The Fourth Module of the Power MBA

 

Inevitably I compare it to the Penn State MBA. After nearly two score, I noticed many similarities with each other. At this point, I noticed some topics not yet covered., but I reserve comments until the course is finished. Of the differences, this is a slight slant toward international business and a larger emphasis on entrepreneurship.

 

When I joined the MBA program, the administration at Penn State emphasized employment with an average salary’s beginning at thirty thousand, equivalent to nearly eighty thousand now. Courses for concentration lacked entrepreneurship as well. I had intended French, but time forced me to concentrate in operations and finance, to which I added courses some four years later at Penn State.

 

I went into the job market without an offer, but determined to compete with the Japanese in operations. Thanks to the Power MBA and the courses on LinkedIn, I am updating that as well. I still see my future in operations and finance, so I’ll be adding more courses on both later.

 

The most notable course in marketing easily passes the one I had at Penn State. Not only does it cover corporate marketing, but also individual marketing. Penn State did provide a course in speech communication, but it assumed that the degree was sufficient toward individual marketing. Given some of the hostile interviews I’ve experienced, it was wholly inadequate. When I joined Toastmasters, I had the opportunity to demonstrate what I’ve learned since the MBA course in speech communication.

 

The Power MBA has moved into branding, which the Penn State MBA never explored. This group has a wider view of the MBA, at least in the survey. The is no time for concentrations, so maybe it’s why the Power MBA tries to explore a wider field.   

 

I have heard through Zoom meetings about having a personal brand, but the Power MBA explores not only what a brand really is, but also how to plan a brand. So, the question now is how to use the brand for personal benefit after planning a brand. When I worked at Bodek and Rhodes (now part of Alpha Broder), management was building the brand of Next Level, of which I was part by entering mill orders for customer. The management at Bodek and Rhodes didn’t consider giving me a larger part in building the Next Level brand, even though everyone knew I was severely underemployed there.

My conclusion:

The Power MBA, like the one at Penn State, implicitly hints that individuals must build their own brands to overcome the old “It’s not what you know; it’s who knows you”. By building a personal brand, networking become more effective. It is a lesson sorely lacking, which assumes it comes with experience. However, should that experience run into severe underemployment, and the Alopexian Paradox takes over, it may be decades before the wisdom of the way to a successful career appears.

 

The Fourth Module of the Power MBA

The progress on this course is so different from my experience at Penn State that I’m not sure whether it’s because of the updates or the means of the internet. This module concentrates on business and marketing strategies. It many have been a strategic management course at Penn State.

 

Outside of the Boston Consulting Group, Penn State didn’t touch on matrices, although one did show up in a personnel management class I took on employees. The Ansoff matrix emphasizes growth alternatives, and organic and inorganic alternates. I saw the buzzword “synergy” remains, and some of my classmates probably practice it from the executive suite.

 

Finding purpose in life as well as business manifests in Simon Sinek’s Golden Circle. Once again, building a brand as part of that purpose returns. Hidden as implicit advice for entrepreneurs opens blitzscaling and when to promote growth.

 

Pricing brought me back to the program at Penn State. How to strategize pricing in light of other concepts in this module was quite different. Both programs tend to avoid quantification of concepts like price elasticity, which challenges me to explore it after this course.

 

The concept of value came to me many years later when I joined H&R Block, so the value curve added to my knowledge. As I noted in the previous article, Penn State assumed the value of the degree and how the concept of value works in business.

 

The final piece of the module is Hangry and how they saw an opportunity to exploit, instead of reading about Ted Turner in an article how he built an empire. The next module deals with actual leadership.