Chicago Booth CSMG

Technology Strategy Week 4: The Matrix

2010-02-19T19:51:00.008-06:00

A few jobs ago, my company was organized as cross-functional matrix, where teams were organized around functional areas and projects were accomplished with a manager overseeing resources from the various functions. I was that manager - tasked with wrangling scores of resources without actually having any authority over those resources beyond the project. Resources were stretched over several projects, and communication and accountability were poor. Sounds like fun, right? It actually was a great learning experience that taught me valuable lessons in people management and issue resolution, and raised my profile in the company. I learned in class this week that I was a "lightweight manager".

Sounds kinda...well...lightweight. But it was the right manager for the work, which was mainly integrating applications and business processes, and improving operational efficiency. It was also right for the company and industry: mature, with well-defined processes and structure. A cross-functional matrix with initiatives led by junior managers was just right.

Not so for an innovation company.

An innovation company is faced with different challenges. Technology may be changing rapidly or competition may be getting fierce. New and better products must be developed and commercialized quickly. An companies must carefully consider how to organize to maximize their innovative capacity.

One option is to utilize heavyweight teams. Such teams are designed to focus resources with different skills around a single goal, with managers that have direct control over those resources. Generally, these teams are tasked with rapid development of a high-priority initiative for the company. Heavyweight teams are given leeway to pull resources away from functional areas, and receive backing from senior management. Under this kind of team, innovation can be rapid, since issues around communication and prioritization are all but eliminated.

Another option is the autonomous team, which I like to call the ninja teams. These teams are much more independent that heavyweight teams, and are often isolated physically and organizationally from the rest of the company. Rules don't apply to these teams, who are tasked with a single focus: innovation. The result can be even more rapid and effective than heavyweight teams.

There are, of course, challenges with each type of team. Choosing which team to use and for what kind of work is essential for technical companies in varying stages of maturity, competition, and capability. Companies can begin by evaluating the tradeoffs between innovation vs. quality, and rapid delivery vs. cost. Then, companies must ensure that the organizational structure is supported by leadership and incentives.

Ninjas and the matrix. Who knew organizing for innovation could be so cool?

Five Questions for Alanna Lazarowich

2010-02-13T22:12:00.002-06:00

By Deepa Jaishankar

Alanna Lazarowich is a Senior Project Director in the Business Development and Strategic Planning Department at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. She completed her MBA in 1999, graduating from the Evening MBA program. Over a remarkable career spanning stints in the Federal sector, management consulting and Healthcare space, Alanna can boast of having accumulated a rich diversity of experiences. She currently lives in the city of Chicago with her family that includes her husband and her two year old and actively pursues her hobbies that include running and triathlons.

We asked Alanna 5 questions to get some insights on her career in consulting/strategic planning and her experience at Booth.

1. What was the “road to Northwestern Memorial Hospital”? Please provide us a brief history of your professional journey.

After working as a federal employee for 9 years, I decided to go to business school to enhance this career path. However, I decided not to return to the government and pursued a career in strategic management consulting. This I did for 8 years, working first at A T Kearney and then at Deloitte. During this time I worked across a variety of industries on topics ranging from new service line development, strategic alliance development to general marketing and growth strategies. However, after years of working towards a ‘bottom line’, I found myself wanting to return to a career with more of a ‘purpose’. At that time, I considered non-profit work as well as the health care industry. In my current role, I’m involved in long term financial and growth strategies that help Northwestern Medicine (a partnership between Northwestern Healthcare and Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine) to achieve our long term goal of being a top 10 Academic Medical Center by 2020.

2. What drew you to strategy consulting? What were some of the elements of the job that you liked most? What were some of the personal/professional challenges with this lifestyle?

I was drawn to strategy consulting because of a natural interest and skill at being able to appreciate the larger vision in addition to the details. I enjoyed the diversity of experience both from the project work as well as the clients and new destinations. I left consulting with some incredible analytical and conceptual tools which have served me well in my other professional endeavors. My reasons for leaving were primarily lifestyle. I hated not being able to celebrate a family/friend’s birthday with them on a Monday-Thursday among other things you miss out on when on the road. While the time was professionally rewarding and certainly well spent, it was personally challenging and life is too short!

3. Describe a typical day in your current capacity. What are the key parallels you draw to consulting and what are some of the key differences?

In my current capacity, I typically manage anywhere from 1-3 major projects at a time. My current focus has been on doing planning for the Northwestern University Fienberg School of Medicine which is fascinating as I am involved in analyzing and planning to advance medical science and knowledge. The style of work is very similar to consulting. The majority of my colleagues bring consulting experiences with them, so we approach planning in much the same way as we did in consulting. The big difference is timing. There is a huge need for consensus and things take a great deal longer to receive buy-in than they did when the client was paying large consulting fees. The upside however, is that the implementation tends to run smoother and it is nice to bump into physician leaders who you have helped on prior projects and hear the progress and/or impact that your work had.

4. What do you believe are the top three challenges facing Healthcare providers in the current environment?

There are several internal and external drivers that generate both challenges and opportunities for the stakeholders in the three major subsectors of the Healthcare industry - providers, plans, life sciences companies. If I were to identify the top three challenges facing the provider network, I would prioritize them as follows.
* Increasingly diminishing margins from Medicare payments: Margins have gone down dramatically over the last several years and what many outside of healthcare do not realize is that Medicare operates at a loss to most hospitals. As such, those margins must be made up by other payor groups which creates an artificially skewed pricing structure. This will continue to be a challenge as 'healthcare reform' continues to consider even more cuts to Medicare reimbursement (and likely results in higher prices in other areas). Additionally, as the baby boomer generation continues to age and retire, there will be a larger portion of the general population using Medicare, further increasing the impact of this situation.
* Reform driving need for more integrated care: For those interested in this topic, I highly recommend Porter's book "Redefining Healthcare" (yes, the Porter of Five Forces). His thoughts on reforming healthcare to focus on the 'value' to the customer is incredibly insightful. There are movements in this direction such that patient treatments would be more integrated vs. having patients passed from doctor to doctor, inpatient to outpatient, etc. with a lack of real coordination.
* Service Line Orientation: At least at Academic Medical Centers, there is a movement to better integrate the clinical and research sides of the equation. An ongoing discussion will include how to best optimize clinical service lines that best serve patient needs in addition to generating revenue that can be fed back into the research engine.

5. How did the Booth experience shape your success and what are the must-have experiences/courses you would advise getting out of our time at Booth?

