Tag Archives: uwa mba
There’s currently extensive media coverage of an “ideas boom” now underway in Australia. This “boom” is being strongly supported by the Federal government, who have recently introduced a range of measures to promote and foster the boom in the form of special tax incentives and direct government funding. Increasingly venture capitalists and entrepreneurs are looking for the next winning idea.
What is the relevance of an MBA to this ideas boom? Naive thinking has it that an MBA is incompatible with the new environment of innovation and disruption, however nothing could be further from reality.
While it’s a popular myth, disruptive, innovative ideas don’t spring from nothing. Rather, developing and articulating a new idea or concept requires a careful and structured consideration of a wide range of factors – the size and dimensions of the marketplace, the “problems” being faced by consumers, the competitor environment, and proposing a solution that addresses these competing considerations, that is viable and executable. The skills required to perform this kind of analysis are broad based and an ability to work effectively across business disciplines is required.
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The gold price crash of 2013 was a dramatic wakeup call to many of the resource sectors prolific gold miners. Their ride of historically high prices had come to a sudden halt and the need to trim the fat (so to speak) had become the number one priority. While the term ‘cost reduction’ was nothing new to my vocabulary, I had never seemed to take a full appreciation of the term – that is until, I was part of a wider team entrusted to pull my organisation back to profitability. After months of working alongside business improvement teams and external consultants, I began to develop a keen interest in how business’s solved complex problems, especially in difficult economic conditions. This interest (and a little inspiration from some consultants) is what led me to the UWA MBA program.
Now, due to some previous study, I elected to pursue UWA’s MBA Flexible program on a full time basis. The flexible programs greatest appeal was that it offered a range of leadership and resource focused units. This allowed me to tailor my MBA to the area of greatest value to me and also helped me to keep in touch with the industry. Another key appeal was the abundance of scholarships. For someone who has left their job and has no steady stream of income, you could understand my enthusiasm towards this.
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Since starting my MBA at the University of Western Australia (UWA) Business School last year, I’ve been asked many times why I’ve decided to go back to study. Is it for a promotion? Or to pursue a change in career? It feels there is a common perception that a decision to undertake an MBA is a deliberate step towards achieving a defined professional goal, or a calculated move towards a business-oriented career in management consulting or similar. But for me, the decision to study for an MBA is less a decision to ‘get’ somewhere, but rather an opportunity to better understand the different paradigms that drive the business world in whichever environment I find myself.
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With the final grades having been released, I can officially say that I survived the inaugural MBA Full Time program at the University of Western Australia. Completing 12 units in 11 months is certainly no mean feat. In fact, it has been the most challenging and exhausting experience of my career to date. Fortunately, it has been equally exciting and transformative. Having just crossed the finish line, I feel I am in a unique position to offer some advice to prospective or current students as to how to make the most of their MBA journey. And with the second full-time cohort having just begun their studies, I hope that this advice is timely. Please note that, while my recommendations stem from my own experience in a full time MBA, I think they are applicable to a flexible MBA schedule.
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It was almost a year to the day that I started the MBA Full Time at UWA Business School. On the first day, Mark Barnaba, the Chairman of the UWA Business School Board promised that the experience would be transformational, and he was absolutely right. I came in to the MBA as a 33 year old former athlete with no business experience and unsure of exactly what the future holds and I leave with the opportunity to work for one of the world’s leading companies in management consulting. That’s the power of a UWA MBA.
My motivation for doing an MBA at the University of Western Australia was to hone my managerial, analytical and problem solving skills, broaden my education and thinking, and improve my professional opportunities. I’ve achieved all of this thanks to the diversity of classes, lots of hard work, quality teaching and an amazing cohort; in fact it’s what I’ve learnt from my fellow classmates that have perhaps been most beneficial. The cohort was so diverse and so experienced that there was something to learn from everyone.
