Thanks. I agree with you on the strategic value of CIMA and the benefits of the experience vs. the qualification itself.

There's lots to weigh up and without the benefit of a crystal ball it's going to be a leap of faith if I decide to go for it. My career is progressing well and I've no intention to move across to a significantly different path, so it could just be money down the drain and a lot of hard work (but a useful experience).

You question whether you should just do more hours at work.I'm not sure if you mean instead of an MBA, or simply to fund it. But if it is instead of an MBA....

As a Management Accountant you will be able to express the following far better, but nevertheless....

The course is part-time: about 40 days away from work over three years (105hr/year) plus travel and self-study.

You can obviously calculate the opportunity-cost of the time it takes you to do the course, but look at no-MBA-stay-at-work scenario also consider:

What proportion of your (2000hrs/year) time at work are you learning something that will directly contribute to increased opportunity or earning? So is the marginal impact of those 40 days spent away from work really going to limit your progress?*

BigD

* Remember the flexibility of a part-time course should allow you to optimise or at least satisfice (nice MBA word there :-) ) your work, family and course commitments over the 2.5 to 5 years duration.

I suppose I'd be looking for a tangible step-change to my salary to make it worthwhile, or at least an increase in my mid- to long-term earning potential, and I'm not clear on whether qualification would enable that. Completely agree that an MBA from MBS 'can't be bad', though I'm not sure it would be worth the investment of time and money - perhaps I would be better advised to put (even) more hours in at work!

What proportion of your (2000hrs/year) time at work are you learning something that will directly contribute to increased opportunity or earning? So is the marginal impact of those 40 days spent away from work really going to limit your progress?*

Just a personal comment, as a part-qualified CIMA who was working one of the big four when I started my part-time MBA, about the benefits you cannot anticipate:
- The MBA allows you to speak very easily about almost any business challenge. It's a huge advantage, especially with case-based courses, that you study hundreds of businesses in depth.
- The alumni network is very powerful, not only because of the connections but also because of the power of that group of people: - you could take your career in any of their directions, and you never know when a more desirable career direction might appear or become necessary.
- A much more powerful way to make choices, not only business choices.

I'd recommend speaking to alumni of MBS and other part-time programmes (and I say this as an alum of a part-time programme at MBS).

I will also add the following points:

1. The time spent with your colleagues, having different industry, geographical, cultural and depth of experience will be much more beneficial than spending more at your job because you will experience a higher degree of variety in ideas. You can learn a lot from the others' experiences.

2. Taking a part-time MBA will force you to spend some constant (more or less) dedicated time for study. Even if you are autodidact, the program will request a certain pace because you have the assignments, exams, etc. In such a way, I'm sure you'll spend more time with learning activities.

3. A more systematic approach in terms of useful information and prioritization is achieved through a program.

As MBA covers a lot of ground and is intended to be applied for practitioners , they need to intensive and strongly directed.

For example, Mintzberg's Strategy Safari book (very interesting btw) contains ten different schools of thought relating to strategy formulation:
Design School:
The Planning School:
The Positioning School:
The Entrepreneurial School
The Cognitive School:
The Learning School:
The Power School:
The Cultural School:
The Environmental School:
The Configuration School:

A student needs guidance on the relative merits of such approaches, and has insufficient time to research them all and can end up in analysis paralysis. A directed and structured approach of frameworks and limitations such as that found on a good taught course is probably the best way to enlightenment and constrained optimisation (more MBA buzzwords here :-) )

BigD

MBS are running an event in London next week to meet current students and alumni of the global programme. I'm going to attend as it's obviously a great opportunity to get some perspectives from people on the course. Unfortunately it falls after the deadline for the early bird discount but hopefully MBS will make an exception if I decide to go for it(!)

Failing that I'm going to defer for 6 months and enjoy my summer!

MBS are running an event in London next week to meet current students and alumni of the global programme. I'm going to attend as it's obviously a great opportunity to get some perspectives from people on the course. Unfortunately it falls after the deadline for the early bird discount but hopefully MBS will make an exception if I decide to go for it(!)

Failing that I'm going to defer for 6 months and enjoy my summer!