My ‘GSB’ (as we called it then!) experience was vital in helping draw out what my interests and natural skills are and then helping to refine them. Classes that stand out for me in terms of most relevant, ‘value added’ and or most memorable include: Prof. Middleton’s class on New Product Development (I’d say a real MUST HAVE for strategists), Prof. Davis’s and Prof Schrager’s Strategy Classes, Prof Dhar’s Marketing class. While not as relevant to the strategic side of consulting, I think that any student who misses out taking a class with Prof Murphy is really missing a fantastic learning opportunity. Also, the alumni network is fantastic and has served me well since graduation. Finally, the Alumni and Career Development Office, especially Anita Brick, have been fantastic help with career transitions.

Technology Strategy Week 3: Plan or Juggle?

2010-02-08T16:51:00.008-06:00

I've been a project manager in technology for many years which is to say, I've been a juggler for many years. More often than not in my career, I've had to contend with too many simultaneous projects with too few resources to get it done on time, within budget, or without flaws. Sounds familiar, right?

This is a typical problem that most R&D organizations face. Firms take on too many projects for reasons that range from "my customer demands it" to "my boss wants it". As a result, people must split their time among many projects and deal with competing demands, all the while adding less value with more effort. Continous requests for new projects to meet demands leaves firms trying to do too much, and ending up doing too little.

So what to do? This week we explored a solution: portfolio planning.

Portfolio planning in the product development world is essentially the process of selecting the right projects and the right people to get them done. To summarize the process outlined in our discussion:

1. Get yourself a strategy. A distinct strategy such as "we are cultivating this competitive advantage" or "we are growing in these functional areas" will determine which projects support the strategy, and make the cut. This also helps determine the boundaries of the portfolio, such as the budget and resources.
2. Categorize your projects. Understanding if projects are product support, breakthrough technology, or core technology development begins the process of allocation.
3. Allocate, allocate, allocate. Determine which categories will receive attention (because they support the strategy) and which can be prioritized lower and then determine the allocation of budget/resources to each category. This process sets boundaries around the continous introduction of new projects and continous change to existing projects.
4. Commit. It sounds simple but this step is a key point of failure. Senior management must commit to the allocation throughout the execution of the portfolio plan, since the plan will be challenged frequently. The allocations previously created will be the guideline for project selection going forward.
5. Check and re-check. Executing the product portfolio plan requires continuous balancing as new information becomes available. However, this steps means re-allocation and not expansion of the portfolio.

The process sounds simple enough but in reality, can be very challenging. Without it, firms risk overcommitment and poor performance. But to be successful, firms must be committed to the plan and be flexible enough to see it through.

Week 3 included a case discussion of Le Petit, an organization that struggled with project selection, and a good debate between the class acting as the board of the company and a group acting as the management. Le Petit unsuccessfully used NPV for project selection, and would have benefitted from some portfolio planning. Could it be that NPV analysis is not the end all/be all answer?!

I've gotten good at juggling but with the learnings from this week, hopefully I won't have to in the future.

Leonard's Journal - Look Forward, Reason Backward?

2010-02-06T14:13:00.008-06:00

For our strategy class, we are reading "The Art of Strategy" by Dixit and Nalebuff. They explain the concept of looking forward and reasoning backward. Simply put, when playing a game, player A should figure out what player B's response will be and devise a strategy that will enhance his move.

A simple framework to use is as follows:

1) Familiarize yourself with the boundaries of the game.
2) Identify your opponent's goal.
3) Is all available information present?

If yes, work backwards and solve the game. (The book describes a game played on the tv show Survivor that involved 21 flags. For details, check out the book.)

If all information is not available, analyze your opponents capabilities and tendencies.

4) Finally, aggregate all of your information and devise several models and strategies to deploy during the game.

What I find the most difficult yet fascinating is the topic of information gathering on your opponents. In sports, film and statistical data are used to measure tendencies. In poker, players look for "tells" and measure their opponent's responses to certain situations. What have you used to measure your opponents?

Leonard's Journal: First mover?

2010-01-30T14:11:00.005-06:00

A colleague and I were discussing a case late Tuesday night and the topic of first mover advantage (FMA) came up. Without going into too much detail, company X was a market leader in their respective industry for many years, but the company now faced the possibility of an emerging technology disrupting their core market/business. The company felt that the best counter to the disruptive technology was to deploy a FMA strategy by investing heavily into R&D and bringing their product to the market first.

The allure of gaining an insurmountable market share and control of critical resources that cannot be matched by your competitors can influence a company to deploy FMA. With a bit of luck, first-movers can be rewarded with enormous profit margins and a monopoly like status.

Without knowing the outcome of this company's strategy, would you have advised them to be a first mover? What are their options?

Soniya's Journal: Technology Strategy Week 2: iPhone Killer?

2010-01-21T20:40:00.006-06:00

Every time my iPhone drops a call or an application freezes on it, I think of how I would improve the product. (Sadly, I do this a lot). How would you go about designing the next iPhone or the iPhone killer?

Our class had several ideas on how to start: You could review all the customers likes/dislikes, try to identify a new market segment, increase performance or make more apps, and study what your competitors are doing. Clearly, to design the next iPhone, you need both market knowledge and technical knowledge. But, analyses often fail to incorporate both market and technology dynamics in recognizing opportunities.

Some of this may have to do with the way an organization's absorptive capacity. Uh...its what now? Basically a firm's ability to assimilate and process knowledge to develop new technologies. Understanding the kind of knowledge needed and your ability to learn and use it is essential to innovation.

If only it were that simple!

Understanding where a technology is on the S-curve is also essential for managers making technical strategic decisions. I could probably blog your ear off trying to explain S-curves but suffice it to say it measures performance output as a factor of effort input for a given technology, and can be a useful tool for managers to determine their investments. Is the technology new enough that we need invest in training the users? Will investing in innovation result in measurable performance increases? Will there be a game-changing shift in the future of this technology?

Week 2's case discussion of Lexar Media and discussion of the automobile industry solidified the usefulness of S-curve analysis in strategic planning. As with any good discussion, it led to many more questions and much introspection. See if you can figure out where your industry is on the S-curve. I bet your CIO would find it interesting...

