BUSINESS SCHOOL

Types of business school

They include schools of business, business administration, and management. There are four principal forms of business school.

1. Most of the university business schools are faculties, colleges or departments within the university, and teach predominantly business courses.
2. In North America a business school is often understood to be a university graduate school which offers a Master of Business Administration or equivalent degree.
3. Also in North America the term "business school" can refer to a different type of institution: a two-year school that grants the Associate's degree in various business subjects. Most of these schools began as secretarial schools, then expanded into accounting or bookkeeping and similar subjects. They are typically operated as businesses, rather than as institutions of higher learning.
4. In Europe and Asia, some universities teach business only.

Notable business school firsts

• 1759 - The Aula do Comércio in Lisbon was the world's first institution to specialise in the teaching of commerce. It provided a model for development of similar government-sponsored schools across Europe, and closed in 1844. [1]
• 1819 - The Ecole Supérieure de Commerce of Paris (now ESCP-EAP European School of Management)was founded. Today it is the oldest Business School worldwide. [2]
• 1881 - The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania was founded as the first business school within a broader university
• 1895 - London School of Economics established, the first business university
• 1898 - The College of Commerce at the University of California, Berkeley, later renamed the Haas School of Business, was founded as the first business school at a public university
• 1900 - The Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College was founded as the first graduate school of business, offering the first master's degree in business administration, titled the "Master of Commercial Science"
• 1907 - The École des Hautes Études Commerciales de Montréal (HEC Montréal) was founded as the first business school in Canada [3]
• 1909 - Stockholm School of Economics or Handelshögskolan i Stockholm was founded as the first institution dedicated to business and economics in Sweden.
• 1910 - Harvard Business School was the first business school to offer a degree called the "MBA"
• 1911 - Helsinki School of Economics or Helsingin kauppakorkeakoulu is the oldest Finnish-language institution dedicated to business and economics in Finland.
• 1920 - The University of Chicago Graduate School of Business was the first business school to offer a PhD program and an Executive MBA program. It is the first business school to have a Nobel laureate on its faculty: George Stigler won the prize after retiring from the school in 1981. It is also the first business school to have six Nobel laureates on its faculty.
• 1949 - The University of Pretoria was the first University outside the United States to offer an MBA [4]
• 1955 - The Institute of Business Administration, Karachi established by the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania as the first university in Asia to offer an MBA program.
• 1957 - INSEAD, near Paris, France, became the first European institution to offer an MBA program.
• 1958 - Fundação Getúlio Vargas was the first business school founded in Latin America to offer an MBA-type qualification
• 1965 - London Business School established with in University of London
• 1966 - The National Institute of Development Administration or NIDA was the first graduate school that offer an MBA program in Thailand
• 1973 - The École des Affaires de Paris (EAP) (now ESCP-EAP) was the first business school with campuses in three countries
• 1991 - The IEDC-Bled School of Management was the first business school to offer an MBA program in the 'New Europe' and all of the ex-socialist states.
• 1992 - The Thunderbird School of Global Management was the first business school to have campuses on three continents.
• 2007 - The Ross School of Business was the first business school to house a student-edited academic journal.

Business school degrees

• Associate's Degree: AA, AAB, ABA, AS
• Bachelor's Degrees: BBA, BBus, BComm, BSBA, BAcc, BABA, BBS, and BSc
• Doctoral Degrees: Ph.D., DBA, DHA, DM, DCOM, FPM
• Master's Degrees: MBA, MM, MAcc, MMR, MSMR, MPA, MSM, MHA, MSF, MSc, MST,MMS and MCOMM. At Oxford and Cambridge business schools an MPhil, or Master of Philospophy, is awarded in place of an MA or MSc.
• Post Graduate Diploma in Business Management (PGDBM), Post Graduate Program (PGP) in Business Management, Post Graduate Program (PGP) in Management

Business school use of case studies

Some business schools center their teaching around the use of case studies. Case studies have been used in graduate and undergraduate business education for nearly one hundred years. Business cases are historical descriptions of actual business situations. Typically, information is presented about a business firm's products, markets, competition, financial structure, sales volumes, management, employees and other factors affecting the firm's success. The length of a business case study may range from two or three pages to 30 pages, or more.

