The Executive MBA Experience. Analyzing Executive MBA Programs

Transcription

1 Executive MBA Guide

2 The Executive MBA Experience A comprehensive Executive MBA program includes courses focused on some functional disciplines of management as well as strategic and integrative courses that contribute to development of leadership skills and personal development, it is inappropriate to believe that the primary benefit or focus of an Executive MBA program is to simply equip managers with a set of technical skills. Since Executive MBA programs are targeted at mid-career managers and professionals, a well-designed EMBA experience includes two major design components. The experienced participants in Executive MBA programs typically bring advanced expertise in a specific field of management with them into the program. Many participants already hold mid-level or senior positions in functional areas of business such as finance, marketing, operations, IT, or HR. The common goal for these participants is to broaden their understanding of management beyond their familiar disciplines. For this reason, one aspect of a well-designed Executive MBA program is to provide a broad and integrated foundation across the disciplines of management. Given the established roles and positions typical of participants, the second design component of Executive MBA programs is to develop advanced leadership skills. This is actually what distinguishes the Executive MBA from other paths to an MBA degree: the focus on leadership that is aimed to prepare mid-career managers for senior and general management roles. A well-designed Executive MBA program will not only have courses specifically on the topic of leadership, but also include related topics such as communication, team management, change management, strategy, and personal development. Analyzing Executive MBA Programs The complexity of analyzing different Executive MBA programs can be simplified by considering three basic aspects of any program: inputs, process, and outcomes. As you consider these characteristics, you should put them in the context of what would make the greatest contribution to your Executive MBA experience and lead to the greatest benefits for you and your employer. Inputs: You want the Executive MBA program you join to attract high-quality, experienced managers from diverse backgrounds with respect to functions, industries, and regions. This is very important because one of the wonderful opportunities in an Executive MBA is peer-to-peer learning. Business schools that are committed to the excellence of their Executive MBA programs understand the importance of their admissions standards and the role of peer-to-peer learning in the experience of their students. Process: There are two elements to the process of an Executive MBA experience that you should analyze: academic and logistic. With respect to the latter, anyone considering an Executive MBA program must identify the option that offers a schedule and geographic location(s) that make sense with respect to his or her job and family commitments. There is no such thing as a generally better or worse schedule or geographic location - only the ideal schedule and location for you. With respect to the academic process, you should certainly have your priorities in place when analyzing Executive MBA options. Well-designed Executive MBA programs will have professors, learning methods, a curriculum, and facilities that are selected with the specific needs of Executive MBA participants in mind. These are different than the needs of undergraduate students or even full-time MBA program participants.

3 You should ask the following questions about any Executive MBA program you are considering with respect to the academics: What are the backgrounds, experience, and credentials of the faculty who teach in the program (e.g., where did they study and earn their degrees; what organizational experience do they have outside of an academic setting; how long have they been teaching in an executive education setting)? What are the learning methods used in the courses (e.g., what portion of courses use lectures / case study / simulations)? What is the design of the curriculum (e.g., is there a broad an integrated foundation across the disciplines of management; is there an appropriate focus on leadership skills; how well does the curriculum match my needs with respect to the skills I need to advance my career)? In what sort of setting / facilities do classes take place (e.g., is the facility designed for executive / interactive learning; is the setting appropriate to facilitate a focus on learning and networking)? Some further consideration with respect to learning methods is important. A very effective learning method used extensively by the world s leading business schools is called the case method. The case method requires students to prepare an analysis of a real business situation that is focused on the application of specific managerial tools and concepts. The classroom experience using the case method requires professors to facilitate a class discussion rather than simply lecture to the class. The case method is interactive and creates an opportunity for peer-to-peer learning that is not possible in a traditional lecture approach. This should be of particular interest to anyone considering an Executive MBA program because part of the value proposition for this path to the MBA degree is peer-to-peer learning. In many business programs, however, the professors are more familiar with teaching undergraduates rather than experienced managers and professionals and, as a result, utilize lectures rather than facilitate class discussions. This is a characteristic of the academic process that you should investigate fully. If you wish to highlight and reinforce the benefits of peer-to-peer learning in your case for sponsorship then selecting an Executive MBA program that makes extensive use of this learning method is critical.

