Nova School of Business & Economics (Nova SBE) and ZEISS embarked on a joint journey to develop the optical sector. This journey translates into a partnership in which innovation, research, and education collaborate to transform and boost the optics sector.
The collaboration, entitled 'Future Visioning', thus represents a holistic program based on three fundamental pillars: performance, innovation, and impact - each with the intervention of different parts of the school.
In the field of innovation, ZEISS counts on the collaboration of the Nova SBE Innovation Ecosystem, which, by working with the school's community of national and international students, ZEISS employees, and other Nova SBE units, is helping the multinational to transform its services, offer and business models in the Portuguese market.
The three-year initiative also includes hackathons, ideation sprints, and other learning models and approaches based on actual market challenges (Project-Based Learning), thus allowing both students and other school stakeholders to intervene in the conception of possibilities that will later be explored and developed using the Nova SBE Innovation Ecosystem framework. The framework accompanies the maturing of ideas between the testing, validation, business model design, and financial and systemic impact phases.
Small and medium-sized enterprises play a fundamental role in the Portuguese economy as the driving force behind innovation, employment, and competitiveness. Committed to improving the Portuguese economy, Nova SBE has developed training and mentoring programs aimed at SMEs from all sectors of activity, including optics, through the 'Optics Management' program.
Thus, as part of the partnership with ZEISS, 'Future Visioning' also includes a training program of around 80 hours, distributed between 48 hours of face-to-face sessions and 32 hours of online learning and application of routines for its retail partners. The training combines theoretical knowledge with real-world applicability. After each face-to-face session, participants are challenged to acquire new tools and learn the management routines related to each module. These routines mainly aim to help them leverage growth in their companies.
With an eye on the future, this Nova SBE training program aims to train the managers of ZEISS partner opticians in six key themes: strategy and structure, finance and accounting, strategic agility and business models, talent management, communication, and building the skillset of the future.
Opticians' participation in this training and mentoring program will allow Nova SBE to develop a Case Study on the impact of this initiative on the productivity and performance of small and medium-sized companies in Portugal.