Hey there.
I'm back.
As you can imagine, the end
of P2 kept me pretty damn busy. Now that it is over and that I have been home
for over a week already, it's time to wrap it up with a decent post.
So, what was P2 about? P2
included 7 classes or, to be fair, 6 classes and one little module:
·
Corporate
Financial Policy (CFP)
·
Managerial
Accounting (MA)
·
Managing Customer
Value (MCV)
·
Organizational
Behavior II (OBII)
·
Process and
Operations Management (POM)
·
Principles of
Strategic Analysis (PSA)
·
Practical Wisdom
in Business (PWB) – 2-class module
CFP was a course in Finance,
where we learnt about derivative securities (e.g. forwards, futures, options,
and respective pricing and trading); corporate financing decisions, including
choice of corporate structure, dividend policy, new security issues and share
buy-backs; and applications of derivatives to corporate finance issues (e.g.
convertible securities and real options). It was taught by our most brilliant,
energetic and fast-paced professor so far – Pascal Maenhout –, and was one of
the most demanding classes of the MBA so far. The pace was so high that this
was the only class that did not grade class participation, as Pascal did not
want to promote non-value added student interaction. The grading system was 25%
for homework group assignments, and 75% for an open-book final exam.
Managerial Accounting, in
turn, was a course focused in the use of financial and non-financial
information for internal planning, decision-making and performance evaluation
in modern firms. Although our MA professor (Gavin Cassar) was a cool guy – an Australian
mate with a good sense of humor, wearing shorts to class and showing up at our
house parties for a few drinks with the MBA candidates –, the class itself seemed
to somehow lack organization and structure. Some of us left one or two MA classes
without being sure if we had learnt a lot, as many topics were quite broad,
subjective and related to common sense topics. However, studying for the exam
helped (at least me) putting together all the most important topics learnt and
structuring the main takeaways from this class. Anytime there is a closed-book
exam, one gotta learning everything indeed. Grading for this class was 15% for
class participation, 15% for group assignments (5 of them!), and 70% for a
closed-book final exam.
Moving on to MCV… MCV was a
class I was actually looking forward to. Although some people consider
marketing to be too fluffy and/or qualitative, there’s something about it that has
always attracted me. The current transition to customer centric and end-to-end business
models, the power of big data, and the fact that there’s so much to explore in
what concerns to customer needs and behavior, have made me increasingly curious
about the marketing world. However, MCV was taught in a more traditional/
conservative/ old-fashioned manner than expected. The class motto was to cover “(1)
the analysis of customers and customer markets, (2) the creation of value by
developing superior products that address customer needs, (3) the optimization
of all tactical activities to enable the product to profitably reach the target
market, and (4) the measurement and monitoring of market performance”. It was a
case-based class, the cases were pretty interesting and we even had one or two
marketing simulations that gave us an overview of the relevant steps of the
marketing process. Yet, it neglected the power of big data and how important
the consumer is becoming to the companies of the future, the ones that are
app-based and that rely on the customer inputs.
Grading was based on class
participation (30% individual), a report from the first group simulation
exercise, BrandPRO (15% group), the performance in the second group simulation
exercise, MixPRO (5% group), and a final exam (50%). Not sure why, but I think
I will only have a good grade in the class participation portion of the grade.
The simulations went terribly for our group, and the exam was just… Weird!
OBII was a good surprise! It
was definitely an upgrade from OBI, not only in terms of content, but also in
terms of class dynamics and professor performance. OBII taught us how to be
successful inside an organization – how to use power and politics, how to form
coalitions, how to deploy culture to shape behavior, how to use informal
networks and lead change, which incentives to use, which organizational
structures to adopt, etc., etc., etc. The course included many cases and a few
simulations, as well as groups and individual assignments that made us reflect
upon previous experiences in which organizational topics did improve or deteriorate
our professional and personal experience. It was dynamic, interactive, and fun.
