| Last visit was: 23 Apr 2024, 16:17 |
It is currently 23 Apr 2024, 16:17 |
Customized
for You
Track
Your Progress
Practice
Pays
30 Apr 2020, 07:01
| FROM Owen Press Releases: VUMC Shifts Surgical Referral Strategy with Help from MMHC Capstone Team |
|
Industry leaders like Vanderbilt University Medical Center know that creating business efficiencies in the healthcare setting helps their institutions thrive while serving their mission of helping patients. That’s why VUMC approached the Master of Management in Health Care (MMHC) program for help with creating a strategy to grow its surgical practice 20 percent in the next five years. The surgical practice was selected as one of the MMHC cohort’s capstone projects. From January through the end of the program in the fall, students work in teams of 4-5 people on projects for healthcare organizations, from ideation to implementation. The capstone gives students the opportunity to apply their classroom knowledge to the real world, while healthcare organizations benefit from student’s perspectives and consulting recommendations. “VUMC needed to know the data at hand and what types of decisions had to be made to get them to their goal,” explained Aaron Hart, senior manager of operations and analytics at VUMC and one of the capstone project’s team members. The capstone team — Hart, Geoffrey Fleming, Molly Olenick, Victoria Price, and Adrienne Bridges — dove into the project and began putting their newfound business knowledge to use. The Origins  Aaron Hart Growing a surgical practice, like growing any business, requires a defined marketing strategy. Although a physician liaison group existed within VUMC’s surgical practice to cultivate referrals, the group was housed under the patient experience arm and took a clinical approach to their work. “Tracking metrics and clearly defining how to prioritize what type of referral wasn’t something the physician liaison group had a lot of experience in,” Hart said. “Using those tactics to get our arms around the scope of how to meet VUMC’s growth goals was at the heart of the project.” To take a more strategic approach, the team needed to understand where most of their referrals were coming from and how referrals were being prioritized. These two questions led Hart and the capstone team to target data and benchmarking as their main pivot points. “Ultimately, whoever is making the decision about what referrals to prioritize is executing their growth strategy,” Hart said. “They needed data about what was working and an internal structure for how to make decisions, so they could direct growth deliberately.” The Project The capstone team split into two groups: figuring out data analytics and examining best practices for physician liaison groups. Fleming, a Vanderbilt pediatrics physician, and Hart took on the data. An initial review showed that while the organization gathered copious referral data, it was not being compiled into an actionable format. “Bringing all the information about where their visits were coming from and statistics on types of procedures into a single source will better equip the liaison team to know who to go see and what to talk about in the community,” Hart said. Hart and Fleming liaised with Vanderbilt’s enterprise analytics team to develop a dashboard containing information on patient demographics, referrals, procedures, and visit-to-procedure ratios.  Molly Olenick The benchmarking side of the capstone team included Olenick, an RN at VUMC; Price, a business manager at VUMC; and Bridges, of Excel Consultant Pharmacist Services. Their group modeled physician liaison groups at other organizations and developed booth job descriptions and a strategic overview of department organization, goals, and responsibilities from the director down to liaisons themselves. “We determined the need to restructure the physician liaison program by adopting a marketing-service approach,” Olenick said. “The proposed recommendations will allow leadership to monitor the program’s effectiveness, targeting specific departments, tracking liaison activities, and trending the outreach program that’s in place.” The capstone team also recommended that the physician liaison group create a centralized committee to be the decision-making body for the organization. With insights from their data gathered in a single place and clearly defined leadership, the group could target the specific markets and demographics with the highest potential for growth.  Geoffrey Fleming “We were able to make recommendations that reflected fundamental shifts from business as usual, as well as recommendations that made sense to the organizational leadership,” Fleming said. “We provided a frameshift approach that jibed with the organizational culture and values — always difficult to discern as a consultant.” Today, Vanderbilt’s physician liaison group has been moved under Vanderbilt’s marketing arm; it’s hiring multiple new liaisons and has a strategic plan, with deliverables reviewed yearly. Hart says he’s impressed to see the changes that the team’s work helped inspire. “At a place like Vanderbilt, you expect everything to be a well-oiled machine,” he said. “An organization as big as we are, as a leader, it was interesting to see how much room we had to improve every area of business. It’s eye-opening.” The post VUMC Shifts Surgical Referral Strategy with Help from MMHC Capstone Team appeared first on Vanderbilt Business School. |
04 May 2020, 09:01
| FROM Owen Press Releases: How to Choose a Grad School Without Visiting Campus |
Look up any list of tips for choosing a grad school, and “scheduling a campus visit” is likely to be one of the first suggestions. Unfortunately, campuses around the world have had to cancel all campus events, including tours for prospective students, due to the coronavirus pandemic. Many prospective grad school students now find themselves choosing between schools that they’re never seen in person. Cherrie Wilkerson “Students get specialized master’s degrees to launch their careers, and the wrong decision can eliminate opportunities for students,” said Cherrie Wilkerson, Assistant Dean for Young Professional Programs. If you find yourself in this situation, here are six things you do besides a campus visit to help you choose a grad school: Take a virtual tour. You can’t visit campus in person, but that doesn’t mean you can’t tour it at all. Most schools now have an official virtual tour of the campus at large, and some also have more in-depth tours of specific buildings, including the grad