Archive for March/2008

A team of three current students from the International MBA at IE Business School (Nishant Mittal and Vishalkumar Vithlani from India, and Ruiwei Xiong from China) have reached the final of the annual L’Oreal e-strat challenge competition. Thousands of MBA teams from all over the world competed, and after joining a select group of 300 teams in the semi-finals IEâ??s team is now among the remaining 8, representing Southern Europe in the finals. This is the first year an IE team has made it past the semi-finals in this particular competition.

L’Oréal e-Strat Challenge is one of the world’s biggest online business simulation. This international competition is open to undergraduate and MBA students in their final two years of university or business school. In its first seven editions, the L’Oréal e-Strat Challenge has brought together over 177 000 students from 2200 schools representing 128 countries.
Each team, consisting of three people, will manage a portfolio of beauty brands and compete for worldwide leadership against 4 other virtual companies during six rounds throughout a period of approximately two months. The teams will take the role of the General Manager. At the head of a cosmetics firm, they will face new market situations and challenges during each of the six rounds. They will translate their strategy into critical decisions about all aspects of the company: pricing, production volume and capacity, research and development, marketing, advertising, brand positioning and diversity & equity.

Every registered team will have the opportunity to participate in the first round, and then, according to their Share Price Index, 1700 of these teams will be selected to continue the adventure (rounds 2 – 5). All the teams participating in the L’Oréal e-Strat Challenge will manage PRIMA, but in a parallel simulated world, separate from yours. The objective is to achieve the highest SHARE PRICE INDEX (SPI) at the end of the simulation.

At a time when business schools are looking to diversify their applicant pools and to meet expectations from employers for more creative business leaders, growing numbers of institutions across the globe are accepting GRE® General Test scores for admission to graduate business school and MBA studies.

The Graduate Record Examinations® (GRE) General Test has been the gold-standard admissions test for graduate study for nearly 60 years. Recently, growing numbers of colleges and universities have begun using the test for admission to MBA and graduate management programs. The reason? It increases and diversifies the business program applicant pool, according to David Bach, Associate Dean of MBA Programs, IE Business School, in Madrid, Spain. “We are extremely proud of the diversity of participants in our programs in terms of their international backgrounds, gender, undergraduate majors, career trajectories and aspirations,” says Bach. “Accepting the GRE supports our efforts to attract high-quality participants from very diverse backgrounds, including students who may not have previously contemplated an MBA.”
In February, IE announced that it would begin accepting GRE test scores for admissions to all its management degree programs, including the MBA. IE is ranked as one of the top ten business schools world-wide by the Financial Times. In recent months, other highly regarded European business schools have decided to accept GRE scores for their graduate business programs. [...]

Articles about the trend toward using the GRE test, in addition to the GMAT® test, for business school acceptance have appeared in Business Week, the Times of London and Inside Higher Education. Most recently, the GRE business school phenomenon was reported in the Beijing Times. In a Jan. 8 Inside Higher Education article, Derrick Bolton, Director of MBA Admissions, Stanford Graduate School of Business, suggested that accepting the GRE test in addition to GMAT may help boost the pool of women candidates. “The GRE test takers are more likely to be women, and more likely to be undergraduates or just a year out, while the GMAT is more popular with those who have been out a few years. … If we are able to fish in both of those pools, how can that hurt us? [There are] definitely some people who would not have applied to the MBA program had we put an additional barrier of requiring the GMAT.” In June 2006, Stanford began accepting GRE scores to boost diversity in its business school applicant pool. In recent months, the GRE Program has approved applications to receive GRE test scores from Georgetown University McDonough School of Business, MIT Sloan School of Management, University of Michigan Ross School of Business and Johns Hopkins University Carey Business School.

“Accepting GRE scores makes good business sense,” says ETS Associate Vice President David Payne. “Accepting both GRE and GMAT tests will improve the size, diversity and quality of the applicant pool and student body. Clearly, these are the kinds of tangible benefits that business schools value and what the global business community increasingly demands to meet the challenges of the 21st Century.” “Some people are surprised to learn that the GRE test measures the same basic cognitive skills as the GMAT test,” Payne adds. “In fact, ETS actually developed the GMAT test some years ago, so we are keenly aware that it does not measure business skills. Like the GRE test, it measures knowledge and skills that admissions officials must evaluate when considering applicants for graduate programs.” Because both tests are taken by individuals from diverse academic backgrounds, neither the GRE nor the GMAT tests presume advanced content knowledge in any specific area, including business. However, the GRE General Test includes many questions presented in a business context, including more than 70 percent of the data interpretation questions in the GRE Quantitative Reasoning section. Furthermore, the level of math content knowledge is the same in both GRE and GMAT tests.

