The New East LA Incubator, Merage Rankings Rise, and More – Los Angeles News
Take a peek at some of the top stories coming out of the Los Angeles business schools this week.
From Family Business to Drucker School: A Talk With Koji Ogura (EMBA ’11) — Drucker Newsroom
Koji Ogura, alumnus and staff member at the Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito Graduate School of Management at Claremont Graduate University, recently shared his thoughts on business, leadership, and the new Global Family Business Institute opening soon at the Drucker School.
Ogura, who graduated in 2011 from Drucker’s Executive MBA program, today serves as the school’s Director for Japan and Drucker-Ito Relationships. Before joining the Drucker community, Ogura worked as an executive with Yamato Holdings, a company founded by his grandfather nearly 100 years ago in Japan. With a new Family Business Institute poised to open at Drucker this month, Ogura shared his thoughts on how the new institute will shape and train future business leaders.
“We will … give them more of a global sense of how family businesses work in the world economy,” Ogura said. “That is something you cannot get with on-the-job training in one company. But you can get that at the Drucker School.
To learn more about the Global Family Business Institute and read Ogura’s insight, click here.
UCI Paul Merage School of Business Fully Employed MBA Program Up to 10 Spots in U.S. News & World Report — UCI Paul Merage School of Business News
The U.S. News & World Report recently released their 2019 ranking of the “Best Business Schools,” with MBA programs at the Paul Merage School of Business at the University of California, Irvine climbing in the rankings since last year. The Fully Employed (FEMBA) program at Merage jumped 10 spots in the ranking to 32nd in the nation for MBA programs, 19th for public universities and 4th in California. The full-time MBA program at Merage also moved up two spots, ranking at 42nd nationally.
“All of our full and part- time programs at every level are experiencing success as a direct result of the efforts by our faculty and staff, the selectivity of our programs, continuous enhancements to our curriculum, and innovative methods of delivery,” commented Merage dean Eric Spangenberg.
“I am confident the Merage School’s reputation will continue to ascend as a result of our differentiated focus and our ability to deliver the most business-relevant, highest quality MBA, Specialty Masters, Undergraduate and Ph.D. education possible.”
Read more about Merage’s programs and the U.S. News & World Report ranking here.
East Los Angeles College, OmniWorks to Launch Business Incubator — Los Angeles Business Journal
A new business accelerator was recently announced to open in Los Angeles, created as a joint venture between the East Los Angeles College Foundation and the start-up support company OmniWorks. Estec LA, the new incubator which will open at East L.A. College in Monterey Park, will be funded through an investment from JP Morgan, Union Bank, and the California Strong Workforce Program.
This will be one of the first incubators in the East Los Angeles community, following in the footsteps of a bioscience incubator that opened two years ago at the California State University Los Angeles. The incubator is expected to open with a free workshop on April 13, focusing on veteran, women and LGBTQ-owned businesses in the area. “By focusing on entrepreneurs that are often overlooked by other incubator and accelerator programs, we are democratizing access to capital, markets, and financial and business education,” said OmniWorks founder Brent Imai.
Click here to learn more about the new incubator.
LA Small Business Growth, UCLA Time Management Advice, and More
Take a look at some of the top stories coming out of the Los Angeles business schools this week.
The Growing Role of the CIO – Wall Street Journal
Vijay Gurbaxani, professor of business and computer science at the the Paul Merage School of Business at the University of California, Irvine, recently sat down with Ben Fried, CIO at Google Inc., and the Wall Street Journal for a conversation on the changing role of the CIO in today’s companies. The conversation was led by Nikki Waller, WSJ bureau chief.
Gurbaxani discussed changing technology and its impact on business, particularly the importance of cultivating talent in machine learning. For companies to stay current and competitive, he says, they must perfect the art of gathering data and putting it to good use.
“If you fall behind your competitors in developing this new know-how and leveraging, you’re going to fall further and further behind,” Gurbaxani said. “So my message to you would be get out there in a hurry.”
To read more excerpts from the interview, click here.
Study: L.A.’s Small Businesses Optimistic About Growth – Los Angeles Business Journal
A recent survey, conducted by 1st Century Bank in a partnership with Beacon Economics, has showed positive signs for LA small business growth, which is projected to continue through the end of the summer.
The study, which surveyed 150 small businesses in 30 core industries, reported a number of findings that offer hope and a positive outlook for small business owners in Los Angeles. About 78 percent of businesses reported that they expected to see an increase in market demand, while 54 percent witnessed an increase in profit margins over the past six months. Nearly 56 percent of the businesses reported a boost in sales during that same period, and over 70 percent expected to see further increase during the next six months.
More than 70 percent of small business owners in LA are expecting even more growth within the next six month.
According to Beacon Economics research director Adam Fowler, small businesses are a crucial part of the Los Angeles economy and throughout the nation.
“If we don’t understand small-business sentiment,” he comments, “we can’t know the direction this important sector will be heading in … nor can we improve conditions for their success.”
Click here to learn more about the LA small business growth research and look at the complete report here.
Time Management for Startups: Entrepreneurs Act as if Future Hours Aren’t Worth Much – UCLA Anderson Review
While larger companies have become increasingly aware about the importance of time management in a hyper efficient work environment, the same may not be true for entrepreneurs. Upstarts in the business world are as notorious for breaking certain conventions as they are for cutting their teeth, putting in triple-digit hour work weeks to build companies from scratch. And the reason being, says UCLA Anderson‘s Charles J. Corbett, is that there isn’t enough research quite yet.