Soniya's Journal: Technology Strategy Week 1: eBooks for eVeryone

2010-01-21T19:13:00.005-06:00

Hello all! I'm excited to blog about my experience in Technology Strategy this Winter quarter. My career has been in IT project management, mostly for the banking industry, and I'm looking forward to gaining a new perspective on technology strategy from this class. After everyone in my section introduced themselves, I'm quite sure that I will gain that perspective from my classmates! You would think it would be a bunch of tech nerds (like me) but we have students from all walks - even a few from the MD/MBA program! Many of us were attracted to the variety of cases - from health care to video games. Personally, I'm very interested in organizational strategy and am looking forward to the weeks where we discuss building technical capability into a firm and the best way to leverage technical teams.

So, on to Week 1. Do you have an eReader? Maybe a Kindle or a Nook or a Sony Reader? Seems like everyone is coming out with a personal device to read electronic books. Even Samsung is joining the game with it's upcoming Papyrus product.

We discussed what we think Amazon should do with their Kindle product to compete with all the new entrants. They could expand the functionality of the device beyond reading ebooks, add a "touch/feel" aspect to their advertising via brick & mortar retailers, or add in features from their website such as customer reviews and "you might also like" suggestions. My opinion is that the technology itself shouldn't change much since I have noticed that users like a device that most resembles a book (black and white, book-sized, "page" turns, etc.), but there are ways to differentiate in marketing and distribution.

All of these examples answer the Two Essential Questions of Technical Strategy:

1) How will we create value?

2) How will we capture value?

Over the next several weeks, we will explore these two questions along with ways to make organizations more innovative and frameworks to make better technical strategy decisions.

Week 1 wrapped up with a discussion of innovation and Kodak and its strategy for digital imaging in the early 2000's. Innovation can take different forms. It can be a series of small changes (incremental), a major change (radical), or a change to the way the technology is built (architectural). The key takeaway from the discussion was that each type of innovation requires different managerial and organizational skills. Inertia can prevent radical change, and a change in leadership may not be enough to kickstart innovation.

Week 1 definitely got me hooked on this course and I'm looking forward to expanding on the ideas we learned in the first session.

Leonard's Journal

2010-01-06T14:34:00.002-06:00

Hello World! (Isn't this the default web greeting?)

As far back as I can remember, strategy always sounded cool. Whether it was drawing up plays for our neighborhood football game or scheming to trade Park Place for St. James' Place, I've always enjoyed coming up with a plan and tweaking it.

This winter quarter I'll begin my first strategy class (Competitive Strategy). I hope to understand the intuition behind my strategies and to explore new methodologies to add to my arsenal. I'm starting this journal/journey to gather my thoughts.

Feel free to leave comments and suggestions.

John's Journal: Week 10, Finals, and Quarter Done

2009-12-13T20:24:00.005-06:00

One of my favorite moments about every last class of the quarter at Chicago Booth is when the professor asks if anybody in the class is graduating. Inevitably, there are at least 1 or 2, and to see their smile and their glow as they get ready to take the world by the throat always encourages me.

I apologize for not blogging week 10, but I thought I would just wrap it into finals week.

42002: Business Policy. On week 10 we wrapped up the course. We had a final paper due which was a 12-15 page strategic look at ourselves. This was a very challenging but rewarding task. In the end I was fairly happy with the result.

Overall, this is a somewhat unusual Chicago Booth class. It is really hard to define - but it was more of a philosophical look at strategy, rather than the pure nuts and bolts and economics of it. Among the themes of the class I would add:

- We should see life and business as a journey, and count on a certain amount of serendipity along the way. Of course, serendipity doesn't just happen - you have to put yourself into a position where it can happen.

- An idea is not bad solely because it is not widely accepted.

- Metaphor and story are an important part of defining a firm's culture.

- The class touched on Epistemology: asking questions like - how do we know what we know?

- Borrowing from Warren Buffett: it is important to know your circle of competence. It doesn't matter how larger or small this circle is, it is more important to know where that boundary is.

Overall, this was a fascinating class. This is one that I will think about for the rest of my life.

42001: Competitive Strategy. The last class focused once again on the video game industry. This time it was the current battle between Playstation, Xbox, and the Wii.

One of the more interesting things about this case was to see Xbox's entry into this market. When Microsoft first planned the launch, they went in with a strategy of charging no royalties for software developers to make games for their system, whereas the others generally charge $10-15 per game. This "zero royalty" strategy (which sounded good to me) was a flop - game developers ended up asking Microsoft to charge them royalties. Very interesting - and a bit counter-intiuitive, but the basic reason comes down to increasing the barriers to entry for game-maker's lesser rivals.

On Saturday we had our final in 42001. We were given 3 articles to read, and were asked 1-2 questions on each article. The articles were about Zip Car (score for me!), Boeing (focusing on a vertical integration problem with the Dreamliner), and finally about Motorola's choice to use the open Android Operating system - verses buying a closed OS. The test was not too bad - it's just difficult to write for 2 and a half hours.

Afterward my brain was full of mush, but I went home happy.

I enjoyed my competitive strategy class very much - and I can honestly say I learned a lot of tools I will utilize as my career progresses. But in the big picture, the thing I fully I understand now is that firms have two main levers to pull: their costs and the value the bring to their customers. Many strategic questions come down to how to push or pull one or both of these levers.

It's been a fantastic quarter.

CSMG hopes to keep this journal series alive next quarter. Stay tuned!

John

John's Journal Week 9: The Magical Mystery Tour

2009-11-22T07:27:00.007-06:00

What a day yesterday! The Loop was abuzz with The Magnificent Mile Lights Festival. Of course, a busy Saturday at Chicago Booth doesn't lend itself to a lot of partying with Mickey Mouse, but it was fun nevertheless. I knew it was going to be a good day when walking to the Gleacher Center I noticed the Loop was filled with the smell of chocolate from the Bloomer Chocolate factory - a fine example of a positive externality.

Anyway, in 42001 (Competitive Strategy), as if I needed another reason to love The Beatles, this week's main case on EMI showed how "the Fab Four" invented the CT Scanner and saved thousands of lives.

Of course, that is over-stating it (by a lot), but EMI made a ton of money off the Beatles, and used that money to fund research in their anemic electronics division to invent the CT Scanner, which allowed 3-d images of the brain.

The discussion of the case focused on EMI's entrance into the medical devices market, the strategic decisions they made and the mistakes they made which lead to a rapid rise and decline in that business.

Professor Knez gave us three main take-aways from this case:

1. If you are entering a new market, you need to over invest in talent. You have to have people with the know-how and industry experience to compete.

EMI basically did not know what they were doing. They decided to enter the American Medical Devices market with a thin roster of talented managers.