This is an excerpt of an article published on http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release.do?id=835617 on March 25, 2008.

Save the date as IE Business School will be travelling to Tokyo! IE is one of the leading European business schools whose commitment to business education is driven by a belief in innovation, academic excellence, diversity and an entrepreneurial spirit.

Come meet us in your city at our next Insight Session:

Date: April 9, 2008
Time: 19.30
Venue: AGOS Japan

To register, please go to Insight Session Registration.

As an alternative, and if you schedule does not permit to participate in this event, you can participate in on-to-one pre-admissions interviews on April 7, 2008 at the Sheraton Miyako Hotel.

IE Business School just launched last week the first version of its Mediacampus. With the mediacampus “living the IE experience” gets a new dimension: you can see the dynamism and innovative approaches through videos, postcasts, presentations from all IE stakeholders, being the IE Dean, Santiago Iñiguez, the host of the whole project.

• Live the latest research findings of the faculty
• Join the latest IE Alumni Conference on Sustainability
• Learn about our program offerings in detail
• Get to know the IE Admissions Department from a totally new and different perspective
• Be part of the IE Experience our students are living on a day-by-day basis on our city-campus in Madrid.

There is nothing more to tell… explore it yourself by clicking on the image.

David Bach cuts a conspicuous figure around the Madrid campuses of Spainâ??s IE Business School. For a start, the impossibly fresh-faced professor of strategy and economic environment looks young enough to be one of his International MBA students. He is, in fact, about to turn 33, so is too old to be the youngest member of the schoolâ??s youthful faculty.
Professor Bach, however, is the only one with a PhD in political sciences, and one of only a few from a mainly liberal arts academic background.

A German by birth, he landed at the Spanish school in 2004, after nine years in the US, first as an undergraduate at Yale University and later as a masters and PhD student, research associate and teacherâ??s assistant at Berkeley, California. Having acquired a taste for academia, his return to Europe was contingent on finding a suitable teaching tenure. However, as a specialist in political economy, he found his choices limited. â??I could have pursued a non-academic career in policy analysis, lobbying or something like that,â? he says. â??However, I wanted a university post, so I decided it would have to be in a business school.â?

An offer from the IE proved to be the most attractive, partly for personal reasons. Although he met her in San Francisco, Bachâ??s wife Almudena is Spanish. The couple â?? and their baby son â?? have settled happily into life in central Madrid, a capital that Bach describes as â??a lot more modern and dynamic than German citiesâ?. However, he adds: â??Spaniards arenâ??t scared of change, but at the same time they are wedded to their culture and traditions. This clash is what makes Madrid so interesting.â?For the past four years, Bach has been imparting to IE students his own interpretation of what is broadly know as non-market strategy â?? that part of management involving government, regulators, civil society and the media.
In the US, academics such as David Baron and Daniel Diermeier have been bywords for the discipline since the 1980s. Prof Bach, along with fellow IE professor David Allen, is widely accredited with having bundled the disparate elements of non-market management and market disciplines into a cohesive, applicable strategy. Read more…

March 2008 | By Ramon Solé, Professor of Strategy at IE Business School.

Pronovias is a world reference in the bridal gown business, thanks to a happy marriage between prêt a porter and top designers.

Last week, the fashion world enjoyed one of its most emotional and important moments in many years: the world recognition of Valentino, the grand master of haute couture, in the presentation of his latest fashion collection. However, Valentino´s creations will continue to fire the enthusiasm of his followers, with the wedding dresses he makes and distributes all over the world under an exclusive agreement with Pronovias. Pronovias has found its perfect partner in Valentino. The partnership combines the Italian designer´s Renaissance talent with the entrepreneurial vision and tenacity of the renowned Spanish entrepreneur Alberto Palachi. It is yet another milestone in a successful business story, the results of a marriage between rigorous work and the right strategic vision.

Pronovias is a good example of this essential combination for reaching the position of world leader that it holds and strengthens at each of the various stages of its evolution.

The pioneering idea is based on using the prêt-à-porter business model in the wedding dress market, and the use of a direct retail management system. Pronovias continues to control the entire process from the design of the collection to relations with the end customer. Read more…

March 2008 | By Cristina Simon, Professor of HR Management at IE Business School.

Much has been said about cultural, religious or sexual diversity, but there has been little talk of how to balance different generations that have different ways of seeing the world and business.

