Simulation over and it seems we won

The simulation wasn't as nerve wrecking as I expected it to be. I guess this was because of the very well balanced team I ended up in. And a very beautiful team, as I am sure you all will agree.

The good news is that our group made the most profits selling American tooth paste in Latin America and we won the competition, getting a bottle of Chilean wine as prize. And good marks too, I hope! We didn't have the most sales, but, in the end, the money that ends up in the stockholders' pockets is what counts, right?

Some tips for future participants:

• Be clear where you want to start, how and why.
• Develop a good idea which countries to enter in the next rounds to have a general strategic direction.
• Don't compete on price. Invest in advertisement and promotion, keep an eye on the margin.
• Take a closer look at wholesalers and deploy fewer sales people to traditional retail.
• Go for big markets. Early on.
• Keep number of markets and SKUs low, to make situation review and decision input stay in a manageable time frame. Keep comlexity low.
• Make notes for your final report during the simulation.
• No real need for laptops. One extra computer per team is more than enough.
• Use benchmarks. Compare with the competition.
• Don't build up too much capacity at first.
  

A conservative approach worked for us. But I am curious what would happened if we had gone to all markets at the same time. Or entered one market with all SKUs. Or tried only the web shopping channel.

Thanks, team "Operación latina"!

International Marketing course in Mannheim

This is going to be a short post. But suffice it to say that I have had another enjoyable week at MBS. It was not an easy week and I am writing although I should be sleeping to prepare for the International Marketing Strategy Simulation tomorrow, but the course has been really good, again. I am happy with my choices, so far.
It is a very high content course, building nicely on the material of Cross-Cultural Management and International Management. We used concepts from both courses often. But I am glad that the lectures' part of the course is over. We had 404 slides in 3 days, but still have to actually discount the time of the 6 case presentations (15 minutes, plus at least 10 minutes discussion each) from the overall discussion time.
Now remains the question of how to review so many slides. And I have to admit, every slide was there for a reason and they were well used, so the unusually high number is justified.
But let me go to sleep. It has been a long day and I have to wake up early tomorrow to do some reading before class.
And some good news: I am scheduling interviews with two other companies, my efforts from last week are paying off.

The 2008 International Management Class

Originally posted on May 1st, 2008.
And Dr. Perlitz at the left. It was a good week, I just hope that the exam tomorrow is OK.

Pradeep sent me the picture taken with his camera, and I think the quality is better, so here it is.

An ode to Nicholas Bate

Undoubtedly Nicholas Bate was the teacher who had the most impact on our class this term. Mind you, he is not a WBS teacher. He is a consultant and trainer who has given us about half a dozen sessions on varied subjects, all dealing with personal development. You know that kind of self help and life philosophy Americans seem to like so much? Yeah, exactly that.
I personally don't care for self help books. How could I? They are extremely boring. They do present some neat and interesting ideas, but they rely on repetition and exhausting explanations to present you what is, usually, pretty much obvious stuff, good sense. OK, their merit is to put obvious stuff black on white and present it to you. On hindsight, everything is easy, remember Columbus' egg. But they are boring and patronizing anyway, most of times. So I shouldn't like Nick's sessions, right?
Well, what he does is to get all the clutter out of the way and present what really matters. And he does so in a consistent and excellent way, with all the meaning of the word. But more on that later. So, personally, I found his sessions good, will use some of what he has proposed, but not all of it. But that's the hang of it: you have to endorse what he is doing.
It seems that his way of teaching is, at least, very striking: many of my colleagues have written about him in their blogs, and his phrases or citations are common vocabulary in the cohort: "Love the dip, love the plateau.", "No failure, only feedback.", "Be here now.", "Be your own hero.", "MEDS", "Be distinct or extinct." and so on. One of Deepak's first blog articles was about Nick. Praveen has written about him. Chris also. And Marwa is a big fan. No other teacher we had made people think as much about themselves.
We did have great teachers. And Ben Knight is, from WBS, surely the one I liked best. He has an extreme enthusiasm for his subject, economics (the mother discipline) and he obviously has fun making everybody participate in his class. And he knows the students in the group. By name, nationality, experience. He put effort into getting our particular experiences out to illustrate his points to the class. Five stars for him.
Then we had the energetic Stuart Chambers, Operations Management. For me, one of the most entertaining classes. As his colleague Nigel Slack, which we had for only one session, also created an impression with his knowledge and humor.
Nigel Piercy, Market Analysis, was, IMHO, a very good teacher. But one with a mixed feedback. I liked his classes a lot, many people could not deal with his cynic and sarcastic style. Sometimes you were not sure if what he meant was what he wrote or the exact opposite. But that was fine for me. Our marketing course was very much a first grade strategy course and it treated marketing from an updated point of view. No 4Ps or established (and usually still valid) theories, but more about customer value, customer relationship, strategic advantage, effective communication. I believe we could not have had a better marketing course. And, for me, his slides and his presentation style, though monologic and maybe boring at times, worked well.
In organizational behavior we had so many teachers, that only the first and main one remains in my memory. Nick was a very pleasant guy and his classes are interesting. But sorry, didn't work for me. I couldn't find a structure in his exposition and this made it very confusing for me. I am not expecting to get a good mark in OB.
Accounting was well taught. But it was a technical subject, nothing special to report.
And we had other speakers and teachers coming in and out during the term for one day sessions. Graham from Sykes Fairbairn stood out and his colleagues were pretty cool. Not to mention Mark and Dana from Penhela, who fortunately I will be meeting again and listening to their extremely fast paced speech in Mannheim in April. These are some really expert recruiting consultants!
But Nicholas Bate was surely the most impacting character during these 3 months. And, for me, it has more to do with the way he presents things, than with what he actually presents. He clearly has control of the crows all the time. When he is in class, he means business, and you know it. He does joke from time to time, but he is dead serious. He is extremely well prepared. He know his handouts by heart. He doesn't use powerpoint slides. He speaks clearly and loudly. He repeats and emphasizes. The course of his lectures is dynamic and diverse. He has catchy phrases. No bullshit keywords. And, obviously, he likes what he is doing.
So, that's it for today. I gave you all an overview of the types of teachers we had and singled Nicholas Bate out. I hope this gives you a good idea of who we faced during the term and I'll end up with the weblink to Nichola's blog. Its feed is on my reading list.
http://nicholasbate.typepad.com/
Cheers,
Fernando, heading to the Practice of Management report which should have been done long ago.
P.S.: The geese are back. They disappeared for a week, when it was really cold, but it is warmer now and they are there again, although not as loudly as usual. But this is an old pic.