2. Judgment on the expected demand for your product has a dramatic impact on your overall strategy.

EMI's initial estimate for demand was way lower than reality, and their strategy and operations were geared to the lower-volume of sales.

3. Do no reveal information about an innovation before you need absolutely need to.

The folklore on this case is that EMI showed the CT Scanner to GE in order to negotiate a licensing deal. GE's response was "Hmmmm....very interesting....how does this work?...we'll get back to you". It was no surprise when GE came out with their own CT Scanner, right on the heels of EMI.

It was a great discussion.

Lunch time came and I met some of my friends from previous group projects at the nearby Japanese restaurant called Niu - it was excellent, and great to chat about how things are going in our respective journeys.

In 42002 (Business Policy) we had a special guest - Andy Lansing the CEO of Levy Restaurants. Andy spoke about the strategy and serendipity that has made Levy Restaurants so successful - especially in their catering of sports events.

After a break, and a discussion on the rise and fall and rise again of Harley-Davidson, we discussed with Andy potential opportunities for Levy's future. Very interesting.

Anyway, we are now on a bit of a Thanksgiving break. This will be a great time to reflect, spend time with family, and be Thankful for all that we have.

All the best,

John

John's Journal Week 8: Fork Lifts, HP, Compaq, and Apple

2009-11-15T18:56:00.006-06:00

I cannot believe we are into week 8 already. I will spare you further cliches about time flying.

Anyway, yesterday was an oddly pleasant November day in Chicago, weather-wise. I boarded my 6:49 train to the city, reviewed my assignments for the week, and prepped for another intriguing day at Chicago Booth.

42001 Competitive Strategy focused on the perils of vertical integration, which is a business school word that means "should I do it myself or hire out." Thinking about this over the course of the previous week, I couldn't help but relate it to my cloud-computing focused job. Making the decision to venture into cloud computing basically requires a vertical integration analysis.

The very basic questions come down to trade-offs: what are you gaining by doing an activity in-house, and what are you losing? And conversely, what do you gain for moving an activity out of your firm, and what do you lose? Of course, the question of cloud computing comes down to where your business IT applications are sourced. Is it on a server in the closet of your headquarters (or your fancy server room, I have seen both), or is it in this mysterious cloud? Ironically, The Economist is weighing some of those trade-offs this week.

Anyway, In 42001 we focused on Crown Equipment, maker of fine fork lift type machinery. The case focused on whether they should create an internal design team or rely on outside contractors for their industrial design work. The good thing about the case was that you could make an intelligent argument either way, which I hope I did in my paper.

In 42002, the week was focused primarily on HP, their merger with Compaq and the massive transformation effort that this merger spawned. We had two fantastic visitors to class, both Booth alumni, and both had deep familiarity with HP (one as an employee, and one as a consultant).

We also talked a lot about the leadership of Carly Fiorina, and analyzed what she did right and what she did wrong, and how her leadership affected HP. All things considered, though, I never really realized just how successful HP has been in the last 5 or so years.

We spent so much time on HP, we did not get to speak much about Apple. It was amazing to look at the conventional wisdom on Apple back in 1997, and see where it is today, again...wow.

Hope you are well!

John's Journal Week 7: Video-on-demand and Adaptive Change

2009-11-09T13:41:00.008-06:00

Greetings!

I spent Friday night at the Alumni Celebration at Navy Pier, which was a fantastic event. Special honors were given to esteemed Booth alumni: Paul P urcell, Ron Huberman, Ronald Packard, and Matthew Li, and all of them had inspiring stories and speeches.

Saturday came quickly. In 42001 (competitive strategy) we primarily focused on the strategies Netflix may pursue as the market shifts to a video-on-demand model. It will be interesting in the following years to see how this market emerges, and what players will come to lead this market. Professor Knez seems to be placing his bets on Apple, and I have no reason to doubt it, seeing what they have done with iTunes and the music industry.

Anyway, the framework we used to examine Netflix and changes in its industry was developed by Anita McGahan, and looks like this:

Overall, it was a very fun and thought-provoking conversation.

Business Policy (42002) was another wide-ranging discussion, mainly focused on the changes British Airways made to go from "Bloody Awful" to one of the world's best airlines. The underlying concept for this kind of transformation is called "Adaptive Change".

It was an engaging conversation, but frankly I was quite tired.

Hope you are doing well! Feel free to drop me a line some time: jgorup @ chicagobooth.edu.

John

John's Journal Week Six: GE, a Mouse, and Ethics

2009-11-02T10:31:00.006-06:00

It's Monday, and I haven't blogged about week six yet, which typifies what kind of week it has been. In general, one of the toughest things about being a part-time student, a full-time worker and a dad and husband is that you always feel like you never finish everything you want to do. I suppose this is normal, but looking around me, I get the feeling there is something going on at the "Macro" level that is stretching us all too thin.

Onward.

So in 42001, Competitive Strategy, we had two cases this week: General Electric, specifically the GE Healthcare division, and Disney. You may have heard of these firms.

Anyway, the general lesson was about corporate strategy. The simple question to ask in corporate strategy is: Is the business unit better off in the corporation or not? Basically, it revolves around the corny word: synergy. Although this is a simple question, the answer is not always simple. Every situation has its trade-offs. Executives and consultants and investors and directors have a lot to consider when considering their corporate strategy.

The Disney discussion was a lot of fun. What an amazing company! Professor Knez asked us at one point: How did Disney raise $300 million, by doing almost nothing? The class struggled with the answer, but it turned out to be pretty simple. Eisner raised the entrance fee to Disney theme parks by $10. $10 X 30 million happy people = $300,000,000. That is one lucrative mouse!

A quick lunch than on to Business Policy, 42002. Our discussion was focused on ethics. The main case on the subject was Levi Strauss & Co., who struggled with reconciling their internal commitment not to be nasty and their sub-contractors in a China with an awful human-rights situation.

We also had a long but wonderful reading on Merck and their fight against River Blindness.

On a personal level, I think I learned the difference between ethics and morality. Morality looks at questions of right and wrong, while ethics, especially in a business atmosphere, is often choosing between two rights, or two wrongs, or a myriad of rights and wrongs. The questions pharmaceutical companies face are often particularly difficult, but every firm should have at least a framework or a protocol for making ethical decisions.

We also watched this clip on Warren Buffett talking about how he chose a new leader for Salomon:

Have a good week,

John

John's Journal Week Five: Midterm Time

2009-10-25T19:04:00.012-05:00

So this week for Competitive Strategy (42001) we were given a case which was to be the basis for a midterm. The case was about the High-Pressure Laminate industry (HPL) in Canada, and specifically Arborite - presumably a topic nobody taking the class is very familiar with, so there is a level playing field.

