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FROM Kellogg MBA Blog: Kellogg pathway among ‘most innovative b-school ideas’ |
As the calendar turned to 2016, Poets & Quants took a look back at what the website considered “The most innovative business school ideas of 2015.” The first item on the list: Kellogg’s growth and scaling curriculum. From Poets & Quants: Arguably the ultimate general management challenge, achieving growth has certainly been a part of every business school’s core and elective MBA curriculum. But this year Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management carved out an unusual and highly innovative niche in the growth and scaling space from both a curricular and thought leadership perspective. The school has rolled out seven different courses on the topic since the spring of 2014 and also is considering a capstone course or experience to what it calls a “pathway,” or set of cohesive courses that help students develop a specific set of skills. Developing the initiative has turned the more typical way courses are developed at a business school on its head. For years, academics in narrow disciplines largely constructed theories of business education in the abstract, hoping that their outcomes would eventually line up with market needs. In crafting a curriculum around growth, Kellogg went to the market first, asked business leaders what challenges they faced, and came up with a series of courses to teach the required skills. The brainchild for carving out the growth specialty is a Kellogg strategy professor, Ben Jones, who also serves as faculty director of the school’s innovation and entrepreneurship initiative. Jones explains that the idea for it came out of engaging different leaders and alumni. “We heard a lot about the kinds of leaders people in the community are looking for and generally it was people who can take a business and grow it to the next level,” he says. Read the full Poets & Quants article. About the growth and scaling pathway Profitably growing and scaling businesses is a central challenge for business leaders. It reaches across all business functions and components, including strategy, operations, finance, marketing and organizations. The pathway emphasizes functional depth and experiential learning on these dynamic topics in management with applications to small- and middle-market enterprises. Learn more about the growth and scaling pathway. Filed under: Academics Tagged: experiential learning, Growth, growth and scaling, Innovation, pathway, Poets & Quants, scaling |
FROM Kellogg MBA Blog: Behind-the-scenes with San Francisco startups |
Over Thanksgiving break this year, I helped lead a group of 15 Kellogg MBA students to visit eight startup companies in San Francisco: Zenefits, NerdWallet, StitchFix, Dropbox, HotelTonight, DoubleDutch, ToutApp and Instacart. The trip was a way for us to learn about the well-known Silicon Valley startup culture, network with employers and squeeze in sightseeing of a city many students had never visited. Raised in the Bay Area and having worked in San Francisco for the previous six years, I thought I knew what to expect from the meetings we set up. I expected — and did hear — terms like: 10x thinking, challenge conventional wisdom, no competition, industry disruption and Ride Together Die Together (seriously). But there were also themes that surprised me. Here are a few: Value of an MBA Before going to business school, I read countless articles about whether to get an MBA before joining a startup. Many said the best route is to dive right into a startup and “learn by doing.” Thus, I was surprised to hear that almost all the startups we visited were actively hiring MBAs. In fact, many of the executives we met with also came from the consulting industry. We were told the demand for MBA talent stems from the need for “consumer IQ,” as well as an operational mindset, and the ability to think strategically, analyze data and motivate team members. Relentless focus on the customer Every company we met with was aggressively focused on the customer, which reminds me of the first thing I learned in my core marketing class: If you don’t know the answer, ask the customer. DoubleDutch co-founder and CEO Lawrence Coburn discussed his difficult, yet keen decision early on to do one thing really well and focus on that. It would be impossible and expensive to serve multiple markets well. Likewise, he advised that future founders document values early. This was refreshing to hear at a time when the tech industry has received bad PR regarding privacy, data collection and gender discrimination. The focus on values resonates with today’s consumers who are more concerned than ever with corporate social responsibility. For example, HotelTonight doesn’t collect any data it doesn’t need. And NerdWallet CEO Tim Chen recalled sacrificing short-term profits from Google Ads for long-term growth and brand equity. Big company experience is good I thought startups would value other startup experience, but it turns out they value big company experience just as much. At StitchFix, a personalized styling platform for women, the executives previously worked at companies like Gap, Old Navy, Macy’s and Sephora. ToutApp recently hired Frank Swain, the former VP of Sales at AppDynamics and Splunk, as Chief Revenue Officer to take the company to the next level. The rationale was that you get formal training at big companies, while at startups you get on the job training with the need for resourcefulness and a sense of urgency. Here is some other advice we received: On company fit:
