Posts Tagged ‘case method#8217;

Con intención de dar a conocer la metodología aquí desarrollada, IE Business School realiza una “Master class” todos los meses para que aquellos interesados en el International MBA y MBA Part-time tengan la oportunidad de vivir lo que es una clase dentro de nuestra escuela.

Este jueves 12 de mayo, el profesor José Ignacio Gafo, Marketing Manager en Vodafone, experto en marketing internacional y desarrollo de negocio, trató el caso Starbucks Coffee.

Además, tuvimos la oportunidad de contar con la intervención de la Directora de Marketing en España y Portugal de Starbucks Coffee, Beatriz Navarro, la cual nos habló de la empresa desde su perspectiva.

Para conocer más acerca de la metodología, picha aquí.

Click here to read about our methodology.

 Richard Barnard current student of the International MBA program – Class of 2010 describes his experience during examweek in the second core period:

We are midway through our second exam week of the International MBA programme and this period, Core 2, has flown by. Regarded as the busiest term and often the most testing in terms of time, team and workload management, it has proven to be struggle at times but overall we’ve pulled through and are now heads-down, charging for the finish line.

Core period 2’s difficulties lie in the fact that we’ve had to manage 3 work groups: our Core Period 2 work group, entrepreneurial management group and also the Core Period 1 work group which we’ve used for the Economics and Marketing projects (the subjects that straddle Core Periods 1 and 2). Finding the time to commit to each of these teams has been hard and conflicts have naturally arisen. However, we were advised that Core Period 2 would produce ‘crunch’ situations and thus we were prepared.

There have been some major deliverables this term; memorable moments have included the final entrepreneurial management project presentations, carrying out questionnaires on the streets of Madrid for our marketing assignment, and revising for the subject that has given us all nightmares, cost accounting.

Inevitably the groups experienced moments of blowout, but thankfully all issues were resolvable and the mood within my section is positive, looking forward to clearing the exams, enjoying a few days well-earned break and then cracking on with Core Period 3 or, for the minority, embarking on an internship (IMBA in Practice).

Once the exams are over IE has granted us all 3 days holiday to fly to Paris and attend the annual MBAT (MBA Tournament) Europe’s largest annual MBA sporting/ social event, or to just relax and recuperate on a Spanish beach. I’m taking the first option, flying to Paris to represent IE at cricket and dodgeball, am presuming the skills required are vaguely compatible … run, catch and throw!

The past few weeks have seen blue skies, long sunny days and rising temperatures, the weather we all came to Spain for. With temperatures rising to the high 20’s centigrade, the parks and plazas are now filled with people chatting, drinking and eating long into the balmy evenings, and the prospects of a long hot Spanish summer await us all … happy days!

For the last 30 years EFMD has been organizing Case Writing Competitions with the aim to improve management education by developing new teaching materials and learning methodologies. This year IE Business School won the “Euro – Mediterranean Managerial Practices and Issues” category for the case “Novartis, Commercial Strategy for Success” written by professors Claire Bastien and Teresa Serra.

According to EFMD this year’s competition was a great success breaking the record in the number of submissions received. Education institutions across the globe can use these cases for teaching purposes, at IE Business School we take a practical approach to teaching focusing on the case methodology.

To learn more about the EFMD Case Competition click here.

IE Consulting Club in association with Accenture and Cemex are hosting the “IE Management Consulting Forum 2011″. The forum will be held this afternoon at 4pm and Saturday 9th of April. The event will include presentations, case workshops and discussion panels involving senior business leaders sharing their opinions on different topics in businss.

For more information about the IE Consulting Day click here.

Chad Dixon, graduate of the International MBA program, class of 2009, was interviewed by TopMBA.com to share his professional experience post MBA.

Chad is employed by Calderys, a refractory solutions company that offers services to a broad range of industrial sectors. He was  able to secure a position combining both his favorite interests: finance and leadership. He explains the importance that the program played in helping him to achieve this  position:

“As an MBA student I was forced to develop positions on topics, under a wide range of scenarios, and quickly. An intense 15-month MBA helped me develop a certain tact, or even confidence, to move through any unknown territory I encounter.”

For the complete article please click here.

Richard Barnard current student of the International MBA program – Class of 2010 describes his experience just as Core Period 2 starts:

Core Period 2 is now upon us and it brings a variety of new challenges for the IMBA students to overcome.

The majority of our Core Period 1 classes are now completed, only Managerial Economics, Marketing Fundamentals and Entrepreneurial Management straddle Periods 1 and 2. These 3 subjects have been joined by Cost Accounting, Financial Management, Strategic Management, Operations Management and a non-examined course entitled Creative Management Thinking.