Heads up for Frédéric Godart for making our classes fun and really engaging,
even without sharing his own point of view as many times as desirable (in my
opinion). Grading was 35% participation, 30% an individual essay, 35% a final group
exam. Yup, group exam – 4 hours to write a group essay, analyzing
the main organizational problems of a specific organization, and recommending
an implementation plan for its change. It was not easy, a bit stressful, but
definitely an educative exercise in what concerns to group dynamics.
POM, POM, POM! POM was an
Operations course focused in supply-demand mismatches. It was divided in two
parts: business process analysis (inputs, rates, bottlenecks, throughput,
operational expenses, uncertainty management, and so on), and supply chain
management (namely the newsvendor model). The workload was quite high! Most
classes required case preparation, a book (“The Goal” by E. M. Goldratt &
J. Cox) had to be read, and there were 3 long group assignments, on top of a
(very difficult) final exam. Grading was 20% for class involvement, 30% for
homework (both group assignments and individual online polls regarding certain
cases), and 50% for an individual final exam. That individual final exam was
the most difficult we had at INSEAD so far, but studying for it was quite fun…
Last but not least, our
Strategy class was much better than what I had imagined. I would dare to say
that every strategic consultant like me was slightly skeptical regarding taking
a class on strategy, as it could hardly go beyond what we do on a daily basis.
However, it was useful in a few different ways. First, it taught us to stop
neglecting strategic frameworks. Even if we (as strategic consultants) don’t
want to apply strategic frameworks per se in the analyses we do to our clients,
we should always be aware that there are plenty of useful tools out there and,
most importantly, that each tool is supposed to answer only one question and,
therefore, should only be used for one single purpose. This PSA class helped us
get a more structured overview of all the existing strategic frameworks, and
also of their specific purpose. Secondly, PSA made us think about the way we
work, and allowed us to share with our non-consultant classmates and groupmates
our experience in the field. And, to teach others on what we do and the best
practices we apply, we ought to thoroughly think about what we do well, what we
do wrong, how can we explain that in simple words, and how useful (or not) the different
tasks of our job are. It also leads to other people questioning things that we’ve
been taking for granted, making us want to adapt the way we do stuff and/ or
convince them that we do things the right way.
PSA class dynamics were fun
too. Our Professor Daniel Simonovich was a one-of-a-kind – very funny, very unique,
and quite engaging. This was another case-based class, and the workload was
quite intense too. On top of preparing a case for each class, we had a group
project that consisted of a 20-slide presentation analyzing a specific industry
(automotive, in our case), and there was the Master Strategist Day – a full
Saturday at INSEAD, doing a micro-consulting project for a player within the
automotive business, with groups competing against each other to select a
finalist group to compete against other sections. Grading for this class was
20% class participation, 35% group project, 5% personal statement on lessons
learnt, 10% group performance on Master Strategist day, and 30% individual
report on Master Strategist day. Ufffffff, no exam but lots of work!
In the beginning of P2 we
also had a 2-module class on Ethics called Practical Wisdom in Business. The
Professor Niel Bearden is super famous at INSEAD for making everyone think
about the kind of person they want to be, and which lifestyle they want to
take. Not only for the content, but mainly for getting to know Niel, this micro
class was worth taking too.
P2 was the last period that
closed with a dreadful exam-week. We had the Master Strategist day on Saturday,
finished classes on Monday, and had a one-day stop before exams started. There
was the OBII group exam on Wednesday, the weird MCV exam on Thrusday, two exams
on Friday (MA and the crazy difficult POM one), and, at last, the CFP exam on
Monday.
Meanwhile, it was also time to say goodbye to my amazing group and section. I will miss them a lot.
Exhausted, I flew home on
Monday late in the evening, and enjoyed Christmas, wedding prep and so on with
the family for a bit over a week. It was great to be home but too rushy, too
intense, too quick. At the moment, I am about to land in the Philippines with
my Gorda. We will spend New Year’s here with some good friends before P3 starts
and Gorda goes back to work.
Sorry for such a long absence
and talk to you soon!
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