Learn more about experiential learning opportunities at Kellogg. ToutApp wrote a blog piece about our visit. Read their post. Luke Murphy is a first-year MBA candidate at. He previously was Director of Business Development at Nasdaq in San Francisco, helping private companies set processes to grow efficiently and transition to the public markets. Luke received his B.A. in history from the University of Southern California. Filed under: Academics, Career, Student Life Tagged: career treks, entrepreneurship, experiential learning, Innovation, networking, Startups, technology |
FROM Kellogg MBA Blog: Behind the scenes with San Francisco startups |
Over Thanksgiving break this year, I helped lead a group of 15 Kellogg MBA students to visit eight startup companies in San Francisco: Zenefits, NerdWallet, StitchFix, Dropbox, HotelTonight, DoubleDutch, ToutApp and Instacart. The trip was a way for us to learn about the well-known Silicon Valley startup culture, network with employers and squeeze in sightseeing of a city many students had never visited. Raised in the Bay Area and having worked in San Francisco for the previous six years, I thought I knew what to expect from the meetings we set up. I expected — and did hear — terms like: 10x thinking, challenge conventional wisdom, no competition, industry disruption and Ride Together Die Together (seriously). But there were also themes that surprised me. Here are a few: Value of an MBA Before going to business school, I read countless articles about whether to get an MBA before joining a startup. Many said the best route is to dive right into a startup and “learn by doing.” Thus, I was surprised to hear that almost all the startups we visited were actively hiring MBAs. In fact, many of the executives we met with also came from the consulting industry. We were told the demand for MBA talent stems from the need for “consumer IQ,” as well as an operational mindset, and the ability to think strategically, analyze data and motivate team members. Relentless focus on the customer Every company we met with was aggressively focused on the customer, which reminds me of the first thing I learned in my core marketing class: If you don’t know the answer, ask the customer. DoubleDutch co-founder and CEO Lawrence Coburn discussed his difficult, yet keen decision early on to do one thing really well and focus on that. It would be impossible and expensive to serve multiple markets well. Likewise, he advised that future founders document values early. This was refreshing to hear at a time when the tech industry has received bad PR regarding privacy, data collection and gender discrimination. The focus on values resonates with today’s consumers who are more concerned than ever with corporate social responsibility. For example, HotelTonight doesn’t collect any data it doesn’t need. And NerdWallet CEO Tim Chen recalled sacrificing short-term profits from Google Ads for long-term growth and brand equity. Big company experience is good I thought startups would value other startup experience, but it turns out they value big company experience just as much. At StitchFix, a personalized styling platform for women, the executives previously worked at companies like Gap, Old Navy, Macy’s and Sephora. ToutApp recently hired Frank Swain, the former VP of Sales at AppDynamics and Splunk, as Chief Revenue Officer to take the company to the next level. The rationale was that you get formal training at big companies, while at startups you get on the job training with the need for resourcefulness and a sense of urgency. Here is some other advice we received: On company fit:
Learn more about experiential learning opportunities at Kellogg. ToutApp wrote a blog piece about our visit. Read their post. Luke Murphy is a first-year MBA candidate at Kellogg. He previously was Director of Business Development at Nasdaq in San Francisco, helping private companies set processes to grow efficiently and transition to the public markets. Luke received his B.A. in history from the University of Southern California. Filed under: Academics, Career, Student Life Tagged: career treks, entrepreneurship, experiential learning, Innovation, networking, Startups, technology |
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