The enterprise world is starting to take notice of new aspects that form part of employees´ personalities and that will most probably affect their effective management. Although the recognition of the differences among genders, races or cultures has been consolidated in many companies, one of the things that greatly determine the way we see the world in this sense is the experiences we have had and share with the people from our own age group.

Besides our private and personal experiences, we all remember milestones that have marked the different stages of our life and that often serve as common references among our contemporaries. These experiences are shared by a large social group within a certain age range and we refer to this group as a generation. The important part of determining a generation group is not so much the fact of belonging to a certain age group (there may be considerable variations), but rather the cohesion of the group as a result of experiences, values and a shared way of life. Read more…

MBA students at the IE Business School in Madrid, Spain will get to sharpen their creative and critical thinking skills thanks to the introduction of humanities to the instituteâ??s core curriculum.

â??In a time of turmoil and change, reflection on the core values of humanity â?? on ethics, philosophy, art and aesthetics â?? is more important than ever,â? said David Bach, associate dean of MBA programmes. He said the line of study encouraged reflection, critical thinking and adaptive leadership in challenging cross-cultural settings, and this was essential for managerial success in the 21st century. The two-week module, called Launch, is deliberately scheduled at the beginning of the MBA programme to underscore its importance in the curriculum. Students will be introduced to the great eastern and western civilisations, while participating in discussions on modern art and experiencing a taste of moral philosophy. A range of other humanities electives is also available for them to choose from later on in the programme.

â??The module sets the stage for the personal transformation that an MBA programme ought to be for a student,â? Professor Bach said. â??This is a place where your thinking breaks out of existing moulds, where you begin to see things differently, where you start understanding deep connections.â? He said this process helped produce better business managers. â??These students will become young professionals who see diversity as a driver of innovation â?¦ they are always looking for something new â?? a different perspective, an alternative angle.â?

If you wish to learn more about Humanities at IE, please visit the Sapiens Tribune Blog.

This in an excerpt of an article which was published in the South China Morning Post on February 16, 2008.

IE Business School hosted on Wednesday, March 5, 2008 a conference on â??How to attain projects financed by the Asian Development Bankâ? as part of the â??Asia Business Forumâ? which is organizing on-going conferences and seminars with the aim to push the relationship between Spain and Asia.

This conference was chaired by Mr. Liqun Jin, the Vice-President (Operations 1) of the Asian Development Bank (ADB). Mr. Jin is responsible for operations of South Asia Department, Central and West Asia Department, and the Private Sector Operations Department. Prior to joining ADB, Mr. Jin was the Vice Minister of Finance of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), in charge of the budget for administrative expenses of education, science, culture, and external economic affairs. In that capacity, he served as Alternate Governor for the PRC at ADB, the World Bank Group and the Global Environment Facility.

He has been active in international economic affairs for almost two decades, particularly since the Asian financial crisis in 1997. He has worked on a number of bilateral and multilateral economic and financial forums, such as the China-US Joint Economic Committee, China-UK Economic and Finance Dialogue, APEC Finance Ministers’ Meeting, ASEAN Plus Three and G-20. In addition, Mr. Jin was a member of the State Monetary Policy Committee and the Anti-Terrorism Committee of the PRC.
After serving as Alternative Executive Director at the World Bank Group for four years, Mr. Jin was appointed Director General of the World Bank Department of the Ministry of Finance in 1995. The same year, he was promoted to Assistant Minister of Finance and in 1998 became Vice Minister of Finance. He was responsible for supervising the PRC’s financial sector and raising funds from both international and domestic markets.

Spain is in the grip of election fever. With less than a week to go before polling day on March 9, the campaign is receiving blanket media coverage, while politicians on the hustings talk themselves hoarse. But the countryâ??s business community remains quiet. Unlike in other western countries, Spainâ??s corporate figures will not publicly endorse candidates. Nor is it acceptable to criticise the government during an election campaign. And, if Spainâ??s business leaders are natural allies of the opposition Popular party (PP), they are discreet in their support.

The reasons for this seeming political impartiality at election time are manifold, say experts. Culturally, it is considered bad taste in Spain for business leaders to make public their grievances with government policy. Most lobbying efforts are channelled less directly, through business associations or private meetings.
However, this public neutrality is also motivated by fear, according to Fernando Casado, general manager of the Family Business Institute in Madrid. â??There is still quite a bit of political intervention in the Spanish economy,â? he says. â??Itâ??s not in any chief executiveâ??s interest to favour one side or the other. It could cost you business.â? Read more…