4 Price vs. Value of an EMBA Program Ask anyone who has earned an MBA degree what the first question asked when his or her MBA comes up in conversation and you will almost always hear the same thing: Where? Before anyone asks when you earned your MBA degree or what you studied in your MBA, they want to know where you earned your MBA. The reason for this well-established pattern is obvious: the answer to the Where? question alone speaks volumes about the quality of an MBA program and its graduates. Many candidates looking at choosing between Executive MBA (EMBA) programs bring a long list of criteria with them to that selection process. Because participants in EMBA programs continue to work and advance their careers while enrolled in the program, the schedule, location, and related logistics of an EMBA program have to mesh with work and family requirements. These are important considerations that have to be part of the selection process. Another criterion in the selection process can be the cost of an EMBA program. Financial constraints are real and have to be accommodated. However, in life and in EMBA programs we typically get what we pay for. In other words, EMBA programs with very low tuition fees may be missing design elements that programs with higher fees can include. In fact, it is the quality of these design elements that create the positive and desired impact when a graduate answers the inevitable Where? question describing his or her EMBA experience. The quality of the faculty, the breadth of the learning materials, and the environment in which the learning process takes place all contribute to the quality of the EMBA experience. Candidates for EMBA programs should carefully weight the trade-offs between programs with low fees (and lower quality features) and those with higher fees but invest those fees in the program quality. Not all EMBA programs are of equivalent quality and employers know that. Candidates selecting between EMBA programs should consider how their career prospects and return on investment will fare if they simply select the lowest price EMBA rather than the highest quality EMBA. That analysis should also take into account how the right EMBA experience can create a new career trajectory that may provide benefits for decades. EMBA Trends Executive MBA (EMBA) programs are target at experienced managers and professionals who wish to earn an MBA degree while continuing to advance their established careers. There are two key trends affecting the design of the leading EMBA programs today. First, since EMBA programs are designed to help prepare mid-career managers for more senior roles in their organizations, increasing emphasis and development is being devoted to the topic of leadership in the design of EMBA programs. While all well designed EMBA experiences should provide participants with a broad and integrated foundation across the disciplines of management (e.g., marketing, finance, operations, accounting), the distinguishing feature of EMBA programs is their emphasis on developing the soft skills in participants (e.g., lleadership, change management, communications) as it is the mastery of these topics that will allow a manager to advance into the higher levels of an organization. New research in leadership has led to new insights on the specific skills and approaches that effective leaders must apply. For this reason, the continuing re-examination of the leadership thread in EMBA curricula is an on-going opportunity for continuous improvement. The second major trend in the design of EMBA programs is a growing emphasis on innovation. Increasingly, organizations and their leaders are recognizing that the fast-paced world of business requires constant focus on innovative - and possibly even disruptive - products and services. As we see around us daily, the application of technology has created new pathways to bring innovation to every aspect of business from internal processes to new categories of consumer products. This focus on understanding how to create the environment that permits and encourages innovation is something that leading business schools around the world have been busy incorporating in EMBA program curricula.