There is still 1300gbp to be saved by an application by 29th April. The app form is not too onerous.

BigD

I've already applied and been offered a place, chaps. Deposit is due on Sunday to benefit from the full discount.

So, I will continue with my experience in MBS:

In the first semester, after the GEL workshop, the Managerial Economics, Marketing and PPCD (Personal, Professional and Career Development) are to be studied.

I found the Managerial Economics course very good, starting from the books we had to study till the final exam.

It is structured with an individual assignment first, then the 3 days workshop and finally a written exam (3 hours / opened books).

The first assignment is a classical one more or less but the workshop experience is a very good one, as far as I (and many of my colleagues) perceived it. The lecturers are very knowledgeable and my group had one with a lot of experience in consulting activities on economics topics. The general accent is put on the practical aspects that are explained through academic theory.

The workshop group assignment was very practical (consulting style).

The exam targeted a synthesis of taught the aspects, requiring to give lots of practical examples in supporting our ideas.

Over all, for me, this course became a kind of reference for MBS Global MBA and up to now, it is the best course I have attended.

Also, I have to mention that in average, the ME marks are a bit higher compared to other courses (maybe due to more practical than academical approach?) and the tutors are getting among the highest marks from students as feedback.

In the next post, I'll discuss about Marketing and PPCD.

Regards,

Thanks for sharing cwm. This is the module that most interests me, as it is quantitative and easier to absorb for someone of technical background.

BigD

Thanks for sharing cwm. This is the module that most interests me, as it is quantitative and easier to absorb for someone of technical background.

BigD

Thanks cvm! Really nice contribution

+1, thanks cvm.

Coming back to my previous idea, I'll say some words about Marketing.

The Marketing module is a tough one from the requirements point of view, as far as I perceived it. The topics of the assignments are quite classical, if I may say so, related to marketing mix, relationship marketing, etc but the length of the required essays, academic references, market research are higher than for other modules.

I had the feeling that they look more to the academical aspects rather than practical ones throughout some comments received during the appraisals.

The assessment is done by one essay before workshop, one group assignment during the workshop and one final assignment. For the final assignment (generally speaking) it is worth to be mentioned that it is available on the blackboard with only one month prior to the end of semester and you have to finish it in the given 4 weeks. It is quite stressful because you don't know for more than a month what the requirements will be and in parallel you have to deal with another assignment at PPCD and the ME written exam so, the time management is an essential factor to manage all that.

The 3 days workshop is interesting, the tutors are very good in terms of knowledge but, I didn't feel the same level of class engagement like in the ME one. Still they are getting high marks from the students for the teaching.

One weak point is the lack of very detailed and pointed feedback (like the case of ME was) and sometimes even poor ones. Personally, I felt that the general appraisals can be a bit misleading because according to them one would have expected a higher mark in the absence of a better explanation for the missed points/topics.

I remember a discussion I had in Manchester during a lunch break with other 5 colleagues from different parts of the world and they were complaining about the same lack of feedback, mentioning that none of them were choosing another marketing module as an elective, mostly because of that.

Overall I felt that the marketing was a challenging module with lots of benefits for me but also with some weak points. I haven't chose either any marketing elective for the future, because I am more interested in other domains than marketing.

In the next post I'll give a PPCD insight.

Regards,

Thanks for your great insight and tips regarding this module. This is a module that I am wary about, because you are the second person that said it was "hard to please" the examiners in this subject.

For me - being technical and quantitative , I find soft subjects such as the non-scientific side of marketing to be very difficult to frame. A lot of it seems common sense but when you have to write several thousand words on why people buy washing powder, it becomes a challenge. I will have force myself to work harder on this module.

Like yourself it is not a focus area for me except insight into marketing as it is likely to impact my own B2B company.

The ME modules has triggered a whole new world of interest for me in analysing residual demand and the impact of the other firms' behaviour on your share of the total quantity. The Besanko book is excellent, and I got the Varian Intermediate Microeconomics for a calculus approach.

This brings me to another question: to what extent is there discussion of the material online in the periods outside the workshops? I have not used blackboard before, I assume it contains fora and message boards?

BigD

Coming back to my previous idea, I'll say some words about Marketing.

