Articles by MBA Program

What started with little apprehension and nervousness, soon turned into a smooth ride and a lovely learning experience for us, the students at Indian Institute of Management Bangalore. When we learned about the project with IBM in collaboration with the Penn State team, we comprehended the difficulties that teams generally face. But thanks to the superb guidance by Mike and the support by the IBM team of experts, this project has turned out to be fun. Mike has been a true team lead and with the support of IBM experts, we have managed to proceed towards the goal of managing a difficult project. The regular weekly discussion calls have been a great way for us to work towards this project without losing focus. Also, we have been fortunate enough to have Penn State as the other team in this project. Their earlier experience of working with IBM has helped us a great deal. Another interesting feature of the project has been the global location of teams.

We would like to thank both the IBM and Penn State teams for being friendly partners in this project. We look forward to working in close collaboration with all of them in the future.

- Doiphode Amol Vilas, Roshan Agarwal, Debabrata Gosh – IIMB (Indian Institute of Management of Bangalore)

Well, we are a little more than half way through the project. I continue to marvel at the accomplishments of both PSU and IIM-B. As we had thought prior to the project, this is a complicated and challenging topic and I like the way the students from both Universities are approaching it and working. The papers from both Universities have been well detailed and comprehensive. My IBM colleagues share the same thoughts. Now we must begin to start to think about packaging the hard work as the semester will soon begin to close. I have confidence in both student teams and think they can complete the project in a very positive manner. More importantly, I hope they “learned” a great deal and I hope that we at IBM are helping them understand the techniques of good project management.

The Nittany Lions won again Saturday and are now 8-1. Big game coming up with Ohio State.

As I mentioned in my last note, I really “dig” music. So here here is an appropriate song for all of us be we students or workers trying to earn a living. It is another of my favorites and fits perfectly with what’s coming.. Monday.. it is called “Manic Monday” by the Bangles. “It’s just another Manic Monday, Wish it were Sunday. That’s my fun day, My  I don’t have to run day”. Hey isn’t this the truth?

http://new.music.yahoo.com/videos/–2139152
And for the IIMB team, here is a song from a personal favorite movie, “Bend it Like Beckham”.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ha-uSc7eE7k&NR=1

-Mike Franzese, IBM

At the beginning of the semester, when we learnt about the opportunity to work with IBM on a Reverse Logistics based project, we were very excited.  We knew that IBM has been a consistent pioneer in applying latest Supply Chain ideas and methods in its operations and in recent years IBM has zeroed in on Reverse Logistics as one of the most promising new sectors of business opportunity.  We became doubly enthusiastic about the project when we found out that the project will be a joint collaboration between Smeal MBA students and Students from Indian Institute of Management at Bangalore, India (IIM-B).  While we were going through the relentless grinding of 1st Year MBA curriculum, we often wondered how our fellow MBA travelers in other schools are faring.  Are they going through the same frantic pace or are they having it easier?  Are they learning the same ideas and methods as we are doing or are they picking up something more?  Whenever we met someone from another school we quickly compared notes about our experiences.  We found that although the basic curriculums in all schools are broadly similar, each school leaves its markedly different imprint in all its students.  That’s why we are very keen about this collaborative project.  We knew that our two schools are bringing two different sets of skills and perspectives in the working group.  We have a great opportunity to learn from each other.

IBM has also assembled a great team to oversee our project.  The point man for the IBM side is Mike Franzese, a senior program manager who is currently based in the IBM offices at Southbury, Connecticut.  Mike has a long history of working with the Center for Supply Chain Research at Smeal.  He keeps reminding us that how much he enjoys interacting with students, especially now since his son and daughter have left home and gone to colleges.  Apart from Mike, IBMers advising us on the project are, Cathy Raybeck from Fishkill, NY, Peter Braunschiedel from Endicott, NY, Kevin O’Connor from Poughkeepsie, NY, Pitipong Veerakamolmal from Waltham, MA, Stephan Laforge from IBM-France, and Mohamed Zakaria and  Jayapreetha Natesan from IBM-India.  It is quite an impressive international group of experts!  We, the students, feel highly privileged that so many IBMers from all over the world are giving up a part of their busy work hours to advise us on the project.

And that brings us to another interesting part of our ongoing collaboration.  Anyone who has scheduled international conference calls knows what a thankless job it is to agree upon a time when everyone can get onboard.  Bangalore is 9 hours and 30 minutes ahead of Eastern Standard Time.  When our school hours start in the morning, it is already dark in Bangalore and students are winding up after another day in the business school.  Our weekly conference calls usually start around 9-o-clock in the morning when it is 6:30 in the evening in India.  Our Indian colleagues have been very accommodating and haven’t expressed the slightest displeasure hinting their discomfort.  After DST reverts to winter time in 1st November and the time difference between State College and Bangalore widens to 10 and a half hours, we may be trying the patience of IIM-B students a little in persisting with the 9:00 am schedule.

