Where Toys R Us Went Wrong, Sawyer International Business Etiquette, and More – Boston News
Let’s explore some of the most interesting stories that have emerged from Boston business schools this week.
Here’s What Sunk Toys R Us – MIT Sloan Newsroom
Experts from MIT Sloan offered a few choice insights into what Toys “R” Us, whose future currently remains in flux, could learn from the hiccups along its 70 year-long history.
Senior lecturer in work and organization studies Peter Kurzina writes that Toys “R” Us “ignored Amazon eating their lunch, thus failed to prepare and meet the challenge of competition.”
Associate professor of finance Andrey Malenko, a fellow MIT Sloan colleague, also critiqued the toy giant’s enormous debt burden. “If you’re running a business that might be sensitive to e-commerce, to the recession, then loading up on debt as much as [Toys “R” Us] did, it’s very risky and you probably shouldn’t do it.”
In March 2018, Toys “R” Us announced it would be closing all US and UK locations.
Read more of the duo’s analysis here.
International Business Basics – Sawyer Business Blog
The act of doing business across cultures often entails unexpected byproducts that Sawyer addressed in its recent “Business Protocol Across the Globe” forum, organized by Colombian native Laura Reales, BSBA ‘18.
“What if I wanted to move to another part of the world, like Saudi Arabia or France or China? How could I make connections with people so that I don’t look ignorant of their culture? So I decided to create a space where it was ok to talk about those differences.”
Read here to learn the answers to questions like, “What’s the proper way to present a business card in China?” and “What’s a good way to begin a negotiation in Turkey?”
Alumnus’ Company serves the Housing Needs of a Vulnerable Community – D’Amore-McKim Blog
The Northeastern University D’Amore-McKim School of Business profiled alum Andy Rosenthal, a 2007 alum who abandoned a lucrative career in hedge fund software to co-found the Terenbinth Group, which has become the “largest, family-owned provider of housing to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.” Rosenthal explains his company’s model.
“We’re a real estate company focused on providing quality, safe, affordable housing to a vulnerable community,” Rosethal said in the interview. “In short, we find homes, fix them up, customize them to suit the tenants—think wheelchair accessibility, replacing door knobs with door levers, waterproof flooring, installing roll-in showers, etc.—and then rent them directly to the individuals.”
The company’s 68 homes currently accommodate more than 225 people across the state of Indiana and it’s looking to expand. You can learn more about the Terebinth Group’s plans here.
What are the Best Real Estate MBAs in Boston? – MetroMBA
Earlier this week we highlighted the three strongest Boston metro schools that can help you earn your way into the real estate industry: Harvard Business School, MIT Sloan, and the Babson College F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business.
Regarding Babson, writer Jillan Markowitz writes:
“At Babson College’s F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business, MBA students can pursue the finance concentration, which offers several courses in real estate. Students can rake courses like Real Estate Financial Modeling, Real Estate Fundamentals, or Real Estate Development. According to recent Olin graduate employment statistics, 10 percent of the 2017 MBA class landed jobs in real estate. This number may not seem overwhelming, but it dwarfs the percentage seen in many MBA programs (usually about two to three percent).”
Learn more about the best real estate programs in Boston here.
London Business School Prof Warns of the Future for Tech Giants
Last year, tech giants such as Google, Amazon, and Facebook already started facing new regulations and pushback from government officials. For example, last November, the State of Missouri launched an investigation into Google to see if it had violated antitrust and consumer protection laws. Julian Birkinshaw, a professor of strategy and entrepreneurship at London Business School, thinks that’s only the beginning.
“The tech giants are huge beasts, and there is a growing sense of unease about their power,” Birkinshaw said in a news article on the school website. He went on to talk about various fines already levied against big tech firms such as Google, which was ordered to pay €2.4 billion last June for abusing its internet search monopoly to promote its online shopping service. Facebook, meanwhile, got slapped with a €110-million fine by the European Union for providing misleading information about its takeover of WhatsApp.
According to Birkinshaw, these examples are just the tip of the iceberg. “Over the coming year we can expect to see more of this aggressively activist approach in tackling companies with dominant positions,” he wrote.