The Marketing module is a tough one from the requirements point of view, as far as I perceived it. The topics of the assignments are quite classical, if I may say so, related to marketing mix, relationship marketing, etc but the length of the required essays, academic references, market research are higher than for other modules.

I had the feeling that they look more to the academical aspects rather than practical ones throughout some comments received during the appraisals.

The assessment is done by one essay before workshop, one group assignment during the workshop and one final assignment. For the final assignment (generally speaking) it is worth to be mentioned that it is available on the blackboard with only one month prior to the end of semester and you have to finish it in the given 4 weeks. It is quite stressful because you don't know for more than a month what the requirements will be and in parallel you have to deal with another assignment at PPCD and the ME written exam so, the time management is an essential factor to manage all that.

The 3 days workshop is interesting, the tutors are very good in terms of knowledge but, I didn't feel the same level of class engagement like in the ME one. Still they are getting high marks from the students for the teaching.

One weak point is the lack of very detailed and pointed feedback (like the case of ME was) and sometimes even poor ones. Personally, I felt that the general appraisals can be a bit misleading because according to them one would have expected a higher mark in the absence of a better explanation for the missed points/topics.

I remember a discussion I had in Manchester during a lunch break with other 5 colleagues from different parts of the world and they were complaining about the same lack of feedback, mentioning that none of them were choosing another marketing module as an elective, mostly because of that.

Overall I felt that the marketing was a challenging module with lots of benefits for me but also with some weak points. I haven't chose either any marketing elective for the future, because I am more interested in other domains than marketing.

In the next post I'll give a PPCD insight.

Regards,

Hi BigD,

It seems you are really interested in Managerial economics. I have the feeling you will enjoy a lot the workshop as you already have some prepared questions in advance :-).

I can say it was the same for me. I also loved Besanko's book which I felt it as an easy to be red and understood, at least for me, with the engineering background. Maybe because it is written by US academics in a very pragmatic and easy style ?

For the calculus approach, I can say that is good to be understood but more important is to focus on the economic principles understanding and their inter-correlation within the action / reaction games. The most important is to put all the information in the economic context.

McNutt's Game Embedded Strategy is a good book, explaining all that (Besanko is tangentially touching some of these subjects like some protective actions against the new entrants, market share assessment and competition through Herfindahl index, etc).

If you are interested in a good online course on game theory, check the link below:

http://oyc.yale.edu/economics/econ-159#sessions

About BB, it's true, it contains forums, message boards, course readings... generally all the information you need. It's a bit awkward at the beginning but once you get used to it, it becomes easy to be used.

For the marketing, one last tip is that they are expecting to extrapolate a lot in your assignments using as many marketing principles, data collection and extra readings as you can and manage co concentrate all that in your essay (even for the first one when it's very hard to cover all the materials).

Regards,

CVM we are all waiting for your next update on modules! Dont make us wait any longer!

Hi,

Sorry for not posting for a while but I've been busy with the exam prep.

So, PPCD is today's topic:

Personal, Professional and Career Development is seen by MBS as a kind of natural continuation of the leadership introduction module (GEL). It is scheduled to last for the first four semesters.

The assignment (a group one) with a limit of 4000 words had to refer to the evaluation of a successful team (targeted domain was let at student's discretion). We had to refer to many aspects like Tuckman's team development model, Belbin's team roles, cultural differences with their implications in the team development and its success and individual and group creativity. The goal was to explain the team's innovative results coming from all aforementioned characteristics and explain the synergies and holistic result.

Actually, it was a nice piece of work because beside the discussion of the chosen team, we had to experience by ourselves the same model development to be able to complete this piece of work.

Overall, nice and rewarding activity in terms of knowledge acquiring about team development but I have to mention one more time the relative vague feedback received (although better than the one of GEL's assignment).

In the second semester, no assignment is given but instead we are asked to take some career development tests and attend webinars (on different subjects) for career development which are quite substantial. I remember I was very impressed by some of them (the one for strategy management consulting held by a former senior of ATKearney, now having its own consultancy company and also Sir Terry Leahy's "Management in 10 words" web conference to name couple of them).

Regards,