So far we’re near to the halfway mark of the project plan.  Our progress is a lagging a little from the anticipated timeline because threshing out the details of the project took longer than expected and our regular schedule of work kept getting on the way.  We’re confident now that we’ve crossed the unsettled phase and home stretch of deliverables lies clearly ahead of us.  Working on this project is a highly rewarding experience for us.  We cannot overstate our gratefulness towards IBM for the incredible support.

-Shafiq Rahman, Ron Fresta and Adeline Letizia (Smeal MBA Class of 2010)

This looks like a super exciting project. I have worked with Penn State on 3 different projects in the past and found the students of top caliber both as students and more importantly as people. What do I think of Penn State? Well all my life I rooted against PSU as a football team and now I root for PSU !!!!!!. The students have converted me !!!!.   This is my first project with IIMB but I know it is a top Indian University. I have Logistics Market Intelligence background and some knowledge but I know very little of Reverse Logistics so I am glad that I have strong IBM people as Subject Matter Experts providing leadership and guidance to the students. Adeline is a superb leader for Penn State. I look forward to this project. For significant times of my IBM career I have worked in IBM World Trade and traveled to Asia. Latin America and Europe. This will be a terrific experience for the students of both Universities as they will experience the global nature of today’s business world as they must deal with each other “across an ocean” and collaborate together to be successful at a project. This will be a great introduction for them.

I have always liked music and videos so I thought to myself what would be a great theme, premise for this project? I thought of the song “It’s a Matter of Trust” by Billy Joel. Why? Because in today’s business world and in life, “trust” is so important, it is essential. So for a light moment or two, here is the video. Please note that I do not see myself as Billy Joel, the lead singer. Rather I am the drummer in the green shirt.

http://new.music.yahoo.com/videos/Billy-Joel/A-Matter-Of-Trust–43934656

-Mike Franzese, IBM

There are several factors that I believe set the education at Penn State a notch above other similarly ranked programs, namely the work of career services, the respect of the students for each other, the atmosphere of integrity and respect instilled by the Honor Code, and the genuine concern and willingness to help of the professors.  Although I believe that the Smeal program is better in each of these areas than the competition, I acknowledge that other schools probably have good professors, strong career counselors, and values of integrity as well.

But no other program, at least none that I applied to or researched, has anything remotely comparable to Global Immersion.  This is an advantage to coming to Smeal that I do not believe you will find anywhere else.

This week had a great impact on me.  I hope everyone else got as much out of the week as I did.  I have hardly been out of the country at all up until this point.  (I went to the beach in Mexico, but that is clearly nothing compared to what we did this week.  Sunbathing taught me nothing about the culture, history, or people of the country.)

For prospective students, Global Immersion is a one week trip at the end of Module III, right before Spring Break, to another country to learn about its history and business environment.  The choices vary slightly from year to year.  Our class chose between Prague in the Czech Republic, Santiago in Chile, or Shanghai in China.  In my opinion,  Prague sounded like the most beautiful and richest in history out of the three cities, and I have always thought it would be interesting to go to Europe.  I am sure that all of the trips were outstanding, but going to Prague was a great decision for me.  This trip taught me a great deal.

First, this trip taught me about the history of the Czech Republic.  The period of communist control from the end of WWII until the Velvet Revolution has had a profound impact on the people throughout the city.  The speakers referenced the hardships that the Czech citizens endured during this era.  Many of us had an opportunity to visit the Communism museum, where we learned about this suffering and the eventual liberation in greater detail.  The exhibits were moving, stirring emotions of sympathy and compassion toward these people who suffered so much.

The main purpose of the trip from the business perspective was to learn about practices in another country, understand the challenges and learn about the differences of working there compared to working in the United States.  The Czech Republic faces challenges in overcoming the culture of Communism.  The world today is moving toward a culture of teams, innovation, reduced vertical layers of management, and employees working together with supervisors to develop creative solutions to problems.  The Czech people are stuck in a culture of employees performing tasks strictly according to management orders, with no additonal innovation and an inability to think outside the box.  This will be an opportunity area for the Czechs to improve in the future, and they could learn from the United States and other western cultures.   The Czechs are doing some things very well, and I believe we could learn some lessons from them to improve our businesses.  The Czechs are very adept at quantative thinking.  They are skilled at math, science, and technology.  Although I have never been to Asia, and I would have to consult with my friends who traveled to Shanghai, I believe that some eastern cultures also have a reputation for their skills in these areas.  The United States has fallen behind other areas of the world in these quantitative skills, