Ivey’s China Teaching Project

Written by: Rebecca Liu, MBA 2008

In recent years, the business world has been eyeing China with great interest as untapped opportunities continue to emerge. The Chinese capital, Beijing, is known for its rich culture and extensive history, preserved in its many landmarks such as the Great Wall and the Forbidden City. The world is also counting down to the August 8th start of the 2008 Summer Olympic Games to be held in Beijing. You can imagine how honoured I felt to be part of the team to represent Ivey for one month to teach an undergraduate course at Beijing’s prestigious Tsinghua University for their School of Economics and Management (SEM).

You can find the full post on the Ivey MBA Business Week blog (Click here)

KEY MARKETING TRENDS FOR 2009

What does one do when you have a bit of free time on your hands after finishing an MBA? The answer is of course simple: you put together a prediction of key marketing trends for next year!



I bet that the top three marketing trends that will impact how Canadian marketers do business in 2009 will be:

• Mobilization
• Personalization
• Greenification

With the cell phone technology becoming more advanced, marketers need to dial into a new wave of mobile linked promotions. Apple has been leading the trend in this area, with their iPhone, which is going to be launched in Canada July 2008.

Second version of iPhone is going to be equipped with a new generation of location-aware software created in collaboration with Google Inc. Furthermore, expected to retail at a price of $199 (under a 3 year contract), iPhone is going to be quite affordable compared to other Smartphones on the market today. What does that mean for marketers in Canada? It means that with the increased popularity of the iPhone marketing spending on mobile medium is likely to receive a significant boost; in particular companies are going to start investing more into mobile advertising and building their mobile presence.

There are already services in US that allow promotional coupons to be sent to user’s cell-phone once they are in the vicinity of a particular registered business, maximizing the potential for lead generation and conversion. Combine that with the fact that new generation of Smartphones will likely allow for a far more granular measurement of marketing ROI and there’s a real possibility that mobile marketing dollars are going to be the biggest growth area next year.

As Canadians increase the use of Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and GPS technologies available in majority of new Smartphones, their mobile experience will become more personalized. Prior to these technologies such level of personalization was only available sitting in-front of the computer. With the mobile personalization, depending both on their location and preferences users would be receiving selected promotional information on their mobile phones that could be made much more relevant and appealing to them. This also lessens the traditional gap of time and distance between when a consumer sees an ad and when they can actually buy the product which in turn would increase the effectiveness of promotional activities.

Furthermore, as marketing dollars continue transitioning towards online medium, social networking sites will start to play an even more important role in 2009. Websites like Facebook and MySpace as well as other niche players will increasingly help marketers to deliver their message effectively through the clutter to their target audiences. This will be made possible through the abundance of personal preference data that users willingly share on those sites.

Gas prices have skyrocketed over the last three years. Last year alone the price of gas shot up 31%. As gas prices increase, the topic of energy starts to occupy greater share of consumer’s mind and so does the related topic of environment. Hence, Greenification is becoming another hot topic. As companies continue to attempt differentiating themselves in consumer’s mind being the Greenest is finally starting to pay off real dividends. Therefore metrics measuring how Green is the company perceived by its target segment will provide an additional insight of potential sales driver in 2009.

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Now we'll just have to wait a year to see how close I really was ;)

George

McLoving it!

Who would have thought following two words could be found in a same sentence:

1) McDonalds™ and Love
2) Subway™ and Pizza
3) Me and MBA-grad

None the less McDonalds marketing slogan is "i'm lovin' it". Subway, which is a major sub chain in North America, has recently added 90 second pizzas to their menu (maybe they should also think of changing their brand to Sub + Pizza way = SuPway). And, YOU GUESSED IT: I’ve graduated from the Ivey MBA! Big Yay for George!!!

It has been a challenging year with its fair share of ups and downs, lots of learning not only about variety of business topics but more importantly about myself. Comparing MBA to my undergraduate experience I’m tempted to say that the undergraduate degree in Computer Engineering taught me how to research a narrow topic in-depth while MBA taught me how to think broadly about business problems.

Lots of people ask me if I’m happy about my decision to pursue the Ivey MBA and if I had a chance to go back would I still do it. The answer is resounding YES! Now let me elaborate a little bit about what I mean, it will also help to explain the ups and downs that I’ve mentioned in passing above. Interesting nature about Ivey is that it stretches you to the limit and then some, and that’s what really helps to build your capacity to succeed. Not only does it do that, it also trains you to think like a good manager by looking at problems broadly.

Combination of a case teaching method and large number of brilliant professors has been two real highlights about my experience at Ivey. Cases are real situations that managers are faced with in their everyday activities. It trains you to recognize patters of problems analyze those situations systematically and act accordingly to resolve them. After a year of Ivey it feels like you’ve been in a management role for at least 5 years based on the number of management problems that you’ve seen and collaborated as a team to resolve.

As anticipated, it turned out to be one expensive year. The final number is hovering close to a cool $95,000 including living expenses and an optional trip to China, and excluding lost wages. I’ve also told my family to forget buying me a watch as a graduation present and instead to get me a sturdy helmet to safeguard my head which now officially is the most expensive asset that I own!

The other day I was pondering a question whether I could have lasted another year if Ivey still had a two year MBA program? The answer is a simple NO. First of all my finances are stretched to the limit with the one year MBA. Second, going back to life of student has been fun for the first 4 months, but I’d like to go back to having an income, rather than just living off student loans. Finally, talking to alumni from the two year program it sounds like it was fairly tough to keep the same level of focus on education over the span of two years.

I want to thank everybody for following the blog over my year at Ivey. One last part of my Ivey experience that I want to share with you is the whole career search process at Ivey. I’m planning to write it once I accept a job offer.

Cheers,
George

Book recommendations from my favorite Ivey prof

Following is the list of book recommendations from Robert Nourse, my all-time favorite professor at Ivey. Bob taught Entrepreneurial Manager elective for us. It was truly amazing to have somebody with his level of experience sharing insights and knowledge with us. Bob founded Bombay Company and grew it from one store to 432 stores; he was named 1993 Entrepreneur of the Year by Inc. magazine. 

Guy Kawasaki,  The Art of the Start: The Time-Tested Battle Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything, (New York: Penguin Group, 2004)

One of the early pioneers at Apple, Guy Kawasaki is the founder of the venture capital firm, garage.com. He’s down to earth, humorous and practical.  You should, at minimum, read something he’s written.  If you like this, you’d also enjoy his earlier book, Rules for Revolutionaries.

Fareed Zakaria,  The Post American World, (New York: Norton, 2008) 

This book won’t be out until the first week of May, but it’s widely-anticipated and, because Zakaria speaks extensively, its content is somewhat known.  A naturalized American of Indian descent, the author is the editor of Newsweek International.  He’s a brilliant thinker and you’ll find his insight into the rise of China and India, and their impact on the advanced economies of the West, fascinating and thought-provoking. His earlier book, The Future of Freedom, was a New York Times bestseller.

Collins and Porras, Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies (New York: HarperBusiness, 1994, 1997)

This is certainly not a new book and, technically, not one that deals exclusively with entrepreneurship.  But the authors, who are Stanford researchers reporting on a six year study of 18 successful companies, have a lot to say about what makes a visionary company and vision is an important ingredient of any entrepreneurial venture. That’s why I like it.

Lewis, The New New Thing (New York: Penguin Books, 2001)

Different than other books on the list, this is a biography.  It looks at Jim Clark, the founder of Silicon Graphics, Netscape  and Healtheon.  There was an earlier hardcover edition, but this is the paperback.

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Enjoy!
George