Explore Options; Plan Your MBA Academic Program

Following are suggested tracks, which constitute coherent sets
of courses in specific areas of study. However, these tracks are
only suggestions and students are free to construct their own
programs of study.
Operations Management Track
OPIM 650 Operational Performance Analysis (.5 cu)
OPIM 614 Managing the Productive Core of the Firm:
Innovation (.5 cu)
OPIM 654 Product Design and Development
OPIM 655 Integrating Marketing and Operations (.5 cu)
OPIM 656 Operations Strategy and Process Management
OPIM 658 Service Operations Management (.5 cu)
OPIM 697 Retail Supply Chain Management (.5 cu)
Information Systems Track
OPIM 660 Information Systems Engineering
OPIM 661 Systems Analysis, Design, and Implementation
OPIM 672 Decision Support Systems
Decision Processes Track
OPIM 672 Decision Support Systems
OPIM 690 Managerial Decision Making
OPIM 691 Negotiations
BEPP 811 Risk and Crisis Management (.5 cu) (may be
counted as an oPiM course for the purposes of
satisfying the .5 cu requirement for the Decision
Processes track)
MBA Advisor: Marshall Fisher (telephone: 215.898.7721;
fisher@wharton.upenn.edu).
INFORMATION: STRATEGy AND ECONOMICS
The field of strategy is constantly evolving as the competitive
environment facing firms changes, and as our knowledge of the
field evolves to keep pace. One of the most significant changes
has been the dramatic improvement in the information endowments,
or “states of informedness,” enjoyed by the firm, its customers,
and its competitors. The acceleration of informedness,
like changes in transportation in the late 1890s or in available
sources of power and energy earlier, will transform commerce
and society in ways that are not fully understood, leading to
new winners among nations, industries, groups of workers and
managers, and firms. The discipline of Information Strategy
and Economics has emerged to deal with changes in information
endowments and their impact on strategy, by focusing
on change and uncertainty, and on new sets of paradigms that
help predict outcomes. The major provides an excellent foundation
for careers in strategic management, both within the
firm and as consultants in strategic management. It uses historical
precedent and economic theory to develop a pragmatic set
of skills that help students see emerging patterns and develop
strategies in rapidly changing business environments. Its courses
are motivated by its focus on “states of informedness” as
drivers of strategy, hence its location in the OPIM department,
OPERATIONS AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
but it does not study technology nor does it have the quantitative
analysis focus of the rest of the OPIM department.
The increase in consumer informedness is changing consumer
behavior in a wide range of situations. Customers find
the least expensive alternative in categories of little importance
to them, while finding the perfect match with their wants and
needs, cravings and longings, in categories they find salient.
Online trust is a strong determinant of shopping behavior and
will continue to be.
Likewise, the increase in information available to firms,
and the increasing variety of strategies available for the use of
information — from dynamic repricing to online distribution,
from labor productivity enhancements to labor arbitrage and
outsourcing — requires a dramatic revision of managerial mental
models of their competitive options. Revising mental models
and enhancing mental agility are both essential to executive
leadership, rather than mere conservation and management, in
today’s environment of rapid and discontinuous change in the
competitive environment.
The ability to target profitable market segments and to
identify individual customers is reducing the value of scalebased
operations and the strategic advantage of large firms with
existing market share. The ability to monitor the performance
of units abroad is leading to greater reliance upon outsourcing,
benefiting many service industries and once again reducing the
advantage of many large firms. At the same time, the impact of
information technology on the transparency and efficiency of
securities markets is destroying the profits of entire segments
of financial services. All aspects of the firm — production, service,
sales, marketing, and strategy — will be affected. Clearly,
some firms will win and others will lose; nearly all will have to
change. And yet, fundamental laws of economics have not been
repealed. How can previous economic theory, and previous
experience with rapid technological change, provide insights for
the development of strategy in an increasingly digital age?
As power continues to shift among retailers, distributors,
and manufacturers/primary suppliers, many industries are being
forced to deal with restructuring caused by disintermediation
resulting from electronic channels.
While these changes are directly driven by information
technology, it is the management challenges, and not the
underlying technology, that are addressed by this new interdisciplinary
major.
• What is the future of advertising and push-based communications
concerning mass-market consumer products? What
is the future of more targeted offerings, intended to produce
resonance with the wants and needs of smaller market
segments, and the role of organic consumer-driven dialog
about new products?
• What is the appropriate production strategy as the balance
between local and global production, between internal production
and external procurement, and between short term
contracting and long term strategic alliances are all altered?
• What is the appropriate marketing strategy as the balance
shifts between established competitors with dominant share
and apparent cost advantages and new entrants with
63