Building the Ecosystem — Launch IMD-Barcelona's Flagship Programme

A four-round, advanced higher-education strategy simulation set inside Institut Mediterrani de Direcció (IMD-Barcelona), a private, triple-crown-aspiring business school on Avinguda Diagonal (1,900 students, €34M revenue, €2.72M operating surplus). The board has just mandated a flagship, ecosystem-built programme within one budget cycle, ring-fencing only €4,500,000 against ~€7,200,000 of competing demands. Specialised-master applications are down 11% (2,250→2,000), yield has slipped from 41% to 36%, 62% of revenue depends on degree masters, and a venture-backed micro-credential disruptor, SkillForge, has signed 14,000 mid-career learners in 18 months at one-fifth of the school's price — and is courting two of the school's largest corporate clients. Playing the Dean, you (1) DIAGNOSE the innovation ecosystem through Jordi Díaz's lens — classifying employers, alumni, public bodies, technology partners and the disruptor as asset, gap or threat — and choose the single learner segment the flagship will serve; (2) DESIGN the programme and pick a public-private partnership archetype (co-designed corporate academy, EdTech white-label platform, public-funding consortium, or build-alone), set price against SkillForge, and allocate the €4.5M across content reskilling, technology, faculty and marketing while keeping a contingency; (3) RESKILL faculty under a mid-launch shock (22 of 95 resisting, the EdTech partner demanding curriculum control, an anchor employer asking for exclusivity), protecting the degree core without letting it veto the future; and (4) LAUNCH, commit to an innovation scorecard, present a three-year sustainability path to the foundation chair and state what the school stops doing to fund the future. The scoring rewards Christensen-correct disruption response — a separate, focused, ecosystem-built engine with durable partnerships and a reinvestment logic — and punishes the five classic errors: polishing the legacy core, white-labelling for speed and surrendering brand plus 30–40% of revenue, spending the entire seed with no Year-2 bridge, ignoring reskilling, and refusing to choose a segment. Final KPIs track a Relevance Index, Ecosystem Strength, Sustainability, projected Year-1 enrolment, and budget committed against the €4.5M cap.