schools. (You can find the Vanderbilt tour here). If the school doesn’t offer one, Google Maps satellite view is a great back-up. While you’re at it, don’t forget to explore the surrounding city as well, as location can have a major impact on your quality of life in grad school. Browse the school’s media channels. Most grad schools have a lot of great content available online, either on their own website or on outside platforms. Some schools are more active on their social media platforms, while others run a thriving YouTube channel or have blogs dedicated to student voices or other topics. At Vanderbilt Business, we have an archive of news stories that covers everything from application advice to timelines showing how b-school graduates got their full-time offers. Set aside some time to browse the websites for each school you are considering and see what you can learn. Talk to current students. If you want to get a deeper understanding of the student experience at a particular school, the best way to find out is to talk to some actual students. An admissions counselor should be able to match you with students who align with your interests and demographics, whether that’s by gender, ethnicity, or the career you want to pursue. In fact, many schools have a dedicated group of students who specifically volunteer to act as liaisons to prospective applicants, so there should be plenty of people for you to talk to.  Bailey McChesney “Talking to current students will help bring the program to life when you can’t step foot on campus. Asking questions about the student’s interaction with their classmates and the feel of the classroom experience will allow you to picture the day-to-day within the program,” said Bailey McChesney, Senior Associate Director of MBA Admissions. Connect with alumni. For a fuller picture, you might also want to reach out to alumni (plus alumni won’t be dealing with the crush of final exams). Alumni are excellent resources for learning more about what the career trajectory looks like post-grad school. While they won’t be as close to the current student experience, they will be able to talk about how going to grad school helped them get to where they are today and what they wish they’d known when they were choosing between schools. Talk with professors If you want to know more about the curriculum and other academic opportunities, professors can provide a wealth of information. If there’s a particular concentration or discipline that you’re interested in, figure out which professors teach those classes and reach out to them. If you’re not sure where to start, your admissions officer, current students, or recent alumni will probably be able to connect you with the right people. Most professors are more than happy to talk with students about their areas of expertise, though do keep in mind that some of them might be swamped with exams right at the moment. “Faculty enjoy talking with students who share their research interests,” Wilkerson said. “To connect well with faculty, learn about their research and develop questions that will give you some common ground. Email them to start a conversation.” Attend any remote recruiting events. By now, most grad schools have shifted all their recruiting events online. Many of them have extended their deadlines or added additional application rounds, and are still hosting admissions webinars for prospective students. If you’re just now thinking about grad school, sign up for as many of these as possible to learn which schools could be a good fit for you. Grad schools have also transformed welcome events for admitted students into virtual programming as well, so if you’re already applied and been accepted, you should attend as many of these virtual events as possible to help you narrow down your options. “Since school is out for the summer and on campus visit opportunities are unavailable, seek out virtual opportunities. These will allow you to interact virtually with a career coach, current student, and the Recruiting and Admissions team,” McChesney advised. The post How to Choose a Grad School Without Visiting Campus appeared first on Vanderbilt Business School. |
07 May 2020, 10:01
| FROM Owen Press Releases: Why Are These 4 Reactions to COVID-19 So Common? |
 Kelly Goldsmith, Associate Professor of Marketing Ever since the coronavirus pandemic hit the U.S., consumers have seen a lack of items in the grocery stores: food, Clorox, toilet paper. People are buying in bulk because they are uncertain about the future. Kelly Goldsmith, Associate Professor of Marketing at Vanderbilt Business School, says these behaviors are rooted in both the economy and psychology. “People are making sure their own basic needs are taken care of. And unfortunately, there’s a lot of uncertainty around how much we need for our basic needs to be taken care of. And I think when you get consumers in that context, you do get a lot of this, quote, self-protective hoarding behavior,” she said. Goldsmith, whose research interests include scarcity and uncertainty, says that the coronavirus pandemic has caused four specific types of behavior to come to the forefront in different people — self interest, altruism, self protection, and maximization — and that each of these behaviors is tied to a very specific motivation. Self-Interested Behavior When people feel like their access to everyday items is threatened, they respond with self-interested behaviors. Goldsmith says this is a rational behavior because individual people are benefiting from trying to take care of themselves, although it comes at the expense of the community as a whole. This can be in the self-oriented behavior in the grocery stores and drugstores. “I don’t think people are malicious. I don’t think they’re trying to hurt their neighbors. I don’t think they’d be happier. It’s just that people want to secure their own health and safety first,” Goldsmith said. Altruism Although the pandemic has led to self-interested behaviors, it has also resulted in a lot of altruism. Healthcare providers have put their own health at risk by treating patients with the virus, and ordinary people have shown altruistic behaviors in their daily lives as well. “If you look on Twitter all over social media, people are doing things to keep each other engaged and entertained, and there’s plenty of heartwarming stories. And so I think, although we’re seeing evidence of selfish behavior in the grocery store and the drugstore, I think we’re also seeing plenty of evidence of the good side of people,” Goldsmith