myself thinking and approaching problems in new ways; I realized that I had quite a bit to learn and, as much as I learned during my IMD interview day, I knew this was the place for me to learn it.
Today’s case discussion was built around the French wine industry and what strategy it should take–as an entire industry–to fend off competition from the New World, especially Australia. Sometimes doing homework is a real pleasure; I’ve been preparing this case for at least 10 years!!!