Capstone Module Abroad MiF

• The overarching topic: “The Finance Industry - The Challenges Post Covid-19”
• The COVID-19 pandemic can be considered the second major shock to have hit the global economy in the first two decades of this century following the 2008–2009 Financial Crisis.
• Both of these crises affected the global economy and the financial system in different ways and confronted them with distinct challenges, with the COVID-19 crisis likely to be much more impactful.
• According to the OECD (2020) global GDP shrank by almost 5% in 2020 – and went up by roughly the same figure in 2021, creating however, various supply chain challenges, a wage pressure on inflation, and overall, a VUCA environment. In 2022, we need concerted action aligning interests of various stakeholders in the most favorable way.
• How will the financial markets and the decision makers cope with these challenges in the finance function post Covid?
• How can they make sure that their organizations weather the immediate shocks while preparing them to emerge from the crisis in the best possible shape?
• The immediate-term impact of COVID-19 is clear. Virtually every area of commerce, from global supply chains to financial markets, has been disrupted. Finance functions have been forced to rapidly evolve to keep up with the pace of change.
• Finance was already experiencing significant shifts towards digital transformation. The difference now is that it is no longer a choice.
• While business models are being adapted and rebuilt, the finance function finds itself in a unique position to be at the heart of change across an organization.
• CFOs that do lead digital transformation initiatives are able to demonstrate significant cost savings through efficiency gains. But deeper than that, finance transformation should allow finance leaders to take a lead role in enterprise value creation and performance management.
• Such questions are seldom studied in normal times. Organizational crisis that extends beyond the walls of the organization and into the public domain can have significant long-term negative impact on the reputation and viability of an enterprise (De Wolf & Mejri, 2013). As such, crises will have far-reaching consequences in the financial markets that should be studied from a variety of perspectives. Corporations, whether small or large, or young or old, are at the very heart of these two challenges, and both sound analysis and leadership skills will be needed to guide them out of the crisis.
• In the short period following the outbreak of the Covid-19 crisis, both practitioners and academicians have started to (re-)think about the optimality of company- and institutional-level responses to crisis situations (e.g., EY, 2021; Nohria, 2020; McKinsey, 2020a, 2020b, and 2020c) see also other references at the end of this document with an emphasis on the papers from the November 2020 issue of the Review of Corporate Finance Studies).

A reflection paper (~3 pages) that combines the insights from company visits with your own vision possibly supported by studies or reports in the same issue.