said. Self-Protective Behaviors Everyone is trying to compensate for coronavirus, and in some cases that can take maladaptive forms such as binge eating and marathoning Netflix all day. But Goldsmith says that the coping behaviors people turn to aren’t always negative. “We’ve seen behavior like people really trying hard to use this time to become their best selves — so learn a new instrument, learn a new language, chat with friends online, set up daily FaceTime with their parents,” she said. “So I definitely don’t think it’s all bad in terms of how consumers are responding to the threat that this pandemic poses.” Maximizing Mindset Goldsmith believes that when people eventually go back to work or find new jobs, they will adopt a maximizing mindset as they try to figure out how to get what is the best for themselves in their daily decisions. This phenomenon can lead to negative consequences. “It oftentimes will mean people are going to hold themselves to a very high standard — they’re going to try to be their best selves to get the best job. Sometimes that takes negative forms, right? Like you’re pushing other people out of the way, you might see more people cheating to try to get ahead. But that’s what happens. Unfortunately, that’s one of the negative consequences of scarcity,” she said. The post Why Are These 4 Reactions to COVID-19 So Common? appeared first on Vanderbilt Business School. |
11 May 2020, 08:01
| FROM Owen Press Releases: MAcc Class of 2020 Internship Reflections |
|
Every spring, students in the Vanderbilt Master of Accountancy (MAcc) program spend two months completing a paid internship with Big 4 accounting firms. The internship is a chance to apply their newfound accounting knowledge while getting a taste of full-time work. The internship is a very formative part of the MAcc program; every spring, we survey students about their experiences after they return to campus. Here are some of the highlights from this year’s reflections:  Lucian Wiest While students occasionally grab coffee or pick up dinner for their teams, for the most part, they do the same work as a full-time employee. “The most surprising aspect was how much responsibility my team was willing to give an intern. As long as you show a willingness to learn and improve, you will get the opportunity to gain a lot of experience in a short time,” said Lucian Wiest, who interned with EY in New York City. There’s plenty of work to go around, since students intern during busy season, a.k.a. the beginning of the year ahead of April tax-filing deadlines. “Busy season internships are a great way to get dropped right into the deep end of auditing. It gives you a good notion of how difficult the profession can be at times, so if you enjoy the internship, it’s a good indication that public accounting is a good fit for you,” advised John Runyon-Hass, who interned with Deloitte in Denver.  Hannah Miller Beyond the work itself, the internship also allows students to network with the firm at large and build relationships within their specific team. “I was under the impression that I would really only talk to a lot of staff around my age and the senior managers, but the partners and directors on my team really made an effort to get to know me and pull me into some of their meetings. Creating those relationships definitely made me feel valued even as an intern,” said Hannah Miller, who interned with PwC in Charlotte, NC. In hindsight, students say that the MAcc program prepared them well for both the internship and for their eventual full-time jobs. “The Vanderbilt MAcc program helped me prepare for my internship by giving me great confidence in my understanding of both audit and accounting,” said Alex Boone, who interned with KPMG in Dallas. “Despite only attending a one-year program without an undergraduate accounting degree, I felt on par in terms of my accounting knowledge and superior in terms of my audit knowledge compared to strong interns who majored in undergraduate accounting.”  Sally Fridstrom “The (MAcc) social events also help me how to network with people at the firm and start building relationships with the people that I was about to work with. This made the initiation process at the firm hassle-free and allowed me to further expand my network and build new relationships easier than ever before,” added Sally Fridstrom, who interned in the same office as Boone. Looking forward to their full-time jobs, the students feel like their internship gave them a solid foundation to enter the working world. “What the internship showed me most is that I am prepared for the professional world. Even though I was an intern, I felt I was treated as a peer by many in normal interactions, which really put me at ease,” said Jackson Garey, who interned with Deloitte in Chicago. “I felt that I belonged, refined my technical skills, and built a network during this internship, all of which make me feel more prepared to start my career.” The post MAcc Class of 2020 Internship Reflections appeared first on Vanderbilt Business School. |
11 May 2020, 15:01
14 May 2020, 10:01
| FROM Owen Press Releases: MMHC Students Help Improve ED Wait Times and Efficiency at VUMC |
At large hospitals like Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Emergency Department (ED) wait times are a critical juncture for both patient care and organizational efficiency. Multiple studies show that crowded EDs lead to decreased medical performance and poorer patient outcomes. Karan Shah “Elderly patients were leaving the ED without being seen,” said Karan Shah (MMHC’18), who formerly worked in emergency medicine at VUMC. “A big percentage of patients from that group that usually gets admitted, so that’s a big implication for patient safety. It’s also a real revenue loss.” VUMC brought the issue to the Master of Management in Health Care program at Vanderbilt University, and the Emergency Department was selected as one of the MMHC cohort’s capstone projects. From January through the end of the program in the fall, students work in teams of 4-5 people on projects for healthcare organizations, from ideation to implementation. The capstone gives students the opportunity to apply their classroom knowledge to the real world, while healthcare organizations benefit from student’s perspectives and consulting recommendations. The Origins Shah came to the MMHC program knowing that Vanderbilt’s ED wait times could stretch upwards of four hours, and he had an inkling that radiology and lab tests were a contributing factor. However, his initial thought was that a lot of delays were due to patient complexity. “Patients coming to Vanderbilt often have gone to other medical centers first and are now looking for a high diagnostic capacity,” Shah said. “The number of MRIs and CTs we did was kind of unheard of elsewhere. It wasn’t until I looked at the data that I saw the gap between need and resources.” The Project Shah and the rest of the MMHC capstone team — Rick Chandra, Amy McNeal, Gabe Lechleiter, and Robert Williams — began the project by looking at VUMC’s databases. They compared the weeks during the year when ED volume peaks and ebbs with what resources are available during those time frames.  