My MBA ROI (Return on Investment) calculator….

As we come to the end of this rollercoaster of a journey and as many of us (myself included) experience the many ups and downs of the career search...I’m often confronted by this discussion of the true value of the MBA….most recently, I’ve also had a lot of potential applicants email me and ask me about the ROI of the IMD MBA…. I think it’s best said by the MasterCard advertisement which I will openly and happily duplicate here (as they say copying is the best form of flattery)!

There are some things a business education can teach…for everything else, there is the IMD MBA! J(Mastercard version: There are some things that money can’t buy, for everything else there is MasterCard)

So a business education can teach you corporate finance, it can teach you strategy, marketing, operations, economics, organizational behavior, entrepreneurship, etc etc and lots more….a business education can teach you about leadership, it can help you potentially change your function, industry or geography….now we all knew this coming into the program….

What I didn’t know or what I have thoroughly enjoyed this year is the many things you didn’t expect a MBA to teach you....such as:

1.       Many of us started the year wanting to be leaders and having a finite, well defined perception of what a good leader stands for….but through our leadership experiential , PDE sessions and even today’s elective “Leaders Domain” , all of a sudden we are questioning whether we want to be leaders but more importantly why we want to be leaders and what it means in the bigger picture of our lives… the MBA taught me to be much more open and introspective about leadership...

2.        My ROI for the MBA is not simply that I learnt about cultural nuances and factors that pose challenges in business but simply the fact that I have lived those challenges sitting in the dungeons late at night trying to accomplish impossible tasks with the most diverse groups…..take that for multi-cultural awareness and competency!

3.       We love to think about business in silos and as individual practices because functional expertise is comfortable….try one integrative exercise and the boundaries between different disciplines disappear forever! Try one ICP project and you will understand how there is never an easy, simple or single answer to a business challenge...

4.       Ahhh….the job search……I have learnt to be patient, strategic and optimistic through the various up’s and down’s but I’ve also been challenged to think about what I REALLY want to do with my life and to be authentic to who I am…..its not about another job…its about what I want to do….it also teaches you to enjoy every moment of your life without having to anticipate external validation…

5.       The business of business is business………so what does it mean to create value and welfare for others…. whom do you have to make happy at the cost of others…..and most importantly, are you ready to be disliked for most of your decisions which might be in the best interest of one group vs the other?

6.       People are people irrespective of where they come from and when you experience 45 different nationalities every day, you slowly realize that across cultures, everything is the same and everything is also different…..my friends back home ask me how I can be so close to some of my classmates I know only for a year….well….try sharing some of the experiences we’ve had and its difficult not to be so connected!

Sorry, I know I probably don’t make sense….but this is exactly why the ROI question for a MBA will never make sense…..the learning’s I have this year aside from my business education itself will take me a lifetime to digest and process…….this is probably why my ROI calculator for the IMD MBA will have far more inputs than any calculator can process!

Cheers,

Vikas Menon​​

T-28 and NOT counting…

Hello everyone…it’s been a while since we’ve gotten back to the regular schedule of blogging or any regular routine for that matter…

As my fellow bloggers have mentioned we are busy with the various electives…for me it’s been super exciting so far with an elective this past week with Prof. Nuno : Managing International Growth: A Strategic Finance …if you had told me in the first three months of the program that I would be willingly selecting another finance course,  I would have laughed! …but this is life, you start enjoying new things you never thought you could like and you start realizing what you don’t like…next week, I have an elective with Prof. Benoit: Special Topics in Private Equity and Venture Capital ….but beyond these electives what has really kept me excited is a case I am writing under the guidance of Prof. Benoit focused on entrepreneurship….a group of 3 of us are writing a case on the restaurant Eat Me in Lausanne, an innovative concept-restaurant opened and managed by an IMD MBA alumnus - Serena - last year and I’m sure you would have read about it a million times in our various blog posts….

Every afternoon the group and I put together pieces of the story of the Entrepreneur (Serena) we have collected through our various interviews and interactions with her….we conduct 2-3 detailed interviews with her every week where we learn in great detail about her challenges, ideas, the restaurant business, funding and what it feels like to live life on a roller coaster aka “The life of the entrepreneur”….as part of the case, we are also conducting video interviews which can hopefully be used by future MBA classes for the entrepreneurship course just as we have witnessed many interesting and inspirational case interviews during our classes….what makes it special for me is that I have always wanted to get into the restaurant, club or bar business at some point in my life and hearing first-hand about how menu items are priced or about how affinity financing works or about how important it is to drive consumer experiences is learning everything about the business first hand from the entrepreneur….what more can you ask for!!!

 So on one hand, I am living the entrepreneurs dream through this case and learning so much about the business, on the other hand we have the electives but wait what about the job search and the interviews I am juggling…..you see at IMD, just like in life, the learning never stops and the learning for this phase for me is patience, patience and more patience….Why? because  I am still in the interview process for some of my potential jobs and probably won’t have a decision till the end of November…now those who know me including my lovely partner know how much I hate waiting and how much I hate leaving things in other people’s control….but this is life and this is also part of the IMD education…at the end of the day, you try your best and hope for the best!

But the education is not simply about waiting but it’s also being able to live in the present and enjoy life for today and the now and not for the dream job (or any job) that may happen tomorrow or waiting on a positive response…so I am also trying to enjoy the fact that I have one last month as an IMD MBA student, I have one last month amongst my IMD MBA family and friends and I am  trying my best to learn how to cherish these moments ….

Super excited about the last leadership experiential tomorrow…

Have a good weekend!

Vikas

ICP 2 - Cocktails…

Today's blog entry is from my Cape Verdean brotha - Dorival Bettencourt - ​about his groups ICP adventure.....enjoy and have a great week!

Diversity is a word that’s frequently banded around these days. It figures in several political discussions, science treaties and definitely in every MBA program’s brochure.  But after 10 months at IMD I have really come to appreciate the true scope and intensity that the diversity factor can assume.

We’re currently working on our ICP II project in a 7 man team representing 4 continents and 7 very distinct industries ranging from FMCG and Oil & Gas to Financial Services and Transportation. However, the element that has proven to be the most challenging is by far the diversity of personalities. Some of us are calm and collected while others are more emotional and spirited. Some are professed introverts, others are raging extroverts, some prefer to quietly think things over while others want to leap straight into action.

This rich, diverse and, potentially explosive cocktail of individuals is working with a FTSE 100 company to first estimate the global size of an industry they’re looking to expand in and then present concrete advice on how to tackle the opportunity. The project is highly complex, filled with ambiguity and we have a very demanding client that is expecting a 6 month project to be delivered in 6 weeks.

You would think that under such pressure, a group like ours would quickly begin to crumble like a tower of babel. But I’ve been amazed at how skilled we’ve all become at managing this type of complexity. Every day we get together I witness the tools we learned in class and in our experiential exercises being used effectively. As a result, the team has found its balance and is producing good work while still harnessing the richness that our varied backgrounds provide. Last week we were “parachuted” into a remote part of Holland to spend an entire day at a client site understanding their business and getting up close and personal with the equipment. This week it’s back in Lausanne to finalize our market sizing model and analysis. Next, we’re focusing on the best practices that have made the North American division of the business so successful.  

The pressure is mounting but our work is starting to take shape and we’re determined to deliver. If we can keep the group together and capitalize on our variety of strengths and skills, our team may just prove once again that diversity, when managed, can create the type of positive tensions that produce the richest results.     

Hello there from ICP land! – Goodwill planes!

Today's guest entry is from my classmate - Anton Djojo - about his ICP team and their interesting project combining goodwill and aeroplanes! Enjoy your flight! ​

I and 5 other enthusiastic, amusing and fun-loving friends have chosen to work with the foundation arm of one of the world’s largest companies in the aviation industry. This foundation facilitates the company’s worldwide charitable activities and supports programs and projects in which its employees are involved. The company often uses its planes to conduct goodwill or relief flights, providing the transportation of critical supplies to distressed or remote locations around the world. After being in existence for quite a while, it wants detailed understanding of the direct and indirect impact of these flights on the company, the foundation, the partners and the community.

So here we are, 6 individuals from backgrounds as distinct as nuclear geotechnical management to infrastructure construction to information systems, bonding together to help the foundation analyze and evaluate the Social Return On Investment (SROI) of humanitarian and goodwill missions it has piloted (no pun intended).

Our days have been filled with quickly understanding the intricacies of these flights and the roles of non-profit organizations it deals with. We are very thrilled to be involved in this project due to the challenges that it provides. These flights carried goods as varied the community it touched. It has delivered food supplies, medicine, tents and blankets for people afflicted by earthquakes, as well as wheelchairs, baby diapers, books and teddy bears for hospitals and orphanages. It is going to be interesting coming up with ideas to value a life saved, or a person getting medical treatment, or an orphan child receiving teddy bear as Christmas gift.

For the past week, we have been interviewing the people directly and indirectly involved in these flights to understand the overall impacts. As a matter of fact our team is going to present our interim findings to our client in less than 24 hours! Next in the pipeline we will also plan, design and conduct a workshop in the foundation’s premise involving most of the stakeholders. It’s time to fasten our seatbelts because this is going to be a wonderful and meaningful ride!

ICP 2 - Oil & Gas

It's ICP season again and here's a guest entry from my classmate Bogdan! Enjoy! 

Every person cherishes an opportunity to be a part of something special and extraordinary - this is human nature. For the second International Consulting Project my human nature got a VIP treatment.

For our second ICP, IMD decided to partner with CKGSB (http://english.ckgsb.edu.cn/), a dynamic business school from Beijing. As a result, two of our ICPs will have mixed teams, consisting of three IMD students and three CKGSB students. Moreover, one of the projects will take place entirely on Chinese soil for the whole five weeks – tune in on 25^th of October to hear more from them.