What’s driving this more aggressive regulation? Birkinshaw believes it has to do with the old supplier-manufacturer-distributor-consumer model, which doesn’t fit these new tech giants. Antitrust legislation wasn’t designed to cope with tech companies whose profitability increases rapidly alongside its growth.
For example, Facebook has more than two billion active users, Google handles 42 percent of all U.S. digital advertising, and Amazon has all but eliminated would-be competitors. Birkinshaw sees no signs of these companies slowing down.
“The more people who join Facebook or use Google, the more data the company can mine. The economies of scale become ever greater,” Birkinshaw wrote. “So we need to rethink the way we monitor the power of the huge companies now dominating the business landscape.”
This article has been edited and republished with permissions from our sister site, Clear Admit.
Harvard Reveals 5 New Years Resolutions You Can Actually Keep
You aren’t even a week into 2018 and are already regretting that gym membership, but, you still have time to refine how you want your year to look. Carmen Nobel at Harvard Business School Working Knowledge discussed some more “realistic” efforts you can take.
The Secret to Writing a Successful MBA Career Goals Essay in 2018
The MBA application essay is still the most feared part of most applications. Whether you have to write 1,000 words or just 500, saying everything you need to say in a concise, intelligent, and appropriate manner isn’t easy for everyone. In fact, it can be incredibly frustrating. And while every school asks different essay questions, there’s one question you’re almost guaranteed to see, “What are your short-term and long-term post-MBA career coals and how will School X help you achieve these goals?”
The career goals essay is one of the most common and also most difficult essay questions. On the surface, it seems simple, but there’s a lot of work required if you want to wow the admissions committee (adcom). It all starts with the question.
Breaking Down the MBA Career Goals Essay
Before you can write your career goals essay, you have to break it down into digestible and answerable pieces. There are six pieces to the career goals essay that you’ll need to consider before you begin writing.
1. Where are you now?
Before you can talk about your goals, you have to know where you are now and so does the adcom. This means that your essay will need to concisely describe your current position so that you can better explain your goals.
2. What are you short-term goals?
Short-term and long-term goals are not the same. Short-term goals refer to your immediate plans after graduation. Is there a particular industry where you want to work? Do you have a job or promotion in mind? Where do you see yourself in the immediate months post-MBA?
3. What are your long-term goals?
Long-term goals take a little more thought. You might not be as specific about companies or job titles when talking about your long-term goals, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have a plan. Think about where you want the MBA to take you in ten or twenty years.
4. Why will an MBA help?
Next, you need to discuss how an MBA will help you achieve both your short-term and long-term goals. You’ll need to discuss technical skills, analytical skills, focus areas, and more.
5. Why is the School vital?
You need to make your essay personal. Not just any MBA should work for your goals. You need to explain specifically why School X is vital to your success. Get as specific as possible.
6. Why now?
Finally, you need to discuss why NOW is the best time to get your MBA and pursue your goals. Make a case for why this year, this class, and this moment are vital to your life.
Writing the MBA Career Goals Essay
Now that you know all the components of the essay, it’s time to start writing. To successfully answer the question, there are a few things that you need to keep in mind.
Be Specific
You need to be as specific as possible when answering each of the six parts of the question. MBA adcoms want to see that you have a specific direction in mind and that you have valid reasons for your choices. If possible, you should be able to specify your preferred industry, job function, skills, ideal company, and more.
For example: Talk about how you want to move into a career in Finance and gain a job at Goldman Sachs. Then, talk about how the MBA will help you gain technical skills in Finance and Accounting as well as analytical skills in Corporate Strategy and Strategic Planning. Finally, discuss how the case competitions at School X, as well as the MBA Finance Club, will prepare you for this career field.
Be Realistic
Adcoms want you to dream big, but they also want you to be realistic. There’s nothing impressive about an MBA career goals essay that describes a future path that is unreachable or illogical. Unrealistic goals will not serve to demonstrate that you’re ready for an MBA. Instead, you need to walk the fine line between thinking big and demonstrating that your career path has been well thought out and planned. Look up hiring trends, services, organizations, market status, and competitive concerns within your desired industry and companies.