Business schools often obtain case studies published by Harvard Business School. Harvard's most popular case studies include Lincoln Electric Co.[5] and Google, Inc.[6].

Students are expected to scrutinize the case study and prepare to discuss strategies and tactics that the firm should employ in the future. Three different methods have been used in business case teaching:

1. Prepared case-specific questions to be answered by the student. This is used with short cases intended for undergraduate students. The underlying concept is that such students need specific guidance to be able to analyze case studies.
2. Problem-solving analysis. This second method, initiated by the Harvard Business School is by far the most widely used method in MBA and executive development programs. The underlying concept is that with enough practice (hundreds of case analyses) students develop intuitive skills for analyzing and resolving complex business situations. Click here for more information on the HBS case method. Successful implementation of this method depends heavily on the skills of the discussion leader.
3. A generally applicable strategic planning approach. This third method does not require students to analyze hundreds of cases. A strategic planning model is provided and students are instructed to apply the steps of the model to six to a dozen cases during a semester. This is sufficient to develop their ability to analyze a complex situation, generate a variety of possible strategies and to select the best ones. In effect, students learn a generally applicable approach to analyzing cases studies and real situations. This approach does not make any extraordinary demands on the artistic and dramatic talents of the teacher. Consequently most professors are capable of supervising application of this method.

History of business cases

When Harvard Business School was founded, the faculty quickly realized that there were no textbooks suitable to a graduate program in business. Their first solution to this problem was to interview leading practitioners of business and to write detailed accounts of what these managers were doing. Of course the professors could not present these cases as practices to be emulated because there were no criteria available for determining what would succeed and what would not succeed. So the professors instructed their students to read the cases and to come to class prepared to discuss the cases and to offer recommendations for appropriate courses of action. Basically that is the model still being used. See a critique of this approach.

Other approaches to business school

In contrast to the case method some schools use a skills-based approach in teaching business. This approach emphasizes quantitative methods, in particular operations research, management information systems, statistics, organizational behavior, modeling and simulation, and decision science. The goal is to provide students a set of tools that will prepare them to tackle and solve problems.

There are also several business school that still rely on the lecture method to give students a basic business education. Lectures are generally given from the professor's point of view, and rarely require interaction from the students unless notetaking is required.

Global Master of Business Administration ranking

Each year, well-known business publications such as Business Week, US News & World Report, Fortune, Financial Times, and the Wall Street Journal publish rankings of selected MBA programs that, while controversial in their methodology, nevertheless can directly influence the prestige of schools that achieve high scores.

MARKETING STRATEGY

A "marketing strategy" can serve as the foundation of a [[marketing plan]]. A marketing plan contains a set of specific actions required to successfully implement a marketing strategy. For example: "Use a low cost product to attract consumers. Once our organization, via our low cost product, has established a relationship with consumers, our organization will sell additional, higher-margin products and services that enhance the consumer's interaction with the low-cost product or service."

A strategy consists of a well thought out series of tactics to make a marketing plan more effective. Marketing strategies serve as the fundamental underpinning of marketing plans designed to fill market needs and reach [[marketing]] objectives Marketing basics [http://perso.orange.fr/pgreenfinch/mkting/mkting3.htm Marketing strategy based on market needs, targets and goals].. Plans and objectives are generally tested for measurable results.

A marketing strategy often integrates an organization's marketing goals, policies, and action sequences (tactics) into a cohesive whole. Similarly, the various strands of the strategy , which might include [[advertising]], [[channel (marketing)|channel marketing]], [[internet marketing]], [[promotion (marketing)|promotion]] and [[public relations]] can be orchestrated. Many companies cascade a strategy throughout an organization, by creating strategy tactics that then become strategy goals for the next level or group. Each one group is expected to take that strategy goal and develop a set of tactics to achieve that goal. This is why it is important to make each strategy goal measurable.

Marketing strategies are dynamic and interactive. They are partially planned and partially unplanned. See [[strategy dynamics]].