My team, on the other hand, was lucky to host three amazing fellow MBAs from CKGSB for a project on Swiss soil. Arete, Michael and Songchun joined us two weeks ago, and working with them is a blast – they helped us bring a fresh perspective to our day-to-day IMD life, they are extremely eager and enthusiastic, and the class as a whole tried to make them feel very welcome and at home.

We will work with a Swiss-based oil and gas company that has close ties to China to help it develop capabilities for rapid growth in coming years, and the first week has been supersonic. We have interviewed more than a dozen of people within a company  (with at least two dozens more scheduled), and numerous industry experts. Our diverse backgrounds allowed us to be very effective: my experience in oil and gas combined well with Hammad’s process consulting expertise and Joaquin’s experience with M&A and JVs. And all of that was amplified by our CKGSB colleagues’ understanding of unique challenges posed by being a subsidiary of a Chinese company. There are still a lot of long nights and busy weekends ahead, but we are also learnings, and we are looking forward to the next three weeks.

 

800 Women, 20 brave men and me in Prague!

​What a weekend! I got back from an interview in Munich mid-week and then off I went on the weekend to Prague to meet my wife for her bday! She was there from the start of the week working, organizing and participating in the WIN (Women’s International Networking) Global Leadership Conference 2013  ……..for all the excited partners coming to IMD next year – this is hope that you can keep yourself busy, work full time while making an impact like many of the partners at IMD do! J

There were a number of high profile women leaders from the corporate world including the MD of HP Norway, a minister from Iceland, Umran Beba (Senior VP HR at Pepsico) and a number of senior professors from global business schools, chief inspirational officers and leaders of top women’s NGO’s from across the world. Unfortunately, I did not have a chance to attend many of these sessions but from the conversations I had over the weekend with the participants and from attending the gala dinner, I heard how inspired and motivated the participants were…..WIN also provided scholarships to a number of participants to attend….I heard the story of a lady who travelled 10 hours on a bus from her home town in Africa to the closest city to get her visa to travel….another story of WIN donating cows to women in Africa to help them become financially independent and empower them…..I saw hard working volunteers from the age of 20 all the way till late 70’s all having dedicated a month and more to the organization of this event….the energy in the room was something else!

But what surprised me most was how my behavior changed as one of the only 5 men on a bus filled with inspirational women and how I felt (quite honestly) in the “minority” as I witnessed the gala dinner with 800 women around me…..yes, I know my single classmates are probably envious of me at this point….but seriously, it was a weird feeling…..I know I’m a generally confident and social person but it was interesting how dynamics had changed…..I was playing second fiddle to my wife I've done that before but I couldn’t help but think how my wife, my mother and women probably encountered this feeling at the corporate work place quite often….so is it not natural then for women to behave “differently” at the work environment? is it fair for people to expect similar behaviors if you are working in a heavily male dominated industry in some heavily male dominated work places of the world?! Yet, they come back day after day and deal with the realities of some corporate environments and continue to make an impact in most cases not just at work but also at home….I know I’ve always been one to look past these “gender” type of issues but the way I felt that day is a reality and the emotions are real and not simply “gender diversity” issues you can discount….maybe it’s just the weekend and feeling the magic of the conference or maybe it’s just IMD’s mindfulness playing out but nevertheless I felt the power in that room and in the drive, hopes, aspirations and strong ambitions of these powerful women and that my friends is 800 women, 20 brave men and me in a beautiful palace in Prague on a lovely Friday night feeling every bit of the magic and inspiration!

Life in the (job hunt) war zone…

​It’s been one overwhelming month or phase at IMD for most of us ….on one hand we are knee deep into ICP 2 with the industry analysis, client meetings, travels as far as Chile and China while on the other hand we are dealing with interviews, preparation, networking, job search and the pleasures of living life on the edge or life in the job-hunt war zone J

On a given day our emotions can go from super-elated upon hearing that we have been shortlisted to an interview with one of our top preferences to uber-upset for having either received some bad news about a prospective company or gone through a bad interview, etc…and then every time the phone rings you are hoping it’s that call from your favorite company telling you that you have advanced to the next stage in the process……but it’s not always the case and hopefully most of the time it is……

What helps me get through it all is the amazing support of my partner, family, friends and my classmates…you can’t always expect the best news but I can always expect my people to be there for me and tell me how super amazing I am and even though I know it’s not true…every once in a while I let them convince me and I take relief in knowing that at least outside this job search war zone, there also exists another world and another reality and I’m glad I have these special, important and considerate people in that reality to pick me up and support me when the war zone wears me down and they stand by close to motivate me to shake off the bad news and steadily and strongly move on to the next challenge…

But indeed like my fellow blogger said, this is also very much part of the learning….it’s great to ride the waves but there are days when it’s tough to get up, shake it off and get back in the war zone….and that's also part of this great learning journey....but for those days, thank god for the great people around us and thank god for beer! :- )

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