MBA Students & Mental Health

Matt Chase

Measuring Uncertainty Helps Investors Navigate Risk

News from University of Chicago Booth School of Business

“When the United States and Mexico reached a new understanding about trade matters this past summer, renegotiating parts of the North American Free Trade Agreement, President Donald Trump cheered. Others had questions: How would the deal affect the U.S. auto industry? How would it affect consumers? What would it mean for recent tariff hikes on steel and aluminum imports? You could almost hear executives across the continent reaching for antacids.

“Moments such as this carry significant risk for business, and there have been many such moments of late. “Political uncertainties abound,” observes Chicago Booth’s Steven J. Davis: ‘Brexit, Trump, trade wars, eurozone perils, autocracy in Turkey, war in the Middle East, clampdowns in China, corruption scandals in Brazil, crisis in Argentina, and more.’”

Participants in the Transforming Customer Experiences program learn through cases from and interactive lectures by HBS faculty members. HBS photo

Transforming Customer Experiences: Driving Performance & Profitability In The Service Sector

News from HBS

“The service sector is a large and growing part of our economy. But a lot of service businesses are managed according to old ideas imported from more traditional industries, says Ryan Buell, UPS Foundation Associate Professor of Service Management at Harvard Business School (HBS).

“In today’s rapidly changing service sector, a new set of frameworks is required to build a robust and competitive service business, says Buell.

“’Service jobs have a reputation for not being great jobs—and in many cases, I think it’s a well-earned reputation. But it shouldn’t be that way,’ says Buell. ‘Service is the business of people helping people, and when employees lack the capability, motivation, and license to perform, there’s no hope they’ll deliver excellent service to customers.’”

The Vanderbilt Owen Accelerator Finance Bootcamp Class of 2018. Owen photo

Owen Accelerator®—Finance Bootcamp Adds More Classes, Expands to Five Days For Summer 2019

News from Vanderbilt University Owen Graduate School of Management

“The Accelerator®—Finance Bootcamp provides college students with an intensive introduction to the world of finance, exposing them to everything from financial modeling to valuation and preparing them for successful summer internships and postgraduate careers. Last summer, the bootcamp launched for the first time, bringing in twelve students from top schools across the nation — including Vanderbilt, Harvard, Yale, and Washington & Lee — for three and a half days of finance instruction. This coming summer, the program will expand to five days (May 27-31, 2019), adding classes and incorporating more practical application through case studies and financial modeling.

“According to Accelerator Program Director Gregory Harvey, the bootcamp is a great way for students to determine if finance is the right fit. ‘Students, particularly at Vanderbilt and other liberal arts schools, don’t have access to finance courses their freshman and sophomore years, but it’s on their radar when they start their college experience,’ Harvey said. ‘The finance bootcamp is a great way to take a deep dive into finance and see if your intuitions are right.’”

Disruption Of The Global Grocery Market, Explored

News from UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School

“The U.S. grocery market is the biggest in the world and it’s under competitive threat from ‘hard discounters’ like Aldi, Trader Joe’s and Lidl.

“Hard discounters are the source of the biggest disruption in grocery retailing in half a century. Whenever they enter a market, grocery retail is profoundly and irrevocably changed, and their sites are set on the U.S.

“A new book is the first to explore this upheaval: Retail Disruptors: The Spectacular Rise and Impact of the Hard Discounters (Kogan Page, 2018) by Jan-Benedict Steenkamp, Knox Massey Distinguished Professor of Marketing at the University of North Carolina Kenan-Flagler Business School, and Laurens Sloot, Distinguished Professor of Retail Marketing at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. They are leading authorities in retail strategy, private labels, branding and hard discounting.”

HBS photo

E-Santa: Is Retail Ready For Digital Christmas?

News from HBS

“The retail industry is in such a spin over multichannel strategy, mall closings, and big brand shutterings, to name a few pressures, that even Santa can’t keep track of it all.

“Most industries are in major digital upheaval, but retail particularly seems in some kind of disruptive spin-cycle. As the retail season eneters its most crucial time of year, we take a deep breath to contemplate research from Harvard Business School on what retailers are doing to win.”

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