5 EMBA Rankings The ranking universities and their programs - typically by magazines, newspapers, and similar publications - has been around for decades. The ranking of MBA and Executive MBA (EMBA) programs has always attracted particular attention. Many high-profile business publications have created rankings for business programs. For example, Businessweek, The Financial Times, The Economist, and US News, all publish MBA rankings today. The typical approach adopted by these publications in creating a ranking is to measure a broad set of characteristics of MBA and EMBA programs and then somehow add these components together to create a composite, or summary, score. The set of characteristics selected by a publication could be short or comprehensive, and might cover topics such as the nature of the students admitted (e.g., average GMAT score, average undergraduate GPA, years of full-time work experience, international diversity of the admitted class), characteristics of the program (e.g., the selectivity of the admissions process, the research output of the faculty), and the outcomes experienced by the graduates (e.g., average salary increase, time to first post-graduate job offer). Of course, every publication that creates an MBA or EMBA ranking will choose their own set of criteria and the associated weights applied to each to create a composite score. The composite scores are then used to create the rankings. While the publications all try to justify the rationale for their selection of criteria and construction of composite scores, they each make different choices and, not surprisingly, end up with different rankings. The end result is that anyone wishing to learn more about EMBA programs and compare choices between schools are left with confusing and inconsistent advice from these otherwise reputable business publications. There are several problems for anyone trying to use published EMBA rankings to help select between programs, but two are most important. First, most publications offer simply a ranking rather than the actual composite scores so it becomes difficult to understand just how similar or different programs really are. Second, the assembly and weighting of the criteria that go into the composite scores are, ultimately, arbitrary and may not reflect the goals and interests of everyone researching EMBA programs. The best way anyone interested in learning more about EMBA programs should go about that process is to begin with a clear set of one s priorities and goals. By identifying what is personally important for any EMBA experience, a candidate can create his or her own ranking criteria and identify the program best suited to reaching these goals.

6 On-site vs. On-line (or Blended) EMBA Programs Participants in Executive MBA (EMBA) programs have placed themselves in a demanding position: dedicate the time necessary to earn an MBA degree while continuing to meet responsibilities at work and at home. There are a number of resources that EMBA participants can bring to bear to meet this challenge. For example, work colleagues and family members can make a much-appreciated contribution by being sensitive to these time demands. Still, there are limits to the accommodations one can receive so it is necessary to identify an EMBA program that can mesh with the other responsibilities in a participant s life. A key characteristic that can be used to distinguish EMBA programs is the time that each requires participants to be in a classroom setting. The more time in this traditional learning environment, the more natural and familiar the learning process. Still, the more time spent in a classroom the less time available for other commitments and responsibilities at work and at home. In recent years, some schools have introduced technology-facilitated elements into their EMBA programs in order to provide participants more flexibility in meeting all of the demands on their time. In some cases, this has taken the form of blended programs (i.e., part on-site in a classroom, part online), and in other cases some schools have chosen to offer 100% on-line programs. While web-based courses have been offered on the Internet for many years, there has been rapid growth in the number and variety of these offerings over the past 2-3 years. In selecting between EMBA program formats, candidates have to carefully understand both the demands on their time as well as their preferred learning setting. For some, the appeal of a blended or fully on-line format is quite compelling because of the flexibility these formats may offer. Nonetheless, selecting a format is an important decision that cannot be shaped by logistics alone. For candidates who have never studies in an on-line format before, adopting to this format and achieving the desired level of learning effectiveness are very difficult to determine in advance. Any EMBA candidate considering a blended or fully on-line program format in order to provide more time flexibility must really invest the time and effort necessary to experience and evaluate technology-facilitated learning before jumping into this format for an EMBA. Luckily, there are a number of ways that the on-line learning environment can be sampled, such as Massive On-line Open Courses (MOOC s) and other short, free, on-line courses. Many EMBA programs that include on-line components offer means to experience, or sample, this learning format in advance. Candidates should take full of these resources to make the right choice. HIGHLIGHTS OF THE IEDC S EXECUTIVE MBA PROGRAM Not all Executive MBA programs are of equivalent quality and employers know that. Candidates selecting between MBA programs consider how the Executive MBA will influence their career development and what would be the return on investment. IEDC-Bled School of Management, Slovenia, described as One of the leading innovators in business education in Central and Eastern Europe, by The Financial Times, a good choice?

