A Run

It’s been 25 weeks since I last wrote – my sincere apologies.

I returned to Canada on January 3^rd, after the China Study Trip and a nice quick little vacation to India. I just had one big thing in my mind: “Job Search”. I was struggling to allocate time between Job search and maximising the value from MBA. Above everything else, the new venture project literally took away all the time that I had, until early March. Module 2b had three core courses: Marketing, Operations and Leveraging Information Technology – I wished that we had pursued these courses earlier in the program, prior to the October interview cycle. Apparently, the structure of the Ivey MBA has been changed for the 2011 class and I understand that they will be completing all the core courses much earlier.

The elective season arrived in no time. We shared the electives with the Fall class and some of them were brilliant. I managed to enrol for the following electives: Entrepreneurial Manager, Corporate Strategy, Global Marketing and Project Management. I wished that I pursued more, but I had to spend extra hours on the job search; and I was struggling to get the balance. At this point, I sincerely hoped the MBA to have been a two year program to be able to digest the maximum. Real life is similar with no or little time and prioritizing is the key. I wouldn’t call myself an expert but I do realize now that my time management skills have improved.

Here’s a high-level summary of the learning from Module 2b and electives:

Marketing: Strategic planning and marketing management process, marketing research, consumer behaviour, business-government-institutional buying, market segmentation, cash flow dynamics, product strategy, new product planning/development, integrated marketing communication, personnel communication(sales), distribution, pricing, marketing services, global marketing, marketing plans and financial analysis for marketing decisions

Operations: Process Management, capacity, inventory, quality management, materials requirement planning, supply chain, lean systems, statistical process control, outsourcing/off-shoring and operations strategies.

Leveraging Information Technology: Systems development, business process management practices, make vs buy decisions, procurement options, vendor selection and contracting, ROI of a software as a service, Enterprise resource planning, risk management in information systems projects, systems testing, system conversion and implementation, change management, acquiring and implementing(putting information systems in place), information security, outsourcing, organizing data(business intelligence and data governance), Information technology Strategy, organizing information systems resources, knowledge management, social media, realizing value from e-commerce, realizing value from mergers and acquisitions and enterprise architecture.

Project Management: Defining and organizing the project, Planning the project, Managing project execution, Triple constraints(Scope, time and cost), Project Team, Quality of Deliverable, Communication, Risk, Project mistakes, organizing projects, network diagramming, scheduling, critical path method, cost-time tradeoffs, dependencies, risks, tracking and managing projects, closing and reviewing projects, structured frameworks for making project management related decisions.

Global Marketing: Performance driven global strategic market planning, branding, global market opportunity assessment, customer insights, marketing planning process, customer value proposition and adoption of innovations, competitive advantage, execution and controversies.

Entrepreneurial Manager: Valuations, IPOs, business models, financing new ventures and terms sheets

Corporate Strategy: Concept of corporate strategy, organizational structure and controls, intersection of leadership and corporate strategy, corporate governance and corporate strategy, corporate strategy versus business unit strategy and strategic leadership

If I was given an opportunity to go back to Ivey and pursue a course, I would dare any course except the new venture project (NVP). It was such a tiring experience and almost incorporated learning from every single concept that I learnt at Ivey. NVP has been an unbelievable source of learning opportunity and I was thoroughly impressed with the depth and width of topics that our team addressed during analysis. I strongly recommend Ivey students to capitalize on this wonderful opportunity.

The graduation day (10^th May) arrived and the rollercoaster finally came to a stop. I felt as though I was living in a vacuum with zero cases to read. Graduation ceremony went along very well and I was conferred with the Master of Business Administration Degree. Ivey MBA definitely exceeded my expectations and I am deeply contented with the learning that I have had during the past year. Obviously MBA is not an immediate career accelerator, but I do realize that on the long run it adds tremendous value. There’s no doubt in my mind that I could accelerate a little bit closer towards my dreams and I sincerely hope to take my Ivey learning forward towards making my dreams real.