The 12month MBA at Oxford College of Business prepares you to face the
For those of us who l e a r ned about Strategy reading Michael Porter during their MBA, may feel disheartened to hear the latest news about the end of competitive advantage era – an advantage that allows a firm to generate greater sales or retain more customers. It used to be an era where a competitive advantage, such as cost structure or product offerings, gave companies an edge over their rivals and allowed them to generate a greater return on investment for shareholders. But today, the concept of the competitive advantage is no longer relevant for many companies. How can it be? And what does the end of competitive advantage mean for the future of management careers?
Almost like the fall of the Roman Empire
The end of competitive advantage is almost like the fall of the Roman Empire -- an immense change for organizations. What needs to be understood is that businesses are so rapidly evolving that to be sustainable it is no longer an issue. On the contrary, companies need to exploit their competitive advantages temporarily but be prepared to quit and adapt as soon as this advantage becomes obsolete.
The end of the competitive advantage implies major challenges for organizations, since a new business strategy affects the whole organization, meaning it needs to realign its structure towards the new direction, and we all know how difficult it is to implement changes in consolidated organizations. The good news, however, is that graduating with AIB’s 12month MBA at Oxford College of Business can help you create new strategies so you can meet the needs of companies have for managers at senior levels of management, also making you a key player in the senior managements strategy formulation process.
The New People Managers
The end of the competitive advantage is creating a need for new types of people managers to successfully implement these strategic changes. These changes also affect the career strategies of managers who will need to adapt their skillset for the changing job market. A new set of skills are needed and those individuals who have them will be in high demand. Who are they?
People Management Skills
Skills are not learned in a book or in a conference room. Like most skills, people management skills a re acquired through experiences that help develop cer t a i n behaviors. You are not a leader, for example, because you know what it entails to be one. You are a leader if you act in a certain way. People management is not about what you know, it is about what you do.
New Management Skills: How an MBA Can Help
The 12month MBA at Oxford College of Business has understood these changes evolving in the corporate world and is designed to develop the management skills and knowledge managers need to succeed despite the end of the competitive advantage. Following the 12 month MBA at OCB will teach you the fundamentals of everything: operations, marketing , finance, supply chain management, etc and then suddenly without realizing it, every time you have to solve a business case you are integrating all that diverse knowledge into a cohesive solution to the problem. It comes naturally as you learn.
The 12 month MBA program at OCB is also very helpful to develop other management skills such as teamwork, communication, self assurance, goal orientation, flexibility, innovation, etc.
But the management skill that is most difficult to acquire is “Constant Change,” this “it is over” state of mind: quitting before is too late and to be in constant readiness to change. The problem is that this skill is not acquirable. There are people who naturally have it and others who do not. They like what they like and do not want to do something different all the time, it is embedded in their personality. The fact that 12 month MBA at OCB delivers one module per month, means students on the programme have no choice but need to constantly adjust, adapt and develop a skill to be able learn from different types of industry experts every month. By the end of 12 months students following the 12month MBA at OCB would have naturally developed a knack to be constantly alert and be susceptible to change.
An MBA programme which is ranked #2 in Australia and #13 in the world
While the 12 month MBA at OCB can be the automatic choice for the seasoned manager it is of paramount importance that while managers should wel- come to this new era in which they need to be in constant job hunt mode. There is no escape, one way or another – either they learn to change the organization they work for or adapt to the new environment and do something different required by the organization they are in. According to the International Graduate Forum ( IGF) rankings released for the winter 2013/2014 edition of the CEO Magazine ( UK), the MBA programme of the Australian Institute of Business ranks 13th globally and 2nd in Australia. The Australian Institute of Business’s MBA has thus found its place among the 20 top global MBA programmes and also among the top three within Australia for the second consecutive year.