Strategic Growth, Sales & Performance

You analyze customer needs, buying motives and decision processes – and combine classic financial thinking with data-based methods. The goal: translate relevant information into concrete measures.

• Decode customer needs with Behavioural Insights
• Understand buying motives, decision patterns and psychological triggers
• Capture and interpret customer journeys systematically
• Understand the role and impact of AI in financial leadership
• Combine experience and expertise with data
• Redesign decision architectures for complex financial questions
• Translate customer and market information into concrete measures

Values, motives, behavior and potential determine segmentation. At the same time, data-based methods change how you weigh options and decide – quality, speed and consistency improve measurably.

• Assess target groups and market segments strategically
• Prioritize target groups by behavior, benefit sought and readiness to buy
• Focus resources on attractive target groups, channels and touchpoints
• Use Predictive Analytics and scenarios to spot developments earlier
• Apply simulations to risk, liquidity and investment decisions
• Separate relevant metrics from irrelevant – focus on what matters
• Turn market data into a sound basis for decisions

You connect brand identity, customer benefit and positioning – and examine what this means for prices, budgets and capital deployment. The focus: what a company stands for and what makes that position economically viable.

• Clarify brand identity and brand promise
• Work out customer benefit and customer value systematically
• Align customer value and pricing models with target groups, market logic and positioning
• Evaluate and validate strategic investment options with data
• Optimize cost, budget and value creation management
• Identify efficiency and productivity potential automatically
• Measure the impact of strategic initiatives with suitable KPIs

Classic and digital channels must not be managed in isolation. In parallel, new tools change routines, reporting and forecasting – you use them for analysis, planning and prioritization.

• Combine classic and digital sales channels sensibly
• Analyze, prioritize and consistently manage touchpoints along the customer journey
• Embed social media professionally in market development and sales
• Avoid breaks between channels, wasted reach and contradictory messages
• Prepare and sharpen reporting, forecasts and presentations with AI
• Use AI for budget planning, forecasting and stakeholder reporting
• Reduce information overload in reporting and controlling, sharpen focus

Communication becomes effective when messages, target groups and channels fit together – externally towards customers and markets, internally towards executive management, finance and supervisory bodies.

• Develop communication messages from brand, customer benefit and target group logic
• Align content, campaigns and personal sales communication
• Interlock marketing, sales and communication more effectively in the organization
• Use AI to present complex figures and issues clearly
• Present financial arguments and decision logic in a comprehensible way
• Prepare board presentations and investor conversations thoroughly
• Strengthen trust, credibility and relevance in communication

You analyze competitors, price pressure and new entrants – and read the same movements as market, interest rate and liquidity risk. Signals turn into differentiation, sales priorities and resilience.

• Analyze competitors, substitutions and new entrants
• Assess price pressure, differentiation and market movements
• Identify relevant market opportunities, niches and growth potential
• Open up international market, financing and investment opportunities systematically
• Analyze market, interest rate and liquidity risks with data
• Use early-warning systems and scenarios effectively in risk management
• Build resilience to price pressure, substitutes and capital shortages

Digital platforms, changing media use, FinTech and new analysis tools are changing the requirements. You learn to integrate innovation and transformation as levers in market and financial work.

• Rethink marketing and financial leadership in digital transformation
• Use digital platforms and new ecosystems as growth levers
• Seize the opportunities of FinTech, blockchain and automation
• Use agile methods, co-creation and design thinking where they add value
• Connect innovation processes with market, brand and financial strategy
• Integrate sustainability and purpose into brand management and financial decisions
• Shape change management successfully in marketing, sales and finance

AI changes analysis, content, personalization and performance management – and with it responsibility, liability and trust.

In the seminar, AI is not treated as a short-lived hype, but as a practical management instrument for better-founded decisions and legitimate accountability.

• Use AI for market, customer, financial and data analyses
• Support segmentation, personalization and content generation
• Use AI as a sparring partner for campaigns, positioning and customer approach
• Develop governance structures for the use of new technologies
• Clearly define responsibility, liability and roles in the use of AI
• Take data protection, compliance and regulatory requirements into account
• Assess and communicate the limits of AI realistically

You identify the biggest levers in your own area of responsibility and develop your personal playbook – for coherent market development and robust financial decisions.

• Reflect on your own market, customer and financial practice in a structured way
• Recognize strengths, gaps and untapped potential
• Identify the most important levers for positioning, channels, decisions and governance
• Bundle fragmented activities and align them for shared impact
• Set implementation priorities for the next 100 days
• Prepare the transfer into your organization, team and daily leadership
• Use the connection to further programmes and seminars of the StGallen imt Business School