Value in Motion: Pivot, Enhance, and Grow Your Offerings

In today’s fast-changing business landscape, staying competitive means knowing when to pivot and how to enhance your offerings. This interactive workshop equips professionals with practical tools to evaluate, refine, and innovate value propositions. Using the Value Proposition Canvas and innovation tactics, participants collaboratively analyze real offerings, uncover unmet customer needs, identify growth opportunities, and create actionable strategies to deliver greater value and impact.

What You Will Do:

• Clarify Your Current Value: Map a product or service against customer needs to pinpoint strengths and gaps.
• Discover Opportunities to Pivot or Enhance: Identify areas for improvement, innovation, or strategic shifts to stay ahead.
• Explore Innovation Tactics: Brainstorm ways to develop new features, services, or experiences that strengthen competitive advantage.
• Collaborate and Gain Insights: Work in groups to analyze a chosen offering, share perspectives, and receive actionable feedback.
• Test Your Strategies in a Simulation: Present refined or pivoted ideas and experience investor-style evaluation to sharpen your approach.

Benefits:

• Understand your current value proposition and identify what is working, and what is not.
• Discover why sales may be lagging and uncover opportunities to increase customer value and revenue.
• Learn how to enhance and promote your offerings more effectively.
• Gain a hands-on, proven framework to adapt and innovate strategically
• Leave with clear, actionable strategies you can apply immediately in your business or projects.
• Collaborate with peers and gain fresh perspectives you can put into practice right away.

If you are looking for a high-energy, hands-on experience that sharpens your ability to evaluate, refine, and strengthen offerings, this workshop is for you! Get ready to gain practical tools to assess value, identify gaps, and make strategic decisions that drive results.

Register now to gain actionable insights, collaborate with peers, and walk away ready to enhance value and thrive in a changing market.

Entrepreneurs and business owners will walk away with frameworks and assessment criteria to determine whether their solutions effectively address customer needs. These tools help identify potential pivot opportunities, refine offerings, and better align solutions with market demand, empowering participants to optimize their offerings for greater impact.

Professionals will gain a practical framework to tackle complex challenges with clarity and confidence. You’ll learn how to assess offerings, identify gaps, explore enhancement opportunities, and prioritize actions based on value and feasibility. These tools can be immediately applied to projects, initiatives, or team strategies, helping you make informed decisions, strengthen impact, and deliver results.

About the Presenter:

Led by Areen Shahbari, President of Cactus Int. LLC and expert in entrepreneurship, strategy, and innovation, this workshop draws on her extensive experience helping leaders and organizations pivot, enhance offerings, and drive growth. Areen has delivered transformative training at Harvard, Stanford, and to top organizations such as Salesforce, MediaTek, USAA, and the Saudi Industrial Development Fund. She brings a results-driven approach that equips participants with actionable strategies to strengthen value propositions and achieve tangible results. A Fulbright Scholar and recipient of the Harvard Distinguished Teaching Performance Award, Areen holds an MBA in Entrepreneurship and works globally to help leaders innovate and create impactful solutions.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Advance registration is preferred for all Ed Portal programs and events. Walk-in attendees may not be admitted.

Parking is limited around the Ed Portal so we recommend taking public transportation.

Public transportation options:

We are about a 15-20 minute walk from the Red Line Harvard Square station or Green Line -B Harvard Avenue station.

Several MBTA buses also stop near the intersection of North Harvard Street and Western Avenue: #66, #86, #70.

Parking information:

If you choose to drive to the Ed Portal please be prepared to utilize the two-hour on-street parking surrounding the Ed Portal or to park at Artesani Park and walk 10-12 minutes along Western Avenue to arrive at the Ed Portal. A limited number of parking spaces are available in the rear of the Ed Portal building on a first come, first serve basis. You may only use parking spaces in the rear of the Ed Portal building outlined in orange paint.

To help protect visitors and staff, members of the public are asked to stay home if they are unwell or have experienced signs of illness* in the past 24-hours.

If you require an accommodation for a disability, please call the Ed Portal ahead of time at 617-496-5022 or e-mail us at edportal@harvard.edu, and we will do our best to assist you.

* Signs of illness include: fever, chills or feeling feverish; a new cough (not related to chronic condition); new fatigue; muscle or body aches; sore throat; new nasal congestion or new runny nose (not related to seasonal allergies); nausea or vomiting; diarrhea.