7 For three decades, IEDC has been the leading business school in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), where managers and leaders from all around the world come to learn and reflect. Among all the participants, 80 % come from abroad, meaning, that in every MBA class at least 15 countries are represented. IEDC s Executive MBA program has truly international and diverse faculty and student body. It also offers a strong alumni network and established reputation for excellence as supported by the ranking as one of the four most innovative MBA programs worldwide (Ranking of Association of MBAs - AMBA). IEDC s Executive MBA programs are all internationally accredited by AMBA (Association of MBAs), IQA(International Quality Accreditation), and as a specialized master s degree according to the Bologna declaration. Its executive education programs are widely recognized as among the best in Europe. From a business perspective, what is the most significant differentiator is that IEDC s program will allow participants to experience different cultures, engage in rigorous learning process, learn from a diverse student body, and meet business leaders from a variety of companies from all around the world. The Executive MBA at IEDC stands for: 1. EXCEPTIONAL LEARNING PROCESS Bringing together esteemed professors from the best business schools in the world, such as: IMD, Lausanne (Switzerland), Exeter University (UK), Babson College (USA), University of Cambridge (UK), McGill University in Montreal (Canada), IESE (Spain),etc. and the most promising managers, IEDC creates a learning process that stretches the mind, expands your leadership repertoire, and changes the quality of decision-making. 2. INNOVATIVE CURRICULUM In 2012, Executive MBA Program of IEDC was awarded by the Association of MBAs (AMBA) as one of the four most innovative MBA programs in the world. Whether it is the Arts and Leadership, Business in Society, the Sustainability for Strategic Advantage course, or one-on-one mentorship with experienced business leaders, you are guaranteed a cutting-edge curriculum celebrated for its innovation and impact. 3. VIEW FROM THE TOP The EMBA at IEDC helps you to see a big picture and to connect the dots across core management disciplines, develop capacity to deal with emerging opportunities, and prepare you to lead and inspire in an era of massive challenges.

8 4. A LIFE-CHANGING PERSONAL EXPERIENCE At IEDC, every program element is designed to help you in this demanding journey of self transformation. During the program, you will interact with classmates who have combined work experience of more than 500 years. Your faculty bring another 500 years of related experience as management educators and consultants. IEDC leverages fully on these experience levels in our approach to learning 5. TRANSLATING GLOBAL INTO REGIONAL Excellence in management is universal. Yet, it takes a special effort to adopt the best global knowledge to the unique realities of a particular region. Whether you are joining us from Austria, Denmark, South Africa, or Canada, IEDC makes sure that nothing gets lost in translation or loses relevance for your experience. 6. A NETWORK FOR LIFE Spending 17 intense weeks in the company of accomplished managers and leading scholars marks only the beginning of relationships that last a lifetime. An alumni network of over 80,000 executives from more than 85 countries awaits you at graduation. 7. FULL COMMITMENT TO YOU We believe that executive development is a process of transformation, both professional and personal. To make this change happen, the learning process is personalized for every participant based on your individual development needs. Project work is a cornerstone of IEDC s Executive MBA Programs and plays an important role in the learning process. As a part of the Executive MBA Program, the participants will work in teams as consultants to the top management of selected client organizations, providing real value to them. The objectives of this project work are to enhance the practical side of the learning process, to internalize managerial concepts, and to develop creative and applicable solutions. Applying recently-acquired management concepts and skills the participants will conduct the project in several stages with the ultimate goal of providing an applicable solution to the organization. Since 1991, more than 1,270 managers have been represented in IEDC s Executive MBA programs. The survey among alumni, conveyed in 2014, shows: 40 % of IEDC Alumni have moved from middle to top management after finishing EMBA at IEDC; 68 % of IEDC Alumni received promotion during or after finishing Executive MBA at IEDC, 2-times on average; 74 % of IEDC Alumni reported salary increase after finishing EMBA at IEDC. 85% IEDC Alumni are more Confident Executive MBA participants also have a unique opportunity to join other executives from across the globe. There is on open exchange with IEEM Business School of the Universidad de Montevideo in Uruguay as well as the annual global initiative International Roundtables for Experienced Managers, where the program features faculty from around the world including the one of the world s leading management thinkers Prof. Henry Mintzberg. The participants can produce a return on your investment well beyond the cost of the program, and are highly motivated to get as much from the real-life learning experience as possible.

