“Our excellent relationship with the Scandinavian business community makes it possible for us to do unique, exciting live cases,” says professor Örjan Sölvell, dean of the new full-time SSE MBA program. “For us, MBA Live is about graduating MBAs that understand business and leadership in the real world, not just in the classroom.”

The live case at Länsförsäkringar has been reported to senior executives and board members within the alliance. As a result of the MBA students’ reports on key challenges for the banking and insurance alliance, changes have been initiated in areas such as diversity, service bundling strategies, incentive systems and marketing channels.

“This has been a great experience for us,” says Länsförsäkringar AB CEO Tommy Persson. “The students are really bright and ask all the right questions. Their work is really useful for us, it pushes us to do new things and to reconsider aspects of our current strategies,” he continues.

The SSE MBA class has previously conducted similar work within Stora Enso, the Finnish-Swedish paper and pulp giant, and is now working with a cluster of Swedish biotech firms.

“MBA Live is about integrating the whole MBA curriculum and making sure that our graduates can use their knowledge to take action and resolve real challenges. But it’s also about making this program more relevant, meaningful and fun than any traditional MBA program,” says assistant professor Magnus Mähring with a smile.

“It’s thrilling to see that we are really contributing, especially when the companies take direct action on our recommendations,” says MBA student Christine Edman, hailing from Japan and the US and graduating from SSE in July.

“Such a huge amount of learning takes place in just one work meeting with an executive,” says fellow student Moritz Wendt from Germany, “and it is amazing how accessible they are.”

“I am impressed with the SSE MBA students. They bring a lot of enthusiasm, experience and insights to the table,” concludes Ingemar Åkeson, head of business intelligence, Länsförsäkringar AB.

Handelshögskolan i Stockholm

For further information, please contact:

Magnus Mähring, Stockholm School of Economics,
phone +46 (0)709 137 407

Ingemar Åkeson, Länsförsäkringar AB,
phone +46 (0)8 5884 2250

For SSE MBA application information for the program starting in August, please contact:

Gunnar Stenvall, Stockholm School of Economics, +46 (8) 736 9798, gunnar.stenvall@hhs.se

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The Stockholm School of Economics, founded in 1909, is one of Europe’s leading business schools. SSE offers MSc, MBA and PhD programs as well as executive education ranked by the Financial Times since 2000. SSE is a private institution financed by donations, corporate support and governmental grants. With a faculty of approximately 350 and 1,800 students, the school enjoys close cooperation with the business community and an extensive network of internationally recognized researchers and universities. SSE is accredited by EQUIS and is a member of Partnership in International Management (PIM) and the Community of European Management Schools (CEMS).

Länsförsäkringar, with 24 independent regional insurance companies and the jointly owned Länsförsäkringar AB, is Sweden’s only customer-owned and locally based banking and insurance group. Länsförsäkringar has Sweden’s most satisfied customers and is the most competitively priced bank with the most loyal customers according to the Swedish Quality Index. Länsförsäkringar is the “Life Assurance and Non-life Insurance Company of the Year” for the second consecutive year according to the Affärsvärlden business weekly and was named “Bank of the Year 2002” by the Privata Affärer business magazine. Länsförsäkringar offers a broad range of insurance and financial services for companies and private individuals. Länsförsäkringar is the market leader in the Swedish non-life insurance segment, with a market share of 32%. The market share in life and pension assurance is 10.9% and 2.9% in banking. Länsförsäkringar also includes Agria Djurförsäkring (animal insurance). Länsförsäkringar manages assets of SEK 140 billion.