As we were advised at the start of the IMBA programme, Period 2 is where the “crunch” occurs, where the workload skyrockets and the students’ ability to prioritize and manage multiple projects is put fully to the test.

To provide an additional challenge we also change workgroups at the start of Period 2. This forces us to apply all that we learned from the positive and negative experiences of group work in Period 1 to immediate effect, as the deadlines for Period 2 projects start immediately and continue throughout the term.

The key skill we are all developing is how to perform effectively rather than just efficiently. Within the limited time we have outside of classes, workgroups meetings, applying for internships and attending business school organized industry seminars we must develop the ability to absorb, analyze and apply the content as effectively as possible. It puts you to the test.

Term 2 is an examination we are embracing thus far. The pain of the workload is undoubtedly eased by the fun we have when we take a deserved break from our studies. The country-themed dinners are proving popular and with St. Patrick’s Day and the 150^th anniversary of Italy’s unification on the same day next week we are ensured of good times ahead. See you all on the dancefloor!

IE Business School is recognized by numerous leading journals and magazines as being a leader in online methodology. In fact, Poets and Quants recently published an article commending IE’s online methodology.  

At IE Business School, Online Methodology is used in a number of our programs, including the full-time International MBA program. In addition to classroom based learning, International MBA students learn using multimedia applications and online business materials like multimedia case studies, simulations, online games and interactive graphs and exercises.  We feel that incorporating online methodology in our program gives our students a more well-rounded education and helps to prepare them more thoroughly for today’s business world, where being a successful leader requires the ability to be comfortable with a variety of online tools.

The Multimedia Department at IE works closely with professors and e-learning experts to constantly  create new material. Check out some of our online material and see how multimedia technology will help you to gain management skills and competences needed in the 21^st century!

Richard Barnard– Current student of the International MBA program Class of 2010 and Fellow student at IE Business School, writes again about his experience.

For the International MBA (IMBA) class of 2011 academic classes have now commenced and the workload pressure is building. In Term 1 our classes span the topics of: financial accounting, entrepreneurial management, information systems, organizational behavior, marketing fundamentals, managerial economics, quantitative analysis and social responsibility.

A key factor in the first 10 days of classes has been getting to know my work group colleagues. On the IMBA program at IE Business School learning is facilitated through the case study methodology, with work tasks (assignments, exercises, projects, presentations) completed by small work groups of on average 7 students. Binding the disparate individuals that form these work groups is a challenging endeavor for the new IMBA students, but one they must all achieve well if they are to succeed in the IMBA program, as the majority of the grade for each subject is assigned for group work deliverables.

IE Business School prides itself rightly on the diversity of the IMBA student demographic. IE’s IMBA staff team select which students are assigned to each work group based on the criteria of creating as diverse, interesting and positive a working environment as possible for the students. This results in multi-national work groups with individuals from all sectors.

For example, my work group includes colleagues from Japan, Colombia, UK, India, Guatemala and the USA, with experience in sectors as varied as agriculture, real estate, consulting, pharmaceuticals, market research and education.

We all want to succeed, we all want to excel, but to achieve this we must find the means to translate our skills and knowledge from the individual context to the group platform. As individuals we must cooperate to define and develop the team dynamic in order to attain results.

I am describing a classic team-management challenge and this is where the work group situation provides IMBA students with a tangible management task. To achieve our personal and group goals we must manage the attributes of the members to build a team that exceeds the sum of its individual parts. The work group environment is preparing the IMBA students for the cross-cultural professional environment that awaits them after the program.

The coming weeks will provide an exciting and rewarding professional challenge for us all.

 To know more about the International MBA program, click here.

At IE Business School almost all of the classes employ the case method to drive the learning experience, also some professors frequently use other techniques, such as role-playing, multimedia applications, and online business simulations.

IE classes are very dynamic, and are not abstract or focused on theory; instead students learn concepts, tools and theoretical foundations of management through the examination of real companies in the real world. An example of this is the learning experience of our current International MBA student, Parisa Louie, during the Information Systems class. “The class was taught by Enrique Dans who happens to be quite a public figure… a successful blogger with nearly 40.000 active readers and a public profile on facebook that is being followed by nearly 20.000 fans who actively post comments on his page.” Parisa explains.

The day of the exam, Parisa changed her own perceptions of a typical exam as she actually  ”had fun having an exam!!”  They had to analyze some questions about ”an online company that was set up by two MBA alumnus from IE Business School” and submit their answers through an innovative and dynamic way.  Parisa comments in her blog post “Day 45, an unusual exam…”

Read more about Parisa’s Watchfit Challenge blog.