One nice side-effect of this midterm is that I am now an expert on the High-Pressure Laminate Industry in Canada (as of 1987). This may win me some bar bets in the future.

The interesting part of the case was that it focused on a company that clearly had some cost disadvantages in its market. That of course is not unusual, but in business school I have found we tend to focus on the winners - firms that found and exploited a particular advantage.

So the mid-term was four questions, short essays each. We had about an hour and half to finish - and I used all of it. For some reason I did the last problem first, as I think I knew that one the best, and I wrote a bit too much on it. With 15 minutes left I still had two questions to answer.

Another hazard of these short essay midterms is that my handwriting is awful. I can't help but think that my poor (I mean really poor) penmanship will skew the grader to some degree. I mean, that is only natural. If you look at my handwriting, it looks like I don't know what I am talking about. So it goes.

42002 - Business Policy was again an interesting and wide-ranging conversation.

The most interesting slide we had, in my opinion, was this short and sweet one about "visionary companies" (pictured to the right).

In a way, this class is making me think philosophically about what makes a firm truly great. We learn a lot of great things at Chicago Booth: Economics, Accounting, Statistics, Strategy, Management, Business Law, Investments, Finance, Marketing and on and on. These subjects are taught at all business schools, basically, but Booth is known for a particular amount of quantitative rigor.

This is great information to learn and know, but at the end of the day, will it turn you into a great leader or manager? The question is, what turns a person from good or competent to great? It's a really tough question to ask, and a really tough question to ask of yourself.

It was a long train ride home.

John

John's Journal: Week 4 Mario Brothers and Cloud Computing

2009-10-19T07:48:00.009-05:00

Saturday was a lovely day in Chicago. By week four we are well into the meat of our courses, and the work is starting to pile up.

In Competitive Strategy, we discussed Nintendo, especially focusing on their late move from the 8-bit console to the 16-bit console. Some insights and thoughts:

- Nintendo was founded in 1889! I love it when companies survive like that, and continue innovating over a hundred years later.

- The Atari 2600 was the first home video game to gain wide-spread acceptance. It had a huge and quick adoption, then a fast demise - which really prophesied the typical pattern of this industry.

- I never realized how famous the Mario character (of Super Mario Brothers) was. In fact, in one survey he surpassed Mickey Mouse in fame among children.

- The thrust of the case was that Nintendo made a big mistake in delaying the jump from the 8-bit to the 16-bit console. This allowed Sega to get a foothold into a market Nintendo dominated.

- It was fun to see who of my fellow students grew up playing video games. Basically, if you were a boy between the ages of 8-14 in the mid-eighties, you are an expert in the home video game market whether you know it or not.

It was a good discussion. Next week we have our mid-term exam, so we spent the second half preparing for that. It is going to be a long week of studying.

Over the lunch break, we met with a couple of new CSMG members. It was very nice.

The Business Policy class was a whirlwind of information. We started off talking about Warren Buffett (we are reading this book). Come to think of it, I can think of a few parallels between Mario and Buffett.

Anyway, we had a discussion about the elements of a story, and how this can be used in crafting a business strategy.

We then had an interesting exercise in scenario planning. We got into groups and each group had the beginning of a news clipping from the New York Times from the year 2019. Half the class got a version describing the domination of Microsoft, and half got a story describing the demise of Microsoft. Our job was to fill in the "story" or time line which lead to the headline.

As a personal surprise to me, in all three stories describing the demise of Microsoft, an inability to adjust to Cloud Computing was a major factor. This was surprising to me, because as a person who works in cloud computing, I never realized how familiar this concept is to my colleagues. I thought this was some secret knowledge only IT people (and only a subset of them) are familiar with. Looks like cloud adoption is further ahead than I had thought.

Also, ironically, I am not convinced yet that IF Microsoft was to meet its end (and that is a huge IF, look at Nintendo), that Cloud Computing would be a major factor. I mean, Microsoft is sitting on a giant pile of cash, and they have an even bigger pile of human capital. I just don't see them witnessing the adoption of cloud computing, shrugging their shoulders, and saying "Oh well, we had a good run."

If Microsoft is facing death in 2019, I think the primary factor will be bad leadership, along with some big, bad mergers.

Have a good week!

John

John's Journal: Week 3 - a Marathon

2009-10-10T22:09:00.005-05:00

Week 3 has come and gone.

As I walked to Gleacher center I noticed so many skinny people in spandex jogging around - then I remembered the Chicago Marathon is tomorrow.

Anyway, 42001 began with a lively discussion of Edward Jones and the Brokerage industry. Edward Jones began like all entrepreneurs: by finding an unmet need. Basically, as our nation became wealthier Mr. Jones recognized that nobody was offering investment services to small town, Mayberry-type communities. One of the key ingredients to their strategy was to treat all customers equally, regardless of the size of the account. How beautiful!

At lunch time we had a student group fair, and CSMG signed up a page and a half of new prospective members! Go us!

I then had lunch with some fellow students who were talking about interviewing for jobs as investment bankers, which reminded me why I never want to interview for a job as an investment banker.

42002 was a whirlwind, which included:
- More talk on Starbucks. (Can a company grow massively and retain their original charm? My answer: no.)
- Warren Buffett and the start of Berkshire Hathaway. (Lamest website ever, by the way, but typical of Buffett)
- Honda Motorcycles. (Coolest website ever, by the way, but it is motorcycles.)
- Benetton. (At the time of the case, they were the largest consumer of wool in the world. That's a lot of sheep!)

I imagined Warren Buffett, in a Benetton sweater, drinking a Frappicino, while riding a Honda Motorcycle.

I will write more later. Now I have to sleep

John's Journal: Week 2 - Starbucks and Dell and Starbucks again

2009-10-03T22:56:00.010-05:00

So I set my alarm on my phone to wake me up in the morning, but put the ring tone a little too quiet. Fortunately, the baby woke up at 6:30, which left me just enough time to catch the 6:49 train. She must have known I was going to be late for school. I will certainly return the favor some day.

Fortunately, I made it to school in time to grab a cup of coffee at Starbucks, which was free for winning the Via challenge. I deeply admired this latest marketing play. Basically, I went into the Starbucks on Michigan ave. across from the Tribune Building. I ordered a Venti coffee, but the clerk said some nonsense I didn't really understand, but then I realized he was going to give me two tiny cups of coffee, and I had to guess which one was their new Via instant coffee.

