This is the Asian Century[1] some say and China and India’s growth has been said to be the twin pillars of growth. A university has to have vision, Singapore’s leaders like Goh Keng Swee had a vision to transform parts of Singapore from swampland into the bustling city that it is today. We need to train leaders to change the world (Stanford has such vision and we should have this vision today as well).
NUS Business School trains managers, but the aim should not be to train technocrats (of which there are arguably many in the government services and government linked companies which are trained in Harvard, Yale, Oxbridge and the like) but should train “Business Sauvy” individuals. I would suggest that NUS Business School going forward aim to produce Fortune 500 Company CEOs. This means that NUS has to think global and teach global lessons to its students.
I would argue that the NUS Business School can act as the “Officer Cadet School” for Asian and other companies looking to grow in Asia. These companies (not just Singapore companies) should grow into Fortune 500 Companies and thus indirect increase the number of finance jobs that NUS MBAs can apply for. This is an ambitious and audacious strategy but since Harvard is advancing into China and Insead is in Singapore, it may be time for a re-formulation of the NUS School strategy. It is time for a “Blue Ocean” Strategy for NUS.
By 2020, I would suggest that NUS Business School MBA program aim to produce 20 Fortune 500 bosses as alumni (which are not GLC linked) and will highlight several strategic thrusts to effect this audacious goal:
(i) The Curriculum
(a) The Courses should be revamped to train one to think like a manager of a large organization and not a small manager. For example the Financial Accounting Course should be taught from the point of view of a CEO and not a bookkeeper (which ironically seems to be the case sadly).
(b) An understanding of Macro-Economics and Politics should be a core module to train students to have an understanding of the world around them. The Asia Pacific Module should have a more commercial angle to it.
(c) A module on entrepreneurship in specific countries should be taught. For example a module “Enterpreneurship in China” could be an elective module. Or Macro-Economic Considerations for doing business in China could be also a MBA/Executive Education Course.
(d) Modules targeting high value jobs like Investment Banking, Consulting and Private Equity should be included in the course curriculum. It would be instructive to have more junior alumni to share experiences as part of the course and it would be useful to co-opt industry investment banking managers to look at the practicality of the material being taught.
(e) Executive Education in NUS should be stepped up to target prospective employers of our MBAs to pre-sell them on the academic prowess of our students/ education. I would suggest aim to get all the large Indonesian/ Malaysian, Asean conglomerates to send their senior managers to NUS Business School for one week classes and mix up some MBA students in the mix. This would make these large Fortune 500 Companies more familiar with the NUS brand of education and more likely to hire our MBA graduates. Harvard is already carrying out Executive Education in China and has a newsletter in both English and Chinese and NUS should back up in this area.
(f) Executive Education can be carried out by CAMRI focused on the top level bankers in the Investment Banking, Private Equity Space also the School can consider mixing its MBA students there. Perhaps 1-2 MCs can be allocated for these to MBA students that choose them. Many Harvard Courses like this are for the purpose of networking so these courses should be formulated as such to allow for networking.
(ii) Case Studies and a NUS Business Review
I have written a separate post on the case for a NUS Business Review so shall not repeat the point here.
We shall turn to the reasons why NUS should produce its own Case Studies on Top Asian Companies:
(a) Mirror Success/ Failure
Case studies act as real-life examples in teaching students to make hard decisions using insufficient information. More case studies should be used in classes and some form of pressure used on students (aka Harvard Style) to teach them to make decisions under pressure.
Asian case studies can be used in Executive Education to train future Asian leaders to succeed in Asia business. We need to learn from real-world examples and not just textbooks.
(iii) Consulting Projects
NUS should consider making a consulting project[2] of the curriculum like Judge Business School (of Cambridge University) as this fosters close links between the school and industry and trains critical thinking on the part of MBA students and also allows academics to become more “Commercial” in developing cutting edge solutions for Companies. They can then publish some of these new cutting edge solutions in the NUS Business Review.
(iv) Teach NUS Students Soft Skills
Many top US Ivy League MBA Schools train their MBA students in Salary Negotiation (which is very important), carries out personality tests and does career counseling for its MBA students. Students are also taught skills like critical thinking and communication which is important for global managers.
NUS MBA Careers Office probably should focus on looking at growing both the size of the Pie and also working to get higher value jobs for its graduates in Asia by branding its students as specialists in Asia to sidestep Insead.
However, currently Insead has great statistics.
Separately, since the CSO at NUS has the same mindset, it is no wonder that they do not bother about the part-time students. Telling us to go down to visit them during office hours (so that means we have to take leave to go down to talk to them) is shirking their responsibilities as they probably think that as we have full-time jobs so they do not need to bother about us (and since we are more likely to be more than 30 years old so tough luck for us). As a part-time student of the NUS MBA, we feel totally neglected.
In conclusion, MBA exams are near but I thought of penning this piece to set out my thoughts on these issues and hope that the School will progress to become a global school focused on training MBA graduates who can find top jobs anywhere in the world.
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