Rick Chandra “When we matched the hospital resources with the ED needs, we found a third CT scanner that technically wasn’t part of the ED’s suite,” said Rick Chandra (MMHC’18), Chief of Rhinology and Skull Base Surgery at VUMC. “That scanner was sitting idle a lot of the times that it’s needed for peak use by the ED.” One of the biggest hurdles the group discovered after interviewing and observing ED staff was a flaw in the tools that transport personnel used to identify what patients were ready to be moved to and from the CT scan. “The wireless connection in the ED wasn’t great, which meant that the white board didn’t get updated as often as it needed to, and the handheld tools notifying transporters that patients were ready weren’t reliable,” Chandra recalled. Improving the wireless connection was a key recommendation that was fairly easy for VUMC to implement. The ED leadership team also helped create a tracker in their current scheduling software, so anyone on the team could see whether patients were waiting on radiology, labs, etc., and how long they had been waiting. The capstone team also recommended an increase in staffing for high-volume shifts, which VUMC has since implemented. The Takeaways About a month after graduated from the MMHC program, Shah took a job as director of business operations and strategy in the department of emergency medicine at IU Health. Looking back on the capstone, he says that leadership from VUMC’s radiology department and ED were involved in the project and highly receptive to their findings. “The support we got was amazing. They were truly invested,” he said. “This was one of the top 10 projects to improve patient outcomes as well as revenue. I left Vanderbilt soon after it was implemented, but it was kind of amazing to me to be able to work on this.” Chandra has since gone back to a more scheduled practice, but says the capstone gave him a much better understanding of the complicated processes and logistics involved both in and outside the healthcare industry. “The operations and throughput of a system is so much more complicated than what the average person thinks,” he said. “Nobody really understands what all goes into making hay in the ED — the inputs of making it function across multiple people and providers each day. I gained much more appreciation for it, and even for how airlines make their schedules or department stores push inventory.” The post MMHC Students Help Improve ED Wait Times and Efficiency at VUMC appeared first on Vanderbilt Business School. |
15 May 2020, 12:01
| FROM Owen Press Releases: Celebration 2020 |
|
When Vanderbilt made the decision to postpone Commencement 2020 until the following spring, Vanderbilt’s Owen Graduate School of Management quickly started development on an alternative, virtual celebration for this year’s graduates, in conjunction with the University’s efforts. In a matter of two weeks, faculty, staff, and students were able to put together online programming to honor the graduating class, award prizes, and reflect on the past year (two years for the MBAs), which launched on and around the original commencement date of May 8.  On Thursday, May 7, Dean Johnson revealed student and faculty awards via Zoom conference. Faculty, staff, and students celebrated their peers’ success, and parents attended as well. On Friday, May 8, Interim Chancellor and Provost Susan Wente delivered a heartfelt campus-wide address to students, culminating in the conferring of degrees. After the address aired, Owen launched the Class of 2020 celebration page, which honors graduates and award winners, looks back at the last two years, and more. In a congratulatory message to the Owen community, Dean Johnson noted, “It’s been a tough year, but this class has shown unprecedented strength and resilience. Now more than ever, it is important to recognize the accomplishments of our community.” The post Celebration 2020 appeared first on Vanderbilt Business School. |
15 May 2020, 14:01
| FROM Owen Press Releases: Career Launcher Brochure |
|
The post Career Launcher Brochure appeared first on Vanderbilt Business School. |
18 May 2020, 08:01
| FROM Owen Press Releases: Do no harm in 2020: How to effectively integrate cybersecurity and patient wellness |
|
The post Do no harm in 2020: How to effectively integrate cybersecurity and patient wellness appeared first on Vanderbilt Business School. |
18 May 2020, 08:01
| FROM Owen Press Releases: ‘Forgiveness’ guidelines for PPP loans set to be unveiled |
|
The post ‘Forgiveness’ guidelines for PPP loans set to be unveiled appeared first on Vanderbilt Business School. |
18 May 2020, 10:01
| FROM Owen Press Releases: The Father of the Fear Gauge Says He Feels Reassured by the VIX |
|
The post The Father of the Fear Gauge Says He Feels Reassured by the VIX appeared first on Vanderbilt Business School. |
19 May 2020, 09:01
| FROM Owen Press Releases: Protected: Information for Researchers |
|
Password Required Please enter your password below to view this page. The post Protected: Information for Researchers appeared first on Vanderbilt Business School. |
20 May 2020, 08:01
| FROM Owen Press Releases: Project Pyramid Teams Use Their Business Knowledge to Help Social Enterprises |
|