Two things about me: I never pass up free coffee (even in tiny cups) and, I have a very sensitive sense of taste. I instantly selected which cup contained Via - not because it tastes bad, but simply because it was distinct from their very recognizable Pike Place coffee (judging form Twitter, I am not the only one with this skill). Anyway, because of my victory, I got my Venti coffee for free.

Anyway, all this happened before I stepped foot in Gleacher. One of the side effects of being an MBA student is you start to recognize, appreciate, and think about all the marketing campaigns we are constantly bombarded with. It's more fun that it sounds.

So in my 42001 class, corporate strategy, we dove deeply into Dell. We basically used this Michael Porter-inspired graph to outline Dell's value proposition at the time of the case (1998ish)

I won't go into the details of the discussion, but one thing that stuck out to me was that how a tiny differentiation for a company, even if a company is 1% better than its competitors, can make a huge difference in stock price, revenues and market share.

Another thing that stood out in the discussion was that the professor constantly had to remind us of the phrase "at the time of the case", because the PC industry has vastly changed since 1998ish. Even then, it was a tough business to be in, as Microsoft and Intel really called the shots.

My 1:30-4:30 class (still getting used to the time changing by half an hour, but I like it) was week two of 42002 Business Policy.

The first half of the lecture mostly centered on our unusual reading for the week: The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. How fun to be reading this in business school! And all in all, there are a lot of themes in the book that are quite relevant for business strategy.

The majority of the second half we talked about the amazing rise of Starbucks (which is a coffee company, if you never heard of it), and its visionary leader, Howard Schultz. Another great discussion, which ended in kind of a funny and interesting way. The professor kept asking a variation on: "Why were no other coffee companies challenging Starbucks at the national level?"

My fellow students really had no good answer.

One student started to say something about "Barriers to entry", and the prof said "No!" and basically railed against our Biz School buzz phrases, including: "First Mover Advantage" and "Economies of Scale", which he said were simply barriers to thought.

I think he is absolutely right. These phrases do describe, in my opinion, actual economic phenomenon, but they do not fully explain the nuts and bolts, or the "fog of war", or what really is going on in when a business competes. We shouldn't use these phrases as an excuse to stop exploring. Amen.

It was a good day to be an MBA student.

Good night!

John

John's Journal: Strategy Overload begins

2009-09-26T17:58:00.004-05:00

So I caught the 6:49 train to Chicago, leaving a sleeping baby and wife behind. It takes about an hour to get to Chicago, and I use that time to gather my thoughts, and review the material we are covering that day.

And yes, there is homework due on day 1. For the Competitive Strategy case we had a 5-Force Analysis of the carbonated soft drink industry (specifically Coke and Pepsi). For my Business Policy class we had to write a one-page analysis of the first two chapters of the book Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist. These assignments were not particularly difficult, but since I had just gotten the material on Thursday I had to work late Friday night to finish them.

At 9:00, Competitive Strategy. My impression of the class is that it is a proto-typical Chicago Booth class: a massive amount of material, rapid-fire intelligent discussion, and with quantitative analysis thrown in at every turn. The first half of the class was a quick fly-over of what competitive strategy is as a field, and the second half was a deep-dive analysis of Coke and Pepsi as of 2006. We learned why the CSD business is so profitable, what the threats are to those profits, and why it is so difficult for this Cola duopoly to get challenged by a third player. It was really a fantastic discussion - combining strategy and economics.

At 12:00 the break came, and I met with my fellow co-chairs of CSMG.

Starting at 1:30 (a new policy for Booth - Saturday afternoon classes now start a half hour later) was my Business Policy class. This is a difficult class to define (intentionally so), but it explores strategy from various angles (and requires a ton of reading).

One interesting exercise we had was that we broke into five groups, and each group had to declare a company that has had the best strategy and one that has had the worst strategy in the last 5 years. The results are:

Best
Apple (2 votes)
Wal-Mart
UPS
Google

Worst
Blockbuster
Segway
Tribune Company
General Motors
Chrysler (and special mention for GM)

Now I am exhausted, brain-dead, and on my way home. Lot's of reading and paper writing ahead!

John

John's Journal: A New Start

2009-09-21T07:45:00.005-05:00

This week marks the first week of Autumn quarter at The University of Chicago's Booth School of Business (Booth).

We all love new beginnings in life - the first kick-off of the football season, a wedding, the inauguration of a new President. These moments are filled with hope and promise, and they renew the soul.

These are fond, Hallmark-thoughts, but what does it have to do with being a part-time MBA student and a member of the Chicago Booth Corporate Strategy and Management Group?

The way I see it, your plans going into the new beginning is your strategy - the blueprint, the battle-plan. Management is what happens after the ceremony is done, and you get into the day-to-day living-out of your strategic plan.

This quarter, in addition to working for an awesome high-tech startup, staying married and taking care of a baby, I will be taking two strategy courses at Chicago Booth: Competitive Strategy (42001) and Business Policy (42002).

"John's Journal" will be a weekly feature on this blog, where I give you a view into these classes and strategy in general.

John

Livin' On (More Than) A Prayer: Management Lessons from Bon Jovi

2009-07-08T08:36:00.009-05:00

These last few years (OK, decades) it has been a struggle to find a real hero among American business leaders. People like Steve Jobs or Bill Gates are legends, but these figures are so unique it is nearly impossible to imitate their management styles. It seems like the financial news is filled with business leaders who are jerks, charlatans, greedy, or downright foolish. For an MBA student, it is a frustrating era in American capitalism. Nevertheless, I have found my Hero of Business Management: Jon Bon Jovi.

I have been familiar with Bon Jovi's music since their famous "Slippery When Wet" album came out when I was in seventh grade. While that summer their music seemed to hit the spot for me, I have not thought much about Bon Jovi since. My tastes changed, as I caught on to the angst-ridden "grunge" movement in music, typified by Kurt Cobain and Nirvana.

So quite by chance I caught a re-run of the 60-Minutes interview of Jon Bon Jovi. What I saw in that interview is a man I would want on my Board of Directors.

Here are four basic lessons I learned from Jon Bon Jovi.

1. Self-discipline is the key. Bon Jovi has been struggling week after week to be the best at what he does. As he stated to 60-minutes, he likens himself to a prize-fighter: "Cause you want to be the best. I don't want to think that anyone's coming in there and gonna be better tomorrow night."

