Global Innovation - The Paul Merage School of Business - University ...

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INNOVATION 8 experience INNOVATION A Practicum With A Twist Merage business students offer innovative ideas, perspectives and solutions. Management is listening. by Connie Clark IT’S ONE THING for a business student to take away powerful lessons from a management practicum. It’s quite another when host company executives learn something, too. But increasingly, that’s the result of many Merage student experiences at companies throughout Orange County. During the past six years, Merage full-time MBA student teams have completed 60 projects in a variety of industries and functional areas. Logging a total of nearly 30,000 project hours, teams tackle projects involving business growth, market entry, new product launches, process improvement, and strategy development. “Client satisfaction has been outstanding,” says Shaheen Husain, Merage School’s Executive Director “ This was a unique opportunity for us to work collaboratively with Merage MBAs to examine the challenges of our complex industry and explore how recent innovations in technology may be applied to further improve our manufacturing and operational excellence programs. The Merage School team’s intensive research, thoughtful analysis and sense of purpose provided Watson with valuable insight into critical applications of both process management and process analytical technology. ” Tom Giordano Senior Vice President and CIO, Watson Pharmaceuticals of Corporate Relations. “The feedback from executives is that the students brought in perspectives and ideas that they hadn’t thought of. They’re getting real results for real issues.” The list of companies who have had success with the program reads like a Who’s Who of successful businesses, including Mazda North America, Allergan, Advanced Medical Optics, ConAgra, Kingston Technology, and many more. Husain believes part of the differenceliesinthenatureof the team, which has a full complement of resources to back it up, including faculty technical advisors and consultant coaches from leading management consulting firm McKinsey & Co. Clearly, however, the students are in charge. Sample projects and results include: Developing a strategy to leverage engineering resources overseas and coordinate work with the U.S.-based engineering teams. Creating an innovative market forecasting tool to provide product planning direction.
“ Iwanttoexpressmy thanks to the UC Irvine MBA team for the thoroughness, diligence and insight they brought to AMO’s Market Research project. The MBA program leaders assembled an outstanding team for us, with relevant experience in the healthcare industry and solid leadership skills. This program represents a true win-win for the local business community. ” Jim Mazzo Chairman & CEO, Advanced Medical Optics Developing an inventory model and recommending supply strategies to increase inventory turns and maintain high levels of customer service. Emile Pilafidis, PhD, lecturer and part of the team that spearheads the program, calls the practicum experience a win-win for everyone involved. “This is true experiential learning,” he says. “We like to call it ‘sticky’ learning because it stays with the students. They come away with significant lessons beyond what they get in the classroom.” Pilafidis says the projects achieve ahighlevelofcooperationfrom companies, since the sponsors are at the senior management level. The success is apparent in the program’s reputation for excellence. “We’re getting more inquiries from companies, and we’re excited to enter new and emerging business sectors, such as surfwear and new forms of entertainment,” says Husain. INNOVATION INTERNET USE TODAY Teaching a Top Dog New Tricks by John Gregory Five Full-Time MBA students of the Merage School’s course on Internet Marketing presented their findings on social networking to Microsoft’s Corporate Research department in April at Mountain View, California. The presentation was the third annual Microsoft project conducted by student teams of the marketing course taught by Professor Alladi Venkatesh. The students conducted an online “ survey of more than 1,000 undergrad- ...high quality and uates from universities across the country. Results and analysis were very professional. It presented to Microsoft officials on communicated the such social networking issues as: key findings and What social networking sites do young consumers use and how insights succinctly often? and lucidly... [We] What devices do they use to access these sites? are so fortunate to What activities do they engage in, have such a fruitful how frequently, and what activities collaboration. ” do they avoid? What are young consumers’ attitudes and concerns about privacy? How is online social networking evolving? What are the contexts of social networking and other online communications use? Microsoft officials told Venkatesh that the presentation was “high quality and very professional. It communicated the key findings and insights succinctly and lucidly… [We] are so fortunate to have such a fruitful collaboration.” The student team consisted of Kendra Hammer (group leader), Martina Albers, Laurie Lipsky, Karyn Chen and Sarah Marren. 9 Merage | 2008 – 2009
Page 1 and 2: Merage 2008/2009 Published by UC Ir
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October 2007, in Paris France. Moth
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