For example: It’s okay to talk about your goals of managing a billion dollars, but you should indicate that this is a long-term goal, and you have a plan to reach it. Go step-by-step to illustrate that you know what it takes to reach your high aspirations by first talking about starting as a Finance Manager and slowly working your way up over twenty years.
Be Genuine
Adcoms can smell BS. You have to convince them that you are genuine in your interest of not just the MBA but of earning an MBA from School X. Take time to do your research and dig deep for those specific offerings from the program that will best serve you and your goals. If you can name specific classes, on-campus impressions, or information you’ve learned from alumni to demonstrate your genuine desire for an MBA, you’ll be in a much better place.
For example: Set up an interview to talk with an adcom or alumni before you write your essay. Then, during that interview, ask questions that will give you the information you need to beef up your essay. If you can talk about how an alum took the same career path and succeeded, you not only demonstrate your interest but your keen intellect.
Be Clear
Finally, make sure you write an essay that is clear and easy to read. Don’t worry about crafting the next great American novel. Instead, focus on answering the question as simply as possible and including all the necessary pieces. This is not a creativity contest. Instead, create a simple outline that you can fill out to answer the six components of the essay.
For example: You should write out the six questions (career analysis, short-term goals, long-term goals, why MBA, why School, why now) and come up with your answers separately. Then, once you have the outline and all the pieces, compile them together into a cohesive story. Don’t try anything fancy.
Stay up to date with more of MetroMBA’s vital essay and admissions tips here.
What Is Your 2018 MBA Resolution?
For those who aren’t in a post-New Years Eve hibernation, 2018 is here, and that means actually following through on all those promises you hastily made an hour before the year officially began—including your 2018 MBA resolution.
You and every other person in a five mile radius will pack your preferred gym for the next few weeks, dutifully following through on the promises they made themselves. And while the frustration of waiting, waiting, and still waiting for the bench press to open up is inevitably going to sit in, you still have an opportunity to utilize that newfound resolution energy into your MBA degree.
Start of this new year by forming productive habits, achievable goals, and a vision of where you want to end up! #MondayMotivation pic.twitter.com/igYQmNtI3C
— FOX MBA & MS (@FoxMBA) January 2, 2018
But, where do you start?
2018 MBA Resolution Baby Steps
Ordering a multi-thousand dollar exercise bike at the stroke of midnight might have been a more curious impulse, but there are plenty of non-expensive efforts you can make going into a brand new year.
The MIT Sloan School of Management revealed some of its favorite books from the previous year from its distinguished faculty and alumni, including the timely “The Power of Little Ideas: A Low Risk, High Reward Approach to Innovation,” by senior lecturer David Robertson. Which, in itself, can provide a powerful set of ideas to harness that newfound resolution energy.
Looking to up your tech-savvy skillset? Head over to Product Hunt, which provides an impossibly lengthy list of new apps and tools from startup companies that can do almost everything: from learning valuable developer tools to reforming your daily task routine.
Be Wary of Impossible Goals
According to Chicago Booth behavioral science experts, people don’t tend to follow through on grander resolutions.
“‘The problem with big resolutions is that motivation tends to wane over time,’ says Chicago Booth’s Ayelet Fishbach, who studies motivation and decision making. People start out strong, but then reality sets in as they realize it’s easier to set goals than to carry them out. ‘The problem with persisting is that our priorities change in the course of a day, a week, a year,’ says Fishbach. We may wake up in the morning determined to watch what we eat, but by the afternoon, we’re distracted—and start snacking again. Or we may feel determined to invest more time in relationships, but that slips our mind when an important work deadline looms. ‘Successful goal pursuit,’ she says, ‘requires employing strategies that keep us on track as our priorities momentarily shift away.'”
An important part of Fishbach’s research revealed that setting more frequently occurring goals is important to stay on track. This means, “Instead of an annual goal, set a monthly goal. Instead of weekly, make it daily.” When more smaller, reasonable projects are completed, the end goal is more probable. And the more probable a goal is, the greater the motivation, according to Booth marketing professor Oleg Urminsky.
“Proximity to the goal increases motivation. If you’re a rat in a maze, you run faster the closer you get to the end.”
Embrace The Eventual Setback
Anyone who has gone through a diet is more than likely familiar with the concept of a cheat day. While scouring cake one week into your shiny new diet may feel like a small failure, it doesn’t mean it’s time to give up.
According to marketing researchers Marissa A. Sharif and Suzanne B. Shu, authors of the 2017 study “The Benefits of Emergency Reserves: Greater Preference and Persistence for Goals That Have Slack with a Cost” in the Journal of Marketing Research, having a few “mulligan” occurrences is normal and should not deter your overall aim.
“What this suggests is that the perfect goal to set for yourself is probably a tough one but with the explicit allowance for a mulligan or two so you won’t be discouraged by the occasional slip up,” writes Washington Post reporter Katherine L. Milkman.
It’s Time To Go After That MBA
We at MetroMBA may be vocal advocates of an MBA, but numbers speak for themselves. MBA salaries at the top schools in the world hit a record high last year, according to the Financial Times, sitting at an eye-popping $142,000 USD average by the start of 2017—a $7,000 jump from the previous year.
Some of the world’s biggest companies, such as Amazon, are on MBA “hiring sprees” as it rapidly expands its business, indicating the increasingly high demand for graduates.
And if all else fails, just embrace it!
I don’t like New Year’s Resolutions. At all. In fact, I vow to get fatter, more deceitful, spend more frivolously, and enter more toxic relationships. These are my New Year’s Regressions.
— ShinigamE (@WWEBigE) January 1, 2018
Gear Up For These January MBA Deadlines
The next round of MBA admissions is swiftly approaching, with the eve of 2018 almost here. Time to mark those calendars!
New York City
The NYU Stern School of Business, Columbia Business School, and Rutgers Business School, Newark/New Brunswick are the big headliners when it comes to deadlines in the New York City metro in January.
The Forham University Gabelli School of Business, and the Syracuse University Whitman School of Management Online MBA program also have deadlines in the first weeks of the new year. Click here for more information on upcoming New York City metro deadlines.
The third round for application deadlines to Cornell’s Tech MBA on its new Roosevelt Island campus arrives January 10, 2018.
Los Angeles
The biggest Los Angeles metro business school institutions all have a slew of deadlines ready to pass within the first weeks of the new year, including the UCLA Anderson School of Management‘s full-time MBA, USC Marshall‘s part-time program, as well as the Claremont University Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito Graduate School of Management‘s part-time MBA.
Take a look at the coming deadlines in the Los Angeles metro here.
Toronto
Two Toronto metro schools have deadlines in early January, with the Ivey Business School full-time, Accelerated, and EMBA deadlines all falling on January 8, 2018. The second round deadline to the University of Toronto Rotman School of Management‘s full-time MBA also falls on January 8.
Take a look at the coming deadlines in the Toronto metro here.
Chicago
Two of the most prominent business schools in the entire Chicago metro—Chicago Booth and Northwestern Kellogg—feature a bevy of full-time, part-time, and Evening MBA deadlines before January 10. As well, the Quinlan School of Business at Loyola University’s full-time MBA for its annual spring intake arrives on January 15, 2018.
Just outside of the city, on the near border of Indiana, the Notre Dame Mendoza College of Business’ second round deadline for its full-time MBA program is set for January 9.
Get familiar with the coming deadlines in the Chicago metro here.
The second round of deadlines for the Northwestern Kellogg part-time and full-time MBA programs arrives on Jan. 10, 2018.
Boston
In Boston, the heart of America’s higher education, every January is a major month for several of the country’s most prominent MBA programs. Indeed, Harvard Business School and MIT Sloan, as well as the Questrom School of Business at Boston University, the Carroll School of Management at Boston College, and Northeastern University’s D’Amore-McKim School of Business all have MBA deadlines right at the beginning of the new year for various MBA programs.
Take a look at the coming deadlines in the Boston metro here.
For updated deadline information in Philadelphia, Washington DC, Baltimore, Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Denver, San Francisco, San Diego, Seattle, and London, click here.