It has been Bon Jovi's commitment and discipline which has moved his career and his band from an 80's "hair-band" one-album wonder into a multi-million dollar act that has survived 25 years.

2. Know and respect your customer. The central focus of any business is the customer, and Bon Jovi is no exception. Bon Jovi instinctively understands his customers basic needs, and delivers entertainment with a consistent level of quality and integrity.

3. Treat your employees well. Keeping the key resources of an organization together for 25 years is nearly unheard of, especially when the organization is a successful rock band. Jon Bon Jovi has managed to build a deep loyalty with his employees (and they are employees, not partners), from the beginning. This includes his talented lead guitarist Richie Sambora, who has struggled with alcoholism and other personal issues.

4. Give back to the community. Bon Jovi has made giving back to the community a central part of his ethos. According to Wikipedia, "Bon Jovi has worked on behalf of the Special Olympics, the American Red Cross, the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, Habitat for Humanity, Project Home, The Philadelphia Soul Charitable Foundation and other groups."

Some may think these four lessons are basic, and indeed they are. It does not take a fancy degree to heed them. Nevertheless, these basic lessons are sorely needed in the American business landscape.

Jon Bon Jovi and his band have become fabulously wealthy, but we don't begrudge their success. Bon Jovi credits luck, but neither luck nor talent can explain his ability to survive and thrive in a competitive and ever-changing landscape for 25 years. He has consistently lead his organization with discipline, wisdom, good character. Bon Jovi has also provided a consistent product that fulfills the needs of a significant niche of customers.

For these reasons, Jon Bon Jovi is this prospective MBA's Hero of Business Management. Rock on.

Innovation Interrupted

2009-06-12T20:41:00.002-05:00

From this important Business Week article.

During the last decade, U.S. innovation has failed to realize its promise – and that may help explain America’s economic woes. Some say we live in an era of rapid innovation. But what if the conventional wisdom is wrong? What if outside of a few high-profile areas, the past decade has seen far too few commercial innovations that can transform lives and more the economy forward? The growing evidence shows that the innovation short fall of the past decade is not only real but may also have contributed to today’s financial crisis. The venture capitalists that have invested in new technologies are also tied to this.

Innovation and Inspiration at DSM

2009-05-26T18:29:00.000-05:00

Michael Steen writes an article in the Financial Times about DSM, a Dutch firm that seems to be doing things right.

What lessons can we learn from DSM? I have heard professors at Chicago Booth say that "culture trumps strategy", and it looks like DSM works hard to create a culture of innovation.

From the article: Mr Sijbesma says. "The whole idea about our business education starts with our strategy . . . You need a lot of technical knowledge but you also need to change the company in terms of culture and behaviour."

Mr. Sijbesma defines "inspirational leadership" as "authenticity and vulnerability with clear direction". Words like "authenticity" and certainly "vulnerability" are not words you often hear in the corporate world (at least not used ironically, or for marketing purposes).

But it seems to me that "authenticity" and "vulnerability" are character traits that can separate excellent managers from merely adequate managers. When taken as a corporate strategy, "authenticity" and "vulnerability" may be concepts that separate firms that thrive from those that die.

CSMG: "Building the Franchise"

2009-05-07T14:21:00.003-05:00

To kick off our year second year in existence, the leadership of CSMG presented our plans and ideas in this Powerpoint:

How can you get involved?

If you are a Booth Weekend or Evening student, take a look at our events calendar, and contact one of the co-chairs.
If you are an Alum or a person involved in Strategy or Management in the corporate world, and want to speak with us, contact one of the co-chairs.
Follow us on Twitter.

Thanks!

On-demand as a Strategy: Zip cars and IT Applications

2009-05-06T11:42:00.021-05:00

Let me start out with full disclosure. I currently make my living on the On-Demand trend in Information Technology, so I have a pony in this race. I work for a company called Appirio, a San Mateo start-up, whose slogan is: "We offer services AND products to accelerate the adoption of on-demand solutions."

My first week at Appirio, our tireless CEO, Chris Barbin, gave all employees a copy of The Big Switch by Nicholas Carr, which I devoured on my flight from SFO to ORD. While I found Carr to be a bit dystopian in his vision of the future (I am an eternal optimist) his description of the trend of On-Demand seems to be right on the money.

Think of how electricity was first adopted. If a factory back in the day wanted to use electricity to run their operation, they literally had to build their own generator. This required a massive amount of equipment, skill, maintenance, and capital investment. Fast forward a few years, the electric utility company came on the scene. If a factory needed electricity, they merely plugged their tools into the wall. Factories then could concentrate on what they do best, while a centralized electric company served up the power in an on-demand fashion. This is something we now take for granted.

These last few days I have had an incredible front-row seat to the on-demand movement. The question I asked myself was, is "on-demand" really just another trendy idea that will come and go (like parachute pants in the 1980's)?, or is this an actual movement in how we live and do business (like electricity generation)?

On Saturday, my Managing Services Organizations class hosted Scott Griffith, Chairman & CEO of Zipcar. Zipcar's members pay to have the ability to use a well-maintained and fun vehicle when they need it. "Zipsters", as Zipcar members are called, typically fall into two categories: those who want to save money by not paying for the maintenance, insurance, parking, that comes with car ownership and secondly, people who resonate with the environmentally friendly and communitarian spirit of Zipcar.

On Sunday I taught a class on GMail and GCalendar to an American multinational's offices in Asia. When a company moves their email (the lifeblood of a corporation) to Gmail from Lotus Notes or Microsoft Exchange, they place the burden of running servers, upgrading, and provisioning onto Google. Just like the factory places the burden for generating electricity onto the utility company. Just like the Zipster places the burden of oil changes on Zipcar.

On Monday I attended the Chicago Cloudforce Conference, a meeting put on by Salesforce.com to connect to their customers and partners in the Chicago area. Salesforce is revolutionizing the IT world (along with other companies like WorkDay and RightNow), by taking firms' IT applications to "the cloud". I was struck by the similarities between the messages of Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff and Scott Griffith: why install your own applications (buy your own car) when you can get better applications (better car - in some locations you can now get a BMW 5 series from Zipcar) without all the maintenance costs and headaches?

Zipcar has taken over 100,000 personal cars off the road. Who knows how many personal servers Salesforce has taken offline? Zipsters know what Saleforce's customers know: on-demand allows them to concentrate on what they do best, as well as allowing them to do more for less money. Both groups know the true cost-of-ownership.

