MBA Blog: Book smarts & Street smarts

Are your Business Skills weak? New April webinars announced for MBA Day Camp

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 16:39:00 GMT

In business, what you don't know can hurt you. Whether you are considering an MBA or just want to sharpen your business skills, MBA Day Camp can help you succeed. Raise your Business IQ with our new MBA Day Camp webinars starting April 8th.

Our instructors take the lessons from top business schools, weed out the unpractical stuff, and teach you the most relevant MBA concepts in Strategy, Marketing, Accounting, & Finance.

We are proven - over 95% of our customers would recommend us to a friend or peer

The New Face of Product Development - You!

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 18:23:00 GMT

The promise of crowdsourcing/collaborative design is filled with frothing-at-the-mouth hype juxtaposed against old world skepticism. Consider me squarely in the middle of this debate.

Consider that Nokia, Motorola, etc spent millions of dollars 'listening to their customers' yet were unable to come to the market first with a breakthrough device like the iphone (in an industry that is their 100% focus, no less). It was the design brilliance of an individual mind that won here (Steve Jobs).

However, consider Mountain Dew's remarkeable Dewmocracy campaign (http://www.dewmocracymediahub.com). Through this effort, Mountain Dew has incredibly outsourced almost the entire product launch process to its fan base, from concept to design to marketing tactics. Clearly this is a hom

Why jobless recovery? Too much corporate cash

Sun, 24 Jan 2010 19:51:00 GMT

As companies try to buttress their balance sheet, we are witnessing a healthy, but troublesome after effect: Too much cash on company balance sheets. Excluding utilities and financial institutions, members of the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index ended mid last year with a record $648bn in cash and short-term securities.

Companies are hoarding cash, even the non-financial ones, having gotten their handslapped by the credit markets but not (yet) facing redistribution pressure from shareholders in the form of dividends or buybacks.

I'm not in favor of government intervention in the markets, but instead of bank taxes and rhetoric against bonuses, why not give companies an incentive to get this cash off their balance sheets? Tax the cash! Give companies incentives to create jobs with this cash and push them back into the hiring mentality.&nb

Is Lou Dobbs right?

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 22:02:00 GMT

Most management academics will adamantly defend outsourcing - a company that can source activities elsewhere for cheaper/better should do so. Hence the rash of manufacturing, engineering, IT activities that have been sourced to cheaper labor pools overseas. This is great for the consumer & the company, but terrible for the middle class worker.

Consider this: an Executive recently told me that his manufacturing facility in the US at non-union rates is $15/hr, facility in Tijuana, MX is $4.50/hr, and facility in China is $1.50/hr. He will shift more and more of his work to the China location.

But where does this leave the community? Those jobs will not be replaced and there are no other jobs to be retrained too -- there is simply nothing for these people to do. There is a whole class of worker that thrived in the 80's that is becoming irrelevant now; it seems like we are on an inevitable march to

"Too big to fail" fund backed by private companies -- I like it

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 20:49:00 GMT

Treasury secretary Geithner endorses Barney Frank's recent proposal to have a fund to bailout 'too big to fail firms', funded by companies with over $10B in assets. This type of security net for your competitors is an astounding concept, one that would be ridiculed in other industries (would Budweiser shed any tears if Miller went out of business? would they provide any money to prop them up?!)

The beauty of this plan is that it might actually avoid the other Wall Street dirty word: regulation. Even with the market meltdown, Wall Street has been resolutely against the need for more regulation.

Well here's your solution. Instead of providing regulation, you create 'unemployment insurance

The Olympics - What it means in the way of jobs

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 22:46:00 GMT

There are several opinions out there on whether the Olympics are good/bad for the resident city. Whether you agree with the Games or not, it is important to see who emerges as winners.

IT - the Games take an enormous component (6,500+ PCs, 4000+ Printers in Chicago's bid book). In Sydney, 1.3M lines of software code were needed
Construction - $1B in venue construction in chicago's bid book
Raw Materials - 130 tonnes of steel in Sydney
Tourism - $7B incremental spend in tourism projected by Chicago
Employment - 315,000 man years of labor w/$11B in spend - Chicago 2016 study

All in, Chicago is projecting $22.5B in incremental benefit including. All these arguments are subject to debate - what is undeniable is that a HUGE AMOUNT OF SPEND will be occur

The mini MBA -- the end of the traditional MBA program as we know it?

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 20:37:00 GMT

As pointed out by Business Week (http://bit.ly/nbmWD), more and more professionals are turning to 'mini-MBA' offerings to advance their professional career [not unlike the one our firm offers!]. This poses an interesting question -- are business schools killing the goose that lays the golden egg by offering this type of program. At $2-$4K, these programs are substantially less than traditional MBA education ($100K). The question on the table: does this program represent service of an untapped market or cannibalization of their core product?

An opinion of one: I think this could cannibalize the traditional program -- if one can use these byte sized programs to land jobs, it could start a growing trend for short, focused training (<4 weeks) instead of the traditional, generalis

Jack Welch - Online MBA - Why this maybe different

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 17:51:00 GMT

Jack Welch recently announced that he would be launching an online MBA (http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/content/jun2009/bs20090622_962094.htm). He claims he will be heavily involved in curriculum development, even teaching, the managerial principles that made him one of the most revered executives of all time.

Yawn. For Jack Welch's online MBA to be truly novel, he will need to lean on his sizable corporate rolodex from a post graduate employment perspective. That is, he must convince corporate recruiters that a product of his online university, would be equally (or better) adept at solving problems than traditional schools. If Welch makes a few calls to GE and ex-GE execs ( Home Depot, Best Buy, etc), he could influence hiring from his online MBA graduates and this could become a revolutionary education format, one that would threaten traditional schools. If not, it will disappear into the muck of already crowded

Turnaround & Restructuring -- Get it while its hot

Sun, 21 Jun 2009 23:41:00 GMT

If looking to switch careers, look no further than turnaround & restructuring firms -- the practice is in torrid growth now with practically all companies suffering from recession doldrums and turning to structural actions. Consultancy Alix partners reportedly has 60+ staffers helping GM with their bankruptcy; Deloitte was under pressure from the Treasury department to fast track the Chrysler deal.

Advisory firms in this restructuring space (there are plenty) are getting their moment in the sun. If you are looking to jump to a growing space, emphasize the cost cutting or value realization points in your resume, and apply to these firms to ride the wave.

Aveek Guha, MBA Day Camp
Now on the iphone! -- http://itunes.com/apps/mba101

Deglobalization -- The Return to the Known

Mon, 25 May 2009 20:38:00 GMT

There will likely be a near term deglobalization that will occur due to this financial meltdown. Take JA Solar out of China: last summer, they bought $100M in bonds at the urging of their Lehman bankers. Now, they have written off the entire $100M, and its stock is down 66% since Lehman filed for bankruptcy. The consequence: they will now keep their financial investments and assets at home -- "For the near future, we are quite comfortable with Chinese banks, they are backed by the Chinese government", says their CFO, Anthea Chung. [business week, may 18th]

This trend of capital flight back to originating countries will only increase in the near term with firms still staggerring from their US losses. Couple this with the tight US consumer market and foreign geographies look even more pragmatic for investment in funds and talent.

Look to see