"Types of strategies"
Marketing strategies may differ depending on the unique situation of the individual business. However there are a number of ways of categorizing some generic strategies. A brief description of the most common categorizing schemes is presented below:

* Strategies based on [[market dominance]] - In this scheme, firms are classified based on their market share or dominance of an industry. Typically there are three types of market dominance strategies:
** Leader
** Challenger
** Follower
* [[Porter generic strategies]] - strategy on the dimensions of strategic scope and strategic strength. Strategic scope refers to the market penetration while strategic strength refers to the firm’s sustainable competitive advantage.

** Product differentiation
** Market segmentation
* Innovation strategies - This deals with the firm's rate of the new product development and business model innovation. It asks whether the company is on the cutting edge of technology and business innovation. There are three types:
** Pioneers
** Close followers
** Late followers
* Growth strategies - In this scheme we ask the question, “How should the firm grow?”. There are a number of different ways of answering that question, but the most common gives four answers:
** Horizontal integration
** Vertical integration
** Diversification
** Intensification
: A more detailed scheme uses the categories:
:* Prospector
:* Analyzer
:* Defender
:* Reactor
* [[Marketing warfare strategies]] - This scheme draws parallels between marketing strategies and military strategies.

"Strategic models"
{{Refimprove|date=June 2008}}
Marketing participants often employ strategic models and tools to analyze marketing decisions. When beginning a strategic analysis, the [[3C's|3Cs]] can be employed to get a broad understanding of the strategic environment. An [[Ansoff Matrix]] is also often used to convey an organization's strategic positioning of their [[marketing mix]]. The [[4P's|4Ps]] can then be utilized to form a marketing plan to pursue a defined strategy.

Marketing in Practice

The Consumer-Centric Business
There are a many companies especially those in the Consumer Package Goods (CPG) market that adopt the theory of running their business centred around Consumer, Shopper & Retailer needs. Their Marketing departments spend quality time looking for "Growth Opportunities" in their categories by identifying relevant insights (both mindsets and behaviours) on their target Consumers, Shoppers and retail partners. These Growth Opportunites emerge from changes in market trends, segment dynamics changing and also internal brand or operational business challenges.The Marketing team can then prioritise these Growth Opportunites and begin to develop strategies to exploit the opportunities that could include new or adapted products, services as well as changes to the 4Ps.

Real-life marketing primarily revolves around the application of a great deal of common-sense; dealing with a limited number of factors, in an environment of imperfect information and limited resources complicated by uncertainty and tight timescales. Use of classical marketing techniques, in these circumstances, is inevitably partial and uneven.

Thus, for example, many new products will emerge from irrational processes and the rational development process may be used (if at all) to screen out the worst non-runners. The design of the advertising, and the packaging, will be the output of the creative minds employed; which management will then screen, often by 'gut-reaction', to ensure that it is reasonable.

For most of their time, marketing managers use intuition and experience to analyze and handle the complex, and unique, situations being faced; without easy reference to theory. This will often be 'flying by the seat of the pants', or 'gut-reaction'; where the overall strategy, coupled with the knowledge of the customer which has been absorbed almost by a process of osmosis, will determine the quality of the marketing employed. This, almost instinctive management, is what is sometimes called 'coarse marketing'; to distinguish it from the refined, aesthetically pleasing, form favored by the theorists.

The Principles Of Marketing

Marketing involves a range of processes concerned with finding out what consumers want, and then providing it for them. This involves four key elements, which are referred to as the 4Ps. A useful starting point therefore is to carry out market research to find out about customer requirements in relation to the 4Ps.There are two main types of market research - quantitative research involving collecting a lot of information by using techniques such as questionnaires and other forms of survey. Qualitative research involves working with smaller samples of consumers, often asking them to discuss products and services while researchers take notes about what they have to say. The marketing department will usually combine both forms of research.The marketing department will seek to make sure that the company has a marketing focus in everything that it does. It will work very closely with production to make sure that new and existing product development is tied in closely with the needs and expectations of customers.Modern market focused organisations will seek to find out what their customers want. For example, financial service organisations, will want to find out about what sort of accounts customers want to open and the standard of service they expect to get. Retailers like Argos and Homebase will seek to find out about customer preferences for store layouts and the range of goods on offer. Airlines will find out about the levels of comfort that customers desire and the special treatment that they prefer to receive.A useful definition of marketing is the anticipation and identification of customer needs and requirements so as to be able to meet them, make a profit or other key organisational objectives.

The principles of arketing