For more than a decade, the Project Pyramid course has taught graduate students from around Vanderbilt how to apply the principles of business and social enterprise to poverty alleviation. Students attend class twice a week during Mods III and IV and work with their international clients on consulting projects. Over spring break, the student teams travel to meet with their partners, interview key stakeholders, and conduct market research. At the conclusion of the course, students synthesize their classroom learning with their final client deliverables. In addition to teaching from faculty, the Project Pyramid course is also supported by staff at the Turner Family Center for Social Ventures (TFC). TFC staff assist with travel arrangements and planning itineraries and also share insights they have gained from past Project Pyramid trips. This year, the coronavirus pandemic kept some of the team from traveling, while others were able to complete their trips as planned before everything shut down. Below, each team explains their projects and what they’ve been able to accomplish so far. Guatemala (all in Antigua) Impact Hub  Impact Hub Team Impact Hub is one of the world’s largest networks focused on building entrepreneurial communities for impact at scale — home to the innovators, the dreamers, and the entrepreneurs who are creating tangible solutions to the world’s most pressing issues. The Impact Hub Project Pyramid team was tasked with working with the Nashville Department of Economic and Community Development to come up with a plan to engage the economically disenfranchised population of Nashville, and to facilitate a business co-working space and support services for this community. We made the trip to Antigua, Guatemala, to engage Impact Hub Antigua, which the TFC has a strong relationship with, to build a use case around an extremely successful model with a vision similar to the one we have for Nashville. We visited several other organizations but derived the most impactful learning from working through ideas with leaders from Impact Hub Antigua and Pomona Impact, a social venture capital fund tightly connected with Impact Hub Antigua. Going forward, we worked to identify who our unique beneficiaries are, where they are located in Nashville, and what they truly need to climb the economic pyramid. This helped us shape the business plan to pitch to the City of Nashville and to build excitement around the idea in the city. Though this project will be a long-term initiative, our time in Guatemala provided the clarity we needed as a team to effectively move through remaining challenges and deliver the best possible solution to the City of Nashville. Soles4Souls  Souls4SolesTeam The Soles4Souls teams worked with a Nashville-based nonprofit that works to turn unwanted shoes and clothing into opportunity, by keeping them from going to waste and instead putting them to good use. This model provides relief, creates jobs, and empowers people to break the cycle of poverty. Upon arriving in Guatemala, we threw ourselves into both enjoying Antigua and learning as much as possible to help us with our impact measurement project. The first day, we met a former consultant who specialized in impact measurement. Throughout the rest of the week, we had many more meetings — some that were specifically relevant to our project, and some that helped us understand the context in Guatemala and micro-entrepreneurship more greatly. Through our meetings, we recognized common threads running through the information they were getting from each person. We ended the week with a meeting with in-country partner, Salome, allowing them to tie together their learnings about what Soles4Souls does in Guatemala, and even more broadly, in other countries. Hanes Consulting  Hanes ConsultingTeam The Hanes Green Coffee Consulting Group headed down to Guatemala to explore the coffee landscape and explore corporate social responsibility efforts. Since our is client based in Nashville, we used the spring break time to fact find and gain a better understanding of the Guatemalan coffee industry. We brought perspectives from our Masters’ programs in Economics, Business Administration, Marketing and Leadership & Organizational Performance to analyze our experiences in the country. We spent the majority of our time exploring various coffee businesses and cooperatives, from a large, privately owned coffee plantation called Finca Filadelphia to De La Gente Coffee, a non-profit that supports coffee cooperatives. We learned about the lives of the coffee farmers, seasonal pickers, and coffee roasters. With the help of our translator, Moises, we were able to ask De La Gente members about the struggles and triumphs in coffee. We also traveled to Guatemala City and met with stakeholders at Le Central Coffee Roasters and Primavera Coffee Importers. Speaking with the founder and a master cupper, we were able to dive deeper into what premium coffee means and how business is done in the coffee industry. Primeros Pasos Primeros Pasos is a non-profit that seeks to improve the quality of life of rural communities in Guatemala through integrated health education programs and access to medical service. Our team was tasked with exploring the feasibility of the clinic implementing a Chronic Care Follow-Up Program. Our team conducted some cross-market analysis, and as the pandemic continued to unfold, was also investigated of the implications of COVID-19 on populations in the region in which Primeros Pasos operates. Mexico (all in Mexico City) MassChallenge  MassChallenge Team Headquartered in the United States with locations in Boston, Israel, Mexico, Rhode Island, Switzerland, and Texas, MassChallenge strengthens the global innovation ecosystem by accelerating high-potential startups across all industries, anywhere in the world — for zero-equity taken. Our MassChallenge Project Pyramid team worked to develop a needs assessment tool for the startups that hope going to work with MassChallenge Mexico. The tool will hopefully facilitate more efficient intake and help MassChallenge get all the information that it needs upfront from the businesses that it works with. Abeja Reyna  Abeja Reyna Team Consisting of a Nursing Midwifery student, HR-focused MBA student, a Humphrey’s Educational Fellow, a Divinity student, and a dual Masters of Public Health and Latin American studies student, our Project Pyramid team set off to Mexico City to work with a MassChallenge winner, Abeja Reyna. Abeja Reyna is an organic beauty line supporting bees and Mexican beekeepers and our project work focused on growth opportunities and marketing strategy for the company. While in Mexico, our team learned about the company’s rich story and expansion since winning MassChallenge. We spent the week conducting market research, collaborating with the Mexico City-based Abeja Reyna team, exploring Mexico City’s vibrant culture, history, and food. Nigeria Aspire  Aspire Team Despite not having the opportunity to work alongside Rotimi and the Aspire team in Lagos, Nigeria, during spring break, we were able to modify our project and deliverables to support their company. Aspire is developing a Distributed Energy Utility that integrates clean energy solutions such as Solar with intermittent but affordable grid electricity to form Nanogrids and Microgrids that provide Africans starting in Nigeria, cleaner, more affordable and healthier on demand power. Our primary focus has been to craft an informational trifold/brochure that would provide an overview of their initiative, the “Installer Collective.” The Installer Collective will serve a community effort to educate the greater public about sustainable energy and why using new diesel energy generators can provide a plethora of environmental and health benefits. Our task was to ensure the information provided could be used to attract community organizers and interested individuals as well as potential investors. The post Project Pyramid Teams Use Their Business Knowledge to Help Social Enterprises appeared first on Vanderbilt Business School. |