I have concluded from this week that this trend in On-demand spotted by Nicholas Carr is not another bunch of hype. I am not a parachute pants salesman.

- John Gorup, Chicago Booth class of 2011.

Note, for further reading take a look at my friend David Schach's commentary on Zipcar.

5 questions for Steve Shu...

2009-05-01T19:48:00.008-05:00

Steve Shu is an independent Management Consultant, Business Development Professional, and Blogger living in the Los Angeles area. Steve got his MBA from The University of Chicago in 1999, and we asked him five questions about his work and what he was witnessed as a management consultant.

1. What is a typical week in the life of an Independent Management Consultant?

Just as backdrop on my consulting background, I have worked for a traditional management consulting firm (PRTM), as a management consultant within technology firms, and as an independent consultant. It is also noteworthy to mention that I tend to be more of a general management and business development consultant as opposed to a specialist in finance, say. So what I write here will be from those perspectives.

As an independent consultant under normal situations, I try to target the balance of work similar to that of a principal consultant within a traditional firm. So let’s say for argumentation sake the target is approximately 60% delivery, 30% business development & sales, and 10% other. That said, since resources are limited as an independent, it is not always possible to compress work into Monday-Thursday with business development on Fridays. I try to use that as a guideline in order to keep things focused, but often business development needs to bleed throughout the week. One of the biggest problems that independent consultants face is that when they are delivering work they are not selling. Vice versa is true also, so there is an inherent tendency to oscillate in terms of workload.

To compensate for that (i.e., augment the portfolio of high involvement, longer sales cycle, and shorter engagements), there are a variety of techniques to use. One of them is to try to sell more work and multi-phase engagements into existing clients, which keeps the sales cycle down. These practices are already well-documented elsewhere, so I’ll go into some other methods that I’ve not seen documented so much. Another technique I have used is to blend contractor or interim management work with traditional consulting work. Contractor work tends to be at a lower pay rate because it simply enables a client to have flexible workpool, but in some sense it requires a less arduous sales process and helps to guarantee a minimum level of work if the independent consultant needs it. Interim or fractional management work is often like retainer-based work for an extended period (e.g., 6, 12, 18 months), but it often requires a custom employment agreement, including scope of management definition and goals and objectives articulation in the riders. The longer contract timeframes for interim management roles help to keep the sales cycle down. As a final technique to keep a mix of sales involvement and contract lengths, I’ve started to explore subcontracting and partnering with principals and partners at other management consulting firms. This structure broadens the services that can be offered and can keep the sales cycle down for the independent. It is too early to tell how these arrangements will work out in terms of deal flow, but on the delivery end I’m confident things will go smoothly.

2. What are some of the common issues or problems you see at your clients?

The work that I do as an independent is more varied in terms of industries covered than when I was part of a larger firm. So it’s harder to find common themes. If I had to pick two common themes, the first one would be around assessing new business opportunities and funding them (later part is tricky in this market). The other theme I have been seeing more of is in the operational process improvement area. The themes here, however, have not been so much around improving profits as they have been about weathering the economic storm and making improvements that increase either customer satisfaction or quality of services and products. Clients, on the balance, are more conservative right now. Whereas the smart executives and managers may have been going for broke before and taking bigger chances, they now see making continuous improvements as a must-do (not necessarily demonstrating immediate margin or revenue improvement until after the storm lifts). As additional light, some executives are missing their revenue numbers in the current (bad) market climate, but they are making their net profit numbers. These companies are using the stable net profits as their bulletproof vest with their Boards while using consultants in very targeted ways or in controlled “entrepreneurial experiments” to help build for the future.

3. Can you tell us about a mistake you have made in your job, and what you learned from that mistake?

One of the mistakes that I suspect many consultants make (especially early in their careers) is to fail to get client feedback throughout the entire time frame of an engagement. When I was on that path, I was fortunate to have a senior consultant coach me back on track (mentorship is key in consulting businesses). If a consultant just generates a fancy analysis without transferring knowledge, transferring stewardship of deliverables, and getting client buy-in and feedback, then the customer just gets a bunch of deliverables and paper. The customer hasn’t really advanced. I have argued in the past that “In Consulting The Process Is An Essential Part Of The Deliverable”.

4. From your experience, can you tell us what factors separate a startup that fails from one that succeeds?

Startups can fail for many, many reasons, whether they are incubated entities within a larger company or standalone. Luck surely plays a role, but aside from that I think the biggest failure points for startups are related to 1) their ability to adapt, 2) their ability to be honest about progress and scalability/repeatability, and 3) their resolve to move forward (with either changes to processes, strategy, team players, or technology). #1 is about hiring talented, creative, and flexible people. #2 is sometimes tricky because I think there is an inherent bias in startups to drink one’s own Kool Aid and see confirming evidence only. #3 is tricky because everything has to glue together properly.

5. What did you learn at the University of Chicago that has been the most help in your career?

I cannot say enough good things about the Chicago training, despite my recent wavering on free-market theory (I know, sacrilegious!). For me, bread-and-butter training came down to core finance & financial analysis, technology strategy, and core marketing. I probably have used this training in 70%+ of the situations I have been in whether consulting or management. As far coursework goes, the next tier of must-haves for me are around statistics, decision-making and organizational behavior, operations, negotiations, and strategy and organizational structure. The operations and negotiations courses at Chicago are really unique, and offhand I can’t think of the best way to get that level of foundation in the industry. If there were some areas that I had to sharpen post-business school, I would say that marketing segmentation, consumer behavior, business law, corporate governance, new product development, and sales and sales management were areas that I needed to refine the most.

What is the CSMG?

2009-04-28T09:52:00.001-05:00

In the Chicago Booth School of Business (or the school formerly known as Chicago GSB) Weekend and Evening programs, there has been a boom in student groups. I believe there may now be as many as 31 different student groups, with a myriad of focuses (see the whole list here). This is a good thing. While our students have a solid reputation for being analytical and rigorous, being social has not been one of our strong suits.

Of course, student groups offer more than a social life while we pursue our MBA's. Student groups give us a forum to share ideas beyond the classroom, to connect to alumni and the community, and allow us to practice our leadership skills.

So why a group focused on Corporate Strategy and Management? As it says on our student group page:

Our vision is to serve as a comprehensive platform for preparing, challenging, motivating, and connecting tomorrow's business leaders.

This blog is a small part of that. This will be a forum for sharing our ideas, connecting, challenging, and motivating. Enjoy the ride!

John, co-chair, CSMG.