9 COMPANY BENEFITS In this section, you need to focus on the employer and not yourself. Provide information on your current position, tasks and challenges you have and goals for the future. Present how studying for the Executive MBA at IEDC will help you to achieve these goals, and how this will benefit to your company. For example, one entering Executive MBA student assumed a new role as a regional director in the company, supervising more than 500 people across 4 markets in marketing and sales. He had about 15 years of work experience, and his background was in technical science. The management board expected him to have a strong leadership and strategic perspective in his role. In his business case, he argued that MBA would provide him with the knowledge and skills to lead the teams across the region and reveal the latest trends and best practices in his field of expertise. He would also got a thorough knowledge of finance and financial accounting, which would help him to make sound financial decisions, which affect the success and profit of the company. He received financial support from his employer after agreeing that he would stay in his role for at least 4 years. Some students are sponsored for the Executive MBA study because of the company s succession planning. Being fully aware that it takes a significant effort to get your employer on your side, we have summarized for you some of the benefits of our Executive MBA program, both for your company and for you that you can use as a big part of your arguments. Here are a few other rationales used to explain how studying for an EMBA at IEDC creates value for your employer: High-quality rigorous and practice-oriented curriculum, allowing you to immediately implement freshly acquired knowledge and skills; the latest insights into the best business practices and overview of the business field development. High relevance of program content to your company needs: emphasis on strategic management, indepth coverage of functional courses such as Accounting, Finance, Marketing, Operations, IT management, Business Ethics and CSR and a good balance between knowledge acquisition and soft skills development. IEDC EMBA equips you with a helicopter view of business and makes your decision-making sharper and better; your education is contributing to your high commitment, motivation and drive. Your company gets an employee who is capable to identify and solve problems using critical and creative thinking, able to collect, analyze and critically evaluate information, as well as work effectively and efficiently with others as a member of a team; communicate clearly and efficiently orally and in writing. Able to see the environment as set of interconnected systems. A responsible and self-organized individual able to use technology and resources available efficiently. IEDC EMBA will provide you with knowledge, tools and skills to shape powerful ideas into competitive solutions for your company; learning from peers from around the world brings new insights, ideas and experiences that is an added value to your education. Ensuring your company support opportunity to bring company issues for discussion and scrutiny in the safe environment of the classroom; a mentorship program contributing to your personal and professional growth, as well as your network; a very reasonable tuition price and low expenses related to very high quality studies. Programs to accessing the partner and alumni network of the school. Your employer might be aware of different educational providers in the region, a comparison of such offers and competitor s educational policies might serve as an additional argument for your case.

10 LOGISTIC Program timeline The Programs lasts for seventeen residential weeks at the IEDC-Bled School of Management, and is structured in a series of modules. The modular approach enables participants to join the Executive MBA without leaving their job, but does require presence in Bled for the time of study modules. It allows them to implement their knowledge and skills in their companies between modules. IEDC Executive MBA Programs allow participants to receive a Bologna Master Degree by completing Executive MBA study in one-, two-year or a three-year s time. The difference between the one-year and the two-year program is in duration of modules only. Moreover, with a three-year MBA the participants are able to structure their own schedules. Schedule of Classes Schedule for the one-year Executive MBA Study in 2017: Module I: February 5 March 11 Module II: May 8 June 10 Module III. September 4 September 30 Module IV: November 20 December 8 Graduation: December 8, 2017 Schedule for the two-year Executive MBA Study in : 2017: Mod I: Feb 5 Feb 25 (3 weeks) Mod II: May 8 May 27 (3 weeks) Mod III: Sep 4 Sep 16 (2 weeks) 2018: Mod IV: Mar 5 Mar 17 (2 weeks) Mod V: May 28 Jun 9 (2 weeks) Mod VI: Sept 17 Sept 29 (2 weeks) Mod VII: Nov 19 Dec 7 (3 weeks) Graduation: December 7, 2018 Schedule for the three-year Executive MBA: Individually designed curriculum Tuition Fees One-year Executive MBA: 23,000 EUR. Two-year Executive MBA 28,000 EUR. Three-year Executive MBA: 34,000 EUR.