20 May 2020, 15:01
| FROM Owen Press Releases: Vanderbilt Business COVID-19 Updates |
|
This article will update periodically with new information. Stay tuned for the latest from Vanderbilt’s Owen Graduate School of Management. Introducing COVID-19 Insights on Vanderbilt Business YouTube Over the course of the summer, faculty, alumni, and other members of the Vanderbilt Business Community will be providing advice, insights, and information on the pandemic’s impact on the business world, as well as tools for adapting to “the next normal.” Subscribe to our YouTube Channel to keep up with the latest insights. Virtual Maymester Brings Out Special Guests  Dean Johnson’s Strategy Execution course featured a guest appearance last week from Nasdaq CEO Adena Friedman (MBA’93). Previous guests include JLL Technology President Jon Stevens (MBA’95) and Delta CFO Paul Jacobson (MBA’97). This week, Dean Johnson’s will be joined by Cindy Kent (MBA’99), Brookdale Executive Vice President and President, Senior Living. The course is part of Owen’s first-ever Maymester, a collection of for-credit and non-credit skills courses designed to provide ongoing education for current and graduating students. Courses touch on areas both traditional (strategy, leading change, finance) and technical (coding, data visualization, Python). Executive Education Webinar Series Looks at Workforce Planning in the “Next Normal”  Adjunct Professor Dan George (MBA’14) and Vanderbilt Executive Education (in partnership with the Nashville Chamber of Commerce) hosted a webinar last Friday on the techniques needed to redesign and shift workforces for new business landscape. The webinar is part of a series of programming designed to help professionals navigate different aspects of the new business landscape. The next installment in the series — “Technology Foresight: Predicting and Planning for the Future” — takes place on Tuesday, June 23, and features Vanderbilt Professor Andy Van Schaack (Peabody). Professor Bruce Barry will be leading a webinar entitled “PandETHICS” on Friday, July 24. Students, Faculty, and Staff Celebrate 2020 Graduates with Virtual Celebration, Commemorative Webpage  When Vanderbilt made the decision to postpone Commencement 2020 until the following spring, Vanderbilt’s Owen Graduate School of Management quickly started development on an alternative, virtual celebration for this year’s graduates, in conjunction with the University’s efforts. In a matter of two weeks, faculty, staff, and students were able to put together online programming to honor the graduating class, award prizes, and reflect on the past year (two years for the MBAs), which launched on and around the original commencement date of May 8. To read more about the programming, click here. To visit the Celebration 2020 website, click here. The post Vanderbilt Business COVID-19 Updates appeared first on Vanderbilt Business School. |
26 May 2020, 09:01
| FROM Owen Press Releases: 4 Tips to Communicate Well During COVID-19 |
 Ray Friedman, Professor of Management Social distancing during the coronavirus pandemic has replaced in-person interactions with email, phone calls, and Zoom. Ray Friedman, Brownlee O. Currey Professor of Management at Vanderbilt, says that this pandemic is deepening people’s understanding of digital communication. “A whole lot of people don’t know anything about Zoom and technology, and they’re just learning fast. And there seems to be enough people in friendship networks… so that the knowledge is spreading really, really quickly,” he said. While these digital communication tools are keeping us connected during the pandemic, they can’t perfectly replicate face-to-face interactions, and this can lead to miscommunication and other pitfalls. Friedman, whose research interests include electronic communications and dispute resolution, shares four tips to make the most of these communication technologies. Reconsider that Email While many people default automatically to email for work-related communications, Friedman explains that email has several drawbacks, namely a lack of voice and visual signals. This can prevent participants from getting real-time reactions and communicating effectively, and it can sometimes lead to misunderstandings. “There’s no voice, there’s no pace of interaction where you’re going back and forth. You have a lack of human connection, and people can be more extreme on how they behave when they don’t see and feel the other side as a human being. And they can tend to overreact and over-interpret,” Friedman said. Create a Human Connection Friedman emphasizes how important it is to develop a human connection when communicating electronically with a business partner. He recommends scheduling an initial meeting via video call to talk about family and friends and to make small talk. This will help both parties develop a human relationship before getting straight into business. “(You need to) spend time to create that human connection that’s missing. So have a first meeting… (to) enforce the process of seeing the other person as a rich human being, instead of just someone delivering news about a business deal,” Friedman said. Understand Stages of Negotiation Friedman says that there are two main stages of negotiation. The first stage is based on conceptual development, in which both parties come up with ideas. In this stage, email can be an effective platform as the parties both go back and forth. While the first stage of negotiation is more abstract, the second stage is more personal. During the second stage, parties finalize an agreement, making a face-to-face interaction necessary. “Maybe start off