Back to our Business Model: conceptual reasoning

One of my favorite photographs owing to the lighting and
complementary colors: taken south of Dunedin

Time to get back to our business model.  I have explained: (1) we remain a boutique MBA programme (by choice) to deliver best value to our students and concede we remain beneath the radar of Top 100 rankings; (2) we are selective about whom we allow into our programme (less than 1 in 10) and resist compromising our standards for size; (3) our unique value proposition emphasizes accelerating your career in the global economy, both through facilitating a transformation in you as a business professional and using our project work to get you into the right industry, corporation and/or professional network; (4) we eschew placement in favor of rigorously training and supporting our students in pursuit of their career ambitions; and (5) our students practice their thinking skills daily in the classroom on the way to becoming truly powerful individuals who can express themselves with clarity and conviction.

All of the pieces of a business model must fit together to deliver best value.

Now, I'll elaborate on the notion of conceptual reasoning and how we develop this ability.  Our core courses (phase one, on-campus programme) focus either on building quantitative skills or thinking within credible business disciplines: e.g., content areas of economics, marketing or sustainability.  Content courses introduce concepts, but the precise definitions of these concepts vary from one course to the next: e.g., the definition of a market in economics vs. in marketing or performance in finance vs. sustainability.  Indeed, much of business revolves around a small number of concepts: market, customer, product (encompassing service), industry, competitor, competition, strategy, business model, performance, cost (plus cost structure), capital (including human capital), financial & physical assets, production/operations, transaction, organization form, ownership structure and so forth. 

Here's a critical insight: most business problems can be structured by identifying the concepts involved; the relevant business discipline needed to structure your thinking; and the appropriate analyses to support informed decision making.  It sounds simple but the challenge is to abstract away from the immediate details of a business situation (i.e., noise) to think conceptually, an acquired ability.

We emphasize conceptual thinking (or reasoning) as a theme across courses, thereby helping students to refine this ability as they progress through our programme, but I'll emphasize two critical experience that directly bear on challenging your reasoning.  First, our Strategic Planning course taught by our much loved Richard Higham, challenges your "dominant paradigm" or the concepts and definitions used to inform your thinking. Second, our high-level project work (e.g., Live Case & capstone consulting engagement) requires you to define the scope of work in terms of key concepts.  As stated in our BUSI 540 course outline:  

"Any 540 project we conduct focuses on business concepts.  Some concepts delimit the project scope (this product or those competitors), while other concepts are defined by your analyses.  Indeed, an entire 50-page report may focus on defining one concept (e.g., what is the market?).  In this regard, you advance knowledge (make an intellectual contribution) by defining / describing some core business concepts more precisely than anyone has before—and you inform your definition (of the market) with data." 

When you're ready to get started, let us know.

David