A Run

Elective Season 1:

Having completed the module 2a, the JD-MBA students left to continue on their Law courses and we had about 40 AMBA (Accelerated MBA) students starting with our elective season. These were the students that graduated from the Ivey HBA program and most of them had business backgrounds.

This is the first of the three week elective period. Invariably, all the electives at Ivey are worth 0.5 credits that demand 30 hours of in-class work. Three electives: Financial strategies, completion and competitor analysis, and negotiations were offered during this season. I had enrolled for just one elective to facilitate job networking events and other career related activities. But despite that, numerous other priorities started to crop up. Interview preparation, Clubs initiatives, MBAA senator-ship, New venture project and the regular class work – all started to come by together. Thank goodness, my elective schedule allowed my Friday’s off and I that could catch up. China Study trip, Russia Leader project and the China Teaching project are among the other priority projects that some of our students are currently involved.

The competitions elective has particularly been interesting and Prof Mark Vandenbosch is a specialist. He kick started the class with a card game to illustrate the game theory and best drove his points home. The elective course had a variety of eye opening cases, games, presentations, individual/group competitive thinking notes and a case exam. Not surprisingly, this course has a 40% weightage for class participation – highest that I’ve ever seen. The overall objective of the course was to enhance the ability to recognize and analyze strategic issues from a competitive and game theoretic perspective. The course increased our awareness of behavioural biases in competitive situations and competitor analysis, and understanding competitive intelligence programs. It covered the following topics in a broad sense: Game theory, behavioural analysis, competitive intelligence systems, commitment and credibility, positioning, business systems analysis, value curves, identifying competitors, competing on cost/quality, cost drivers, Hypothesis testing, Action-Consequences-Evidence model, Preemption, Burning Bridges, Reputation/Small Steps, Remove Control, Chicken/War of Attrition, Evolution of Cooperation, Customers as Hostages, Confusopolies, Judo Strategy and Winner’s Curse.

Jobs Update:

The season saw numerous company information sessions and job applications started to show up in the career management portal. The postings during the season were primarily dominated by Consulting, Investment banking, Rotational programs and other finance related positions, primarily because of the fact that recruiting cycles for the Finance/consulting industries fall during this period; other jobs are expected to show up in future. As of now, about 1/5^th the MBA class is placed, with 6 more months remaining in the program. Obviously the lack of internship concerns career changers for the want of relevant work experience and in particular if you are targeting top-tier companies unless you are exceptional. Following companies have extended final offers so far: TD Bank, RBC, Deloitte, Capgemini, Accenture, CIBC, BMO, Scotia Bank, A.T Kearney, BCG and Monitor group. More updates to follow later.

GLOBE Module:

Global Business Environment (GLOBE) is intended to provide students with the global outlook/big picture of the environment. We share the classes with the Accelerated MBA students who recently joined us a month earlier. There are about 100 students spread across two sections. The module runs for about 7 weeks and Professor Tony Frost has been impressive. Macroeconomics, Technology, Entrepreneurship, Government and Public policy and Corporate Governance are the broad issue areas covered in this module. The module has been extremely interesting to me so far and I’ll write a separate post on key learning from this module.