with a Zoom meeting to build a relationship a little bit, then back out to email, if that’s needed to think through the range of ideas you want to go through. And then come back together face-to-face as a way to go through what you’ve thought of and winnow it down, and get a feel for what the other side accepts or is upset by or is excited by, and use that back and forth to come to a better deal,” he said. Don’t Over-Interpret Words can be interpreted differently online than in-person due to the lack of visual and verbal cues. A text can come across as more aggressive than intended because of the lack of facial expressions or tone. Friedman recommends not over-interpreting messages to prevent triggering anger. “The likelihood of resolving a dispute goes down if you reciprocate anger back and forth,” he said. “And so one of the key lessons is don’t express anger in the same way (as you would in-person). And also be clear that when you’re dealing with pure email, it’s easy to over-interpret the strength of someone’s comments.” The post 4 Tips to Communicate Well During COVID-19 appeared first on Vanderbilt Business School. |
28 May 2020, 07:01
| FROM Owen Press Releases: VU2MBA Program Revamps Admissions Process |
|
Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management has altered its VU2MBA program in order to improve the admissions process for interested Vanderbilt undergraduates. The minimum GMAT score of 700 has been removed, and the parameters surrounding qualifying jobs have been broadened. The deposit required at the time of acceptance to the program has also been reduced from $2,500 to $500; the balance of the deposit is due prior to enrolling in order to secure a spot in class. “We have always had a steady stream of Vanderbilt undergraduates come back to Vanderbilt to earn their MBA,” said Sue Oldham, Associate Dean of MBA Operations. “Especially in this current world situation with so many uncertainties, we want to offer our Vanderbilt students the certainty that they can ‘lock in’ their spot in a future MBA class now and ease the burden of having to go through the application process years from now.” Vanderbilt Business will also be partnering with ETS to provide 10% discount vouchers for VU2MBA applicants who take the GRE General Test, inclusive of four free score reports. A GRE General Test at home option is now available to test takers in regions where physical test centers are closed or have limited seating due to COVID-19. (The Graduate Management Admissions Council (GMAC) offers discounts to undergraduate students who take the GMAT exam while enrolled as a college student.) “The VU2MBA program gives undergraduate seniors the opportunity to apply for the MBA program and prepare for their future in advance. It helps to provide certainty for life after graduation with added perks such as discounts on the GRE/GMAT test and no application fee,” added McKenzie Mulligan, Assistant Director, Recruiting & Admissions and the main point of contact for the VU2MBA program. The VU2MBA program allows undergraduate Vanderbilt students to apply to the Vanderbilt MBA program and receive an admissions decision ahead of time. After spending two to four years working in the private, public, or non-profit sector, admitted students come back to Vanderbilt and begin their MBA classes. Admitted students are asked to avoid employment gaps other than typical 2-4-week transition times from graduation to work and between work and return to the Vanderbilt MBA program. Admissions staff will evaluate any extraordinary employment circumstances causing longer than a 4-week gap (e.g., company layoff or closure) on a case-by-case basis. “The VU2MBA program gave me an incredible advantage as I graduated from undergraduate and joined the workforce,” said Alex Brewer (BA’18, MBA’22). “Both the confidence instilled through admission and the knowledge that I had the opportunity to return to school in a few years were invaluable as I began my first full-time role. As I watch my peers take the GMAT and apply to graduate school while balancing full-time work schedules, I am continually grateful that I took the opportunity to apply through the VU2MBA program.” Vanderbilt rising seniors and recent graduates interested in the program should contact McKenzie Mulligan for more information by emailing her at <mckenzie.mulligan@vanderbilt.edu>. The post VU2MBA Program Revamps Admissions Process appeared first on Vanderbilt Business School. |
29 May 2020, 14:01
| FROM Owen Press Releases: 21 Vanderbilt MBAs Compete in the Inaugural Small Business School Challenge |
 Vandebrilt MBAs present their solutions via video call Earlier this month, students from Vanderbilt joined forces with more than 470 MBA students from prestigious universities all across America in response to the economic challenges small businesses are facing in the wake of the current pandemic. The inaugural Small Business School Challenge was a 48 hour virtual accelerated workshop and business strategy “hackathon” May 14-16 that paired real local small business owners with teams of MBA students to create a plan forward to succeed. The event brought together more than 175 small business owners to receive support, ideas, and guidance from their MBA teams in addition to 100 business mentors and judges of the competition. Thanks to donations from 10 sponsoring schools in addition to community members contributing to the crowdfunding campaign, $13,000 in prize money is being distributed to 64 small businesses as a result of the challenge and the efforts their MBA teams made on their behalf. The entire virtual event was facilitated with technology from official sponsor RingCentral. Locally, seven small businesses were represented by seven teams from Vanderbilt. The winning school team of Carolyn Williams, Colleen Flynn, and Kate Bennett, who were working in support of KrankFit, advanced to compete in the finals against the 9 other school winners. Feedback from the small businesses who benefitted from a team of MBAs to help strategize was overwhelmingly positive. According to business owner Megan Flinn, “My team was incredibly open and supportive, listened and processed all my input to create some wonderful ideas that I’m able to implement immediately. They were kind and helpful, and I’m truly grateful for all of their creativity and work!” The Small Business School Challenge is committed to continuing to support small business by challenging MBAs to build solutions that support main street America. “Even though this was born