One of the highlights at the Open Training is a training from Michael Hitt. Michael A. Hitt is a Distinguished Professor and holds the Joe B. Foster Chair in Business Leadership at Texas A&M University. He has more than 260 publications including 26 co-authored or co-edited books. He has been recognized as one of the ten most cited scholars in management over a 25-year period in an article published in the 2008 volume of the Journal of Management. See this news item for more info.

Entrepreneurial Strategies: Building and Maintaining a Competitive Advantage
Michael A. Hitt
Texas A&M University 

New Ventures that enter a market with a valuable new product or service have the advantages of a first mover. However, if the product/service is successful in the market, new competitors will rapidly enter imitating the distinctive product characteristics. In this case as well as a situation in which a new venture enters an established market, the entrepreneur must develop an effective competitive strategy and take additional actions to implement it in a way as to build a competitive advantage and maintain it. In this session, we will discuss competitive strategies for new venture firms and ways of developing sustainable competitive advantages.  Case examples will be used to illustrate key points.