“I realized there wasn’t much out there,” Corbett said in a UCLA Anderson Review interview. “A lot of the issues that entrepreneurs face don’t come up in our core management studies.”
Alongside fellow UCLA Anderson and INSEAD professor Guillaume Roels, and University College London’s Onesun Steve Yoo, Corbett found that entrepreneurs have to think of time management in the terms of their future, rather than today. And the trick is to understand “net present value (NPV).”
“But, according to Corbett, Roels and Yoo, people, including entrepreneurs, aren’t very good at thinking about their time in the same way. When people think about the value of their time, they tend to think about its current value, today, and not the future ramifications of having that time today. Correctly anticipating those dynamics, ‘NPV thinking’ is particularly important for entrepreneurs with the ambition to grow their business.”
You can read more from the trio’s time management research here.
The Best Long Angeles MBA Return on Investment Bets
Return on Investment (ROI) is one of the most important factors a prospective MBA can take into consideration when choosing the right business school.
Of course, the true value of each MBA program may ultimately be something impossible to measure. The kind of connections made through professional networking, the soft skills that students attain which help them navigate through both their personal and professional life—these aren’t things that can be easily quantified. But, thankfully, factors like average salary increase, rate of post-graduate employment and the overall tuition of a program are. And these numbers can help students start to better see an overall picture of what each MBA is worth.
The Best Long Angeles MBA Return on Investment
The Marshall School of Business – USC
The Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California is consistently one of the top ranked MBA programs in the state of California and even throughout the country. Specific ROI aside, these sorts of honors should also be a factor when considering the overall value of the program: for example, Marshall has been named the third best program for “Most Satisfied Business School Graduates” by Forbes and sixth on The Economist’s ranking of “Best Alumni Networks.”
Based on tuition for the 2017-18 school year, the total expense (tuition, fees and living expenses included) to pursue a full-time MBA at Marshall would be $95,881 for the first year and $82,522 for the second, for a total of $178,403.
Now take into consideration the fact that the average salary for graduates of Marshall’s full-time MBA program within three months of graduation is $115,309, and that the large majority of job offers (38 percent) for MBA students came from on-campus recruiting or job postings through the university. The second highest source of employment (21 percent) came from internships held while in the MBA program. Furthermore, a number of top organizations—such as Apple, AT&T, and Walt Disney Studios—hired the graduates of Marshall’s 2016 MBA class. All of these factors boost the overall ROI of Marshall’s program, making it one of the top valued programs in L.A.—even with the high price tag.
Anderson School of Management – UCLA
The Anderson School of Management at UCLA is another program which offers a high ROI when considering the types of opportunities and salaries available to students after graduation. While the tuition cost is certainly high—roughly $194,220 (including fees and living expenses) for the the two years of the program, the benefits to students are undeniable.
A look at the full-time employment report for the most recent MBA class finds that 92.4 percent of students were offered full-time employment within just three months of graduation, with 87.7 percent acceptances. By far (72.2 percent) , students found their employment opportunities through Anderson-facilitated resources, such as internships, on-campus recruiting, or from UCLA Anderson alumni and classmates.
The salaries for graduating Anderson students also reveals a positive trend: the average post-graduate compensation was $118,150, with 70.6 percent of students earning signing bonuses of up to $89,500. The connections sewn by Anderson internships and alumnae also reveal a significant payoff in the types of organizations hiring Anderson alum: companies like NBC Universal, IBM, Barclays, Google, and other major corporations now have Anderson MBA graduates on staff.
The Paul Merage School of Business – University of California, Irvine
The UC Irvine Paul Merage School of Business is one of the top business schools in the Los Angeles metro area, as evidenced by its consistently high rankings from various publications, such as the Financial Times and U.S. News & World Report.
With the program’s recognition for its high lifetime earnings combined with the relatively low cost the degree, it’s no surprise that that the program at UC Irvine produces a high return on investment. The estimated total annual cost of an MBA at Merage ranges from $67,422—$83,967, depending on if you whether or not you are a resident of California and whether or not you will be using campus. This is compared with an average post-graduate salary of $97,808 for the 2017 graduating class. About 50 percent of all students were employed by graduation, and 81 percent held full-time jobs within three months.
Graziado School of Business and Management – Pepperdine University
One of the reasons Pepperdine’s Graziado School of Business boasts such a high return on investment is the many different formats in which students can pursue a full-time degree. With the opportunity to take the full-time MBA over the course of 12, 15, or 20 months, the Graziado MBA typically costs less overall ($74,250 for the 12-month program, $99,000 for all others) and means less time away from a full-time paycheck.
Combine this with the success rate of 82 percent of students accepting job within three months after graduation and a $120,000 starting salary (at highest), and its understandable why Graziado graduates find incredible value in their degree.
Metro News & Notes: Return on Investment, Firing CEOs and More
Good morning and happy Friday!
Here are a few stories you may have missed from the week that was …
USC Marijuana Dispensary Study Finds Closures Cause Crime Spike
USC Marshall School of Business Professor Tom Y. Chang and Paul Merage School of Business Professor Mireille Jacobson recently co-authored a study in the Journal of Urban Economics that examined how closing marijuana dispensaries affects crime in surrounding areas. The study specifically examined the aftermath of a period in 2010 during which hundreds of dispensaries were shut down. The crime rates around the closed dispensaries increased dramatically. According to Chang, “When marijuana dispensaries were shut down, we found the opposite of what we were expecting … Crime actually increased in the areas that closed relative to the ones allowed to stay open.” Continue reading…