out of the crisis, the need for strategic help from busy small business owners, and demand to help and gain exposure to the small business world by MBAs, tells us this will be an event that endures. We plan to run it twice per year — in the spring and the fall — in a very similar fashion to this event,” shared SBSC founder David Corfield. Congratulations to all the MBAs who rose to the challenge to support small business, and to the schools and independents who supported this first event. About the Small Business School Challenge The SBSC was originally conceived as a way to bring strategic help to small business owners in the wake of COVID-19, but will continue to meet both the needs of small businesses in America and of MBAs to gain exposure and experience to the small business world. You can follow the developments of the SBSC as they pursue independent non-profit status and collate all the knowledge and resources for small businesses to share on their new website, thesbschallenge.com. You can also follow their social channels @thesbschallenge onInstagram, Facebook, and Twitter. The post 21 Vanderbilt MBAs Compete in the Inaugural Small Business School Challenge appeared first on Vanderbilt Business School. |
01 Jun 2020, 08:01
| FROM Owen Press Releases: Unemployed workers slowly finding jobs as states start reopening |
|
The post Unemployed workers slowly finding jobs as states start reopening appeared first on Vanderbilt Business School. |
01 Jun 2020, 08:01
| FROM Owen Press Releases: 2020 MBAs To Watch: Mariam Amusan, Vanderbilt University (Owen) |
|
The post 2020 MBAs To Watch: Mariam Amusan, Vanderbilt University (Owen) appeared first on Vanderbilt Business School. |
01 Jun 2020, 11:01
| FROM Owen Press Releases: 4 Insights into Healthcare and Organizations During COVID-19 |
 Rangaraj Ramanujam, Professor of Management and Health Policy The coronavirus pandemic has highlighted how the healthcare system and organizations across the nation work to respond to a crisis. Rangaraj Ramanujam, Professor of Management and Health Policy at Vanderbilt Business School, looks at America’s response to the pandemic from an operational and leadership theory standpoint. “(The pandemic) is going to require leaders and organizations to operate differently because (it differs from) what it takes to function when things seem relatively stable,” he explained. “In this new environment, you’re going to engage in a lot of sense-making, trying to understand where things are going. And that’s going to require a different kind of leadership. It’s going to require a different level of communication within organizations to be more honest.” Ramanujam, whose research interests include the role of leadership, communication, and learning processes in enhancing the quality and safety of healthcare, shared four insights into the state of the healthcare system and organizations during the worldwide pandemic. Reliability of the Healthcare System During this crisis, people wonder about the reliability of the healthcare system. Ramanujam says that it’s hard to say because of the variation across hospitals. It’s not enough for each hospital to be individually reliable because the pandemic needs to be addressed at a systematic level. “I think (the healthcare system) is probably not anywhere as close to being as effective as we want it to be, simply because healthcare hasn’t operated as a system — it’s operated and continues to operate as a set of hospitals which have interdependencies with other hospitals,” he said. “So I think the challenge of reliability… is a challenge of managing hyper interdependence.” Safety of Healthcare Workers and Patients In the case of a pandemic, Ramanujam says that it is vital that hospital leaders view their employees’ physical and psychological safety as a priority. In addition, leadership has to communicate this message to healthcare workers so that the workers perceive the hospital climate to be safe. In turn, workers will respond to cases in the hospital more effectively and efficiently, which improves patient safety. “(When) people pay attention to safety procedures, compliance is much higher, and responding to errors and correcting errors (are) more likely to happen. And that, therefore, improves patient safety,” he said. Operational Failures Ramanujam states that one salient operational failure during the pandemic is the lack of preparedness for a crisis. For example, the number of ventilators were supplied based on normal demand, and the suppliers did not expect a surge in demand. This led to a shortage of ventilators in hospitals. In addition, he says that the nation failed to distribute accurate and reliable test kits for the virus during the early stages of the pandemic. “We need to come up with testing kits, we (have) to pretest the kits and make sure they’re okay. And make sure that we have enough kits and send them out to people. That basic operational process failed in its entirety. And we’re still paying the cost,” he said. America’s Response According to Ramanujam, the United States needs to respond to the crisis in a more coordinated manner. He suggests that America needs to prepare better by performing a lot of training exercises that bring various organizations together to ensure that coordination happens faster. He cites an example from 15 years ago, when people from the federal and local governments teamed up to respond to a simulation of a potential pandemic. This training helped them learn to respond quickly to a challenging situation together. “The pandemic… requires coordinated response from multiple organizations at multiple levels — federal, state and local. The overall effectiveness of our response to COVID-19 hinges not on any one organization — it depends really on a system-level coordinated response across organizations,” Ramanujam said. “And so I think that’s going to be the challenge going forward.” The post 4 Insights into Healthcare and Organizations During COVID-19 appeared first on Vanderbilt Business School. |
|
|
||
Hi Generic [Bot],
Here are updates for you:
ANNOUNCEMENTS
 Wednesday, Apr 24, 2024 11:30am NY / 3:30pm London / 9pm Mumbai Watch earlier episodes of DI series below EP1: 6 Hardest Two-Part Analysis Questions EP2: 5 Hardest Graphical Interpretation Questions  ➡️ Sayali narrates her experience of succeeding on the GMAT after 4 attempts & 2 years of preparations with 32 percentile improvement on GMAT verbal.
Tuck at Dartmouth
AGSM at UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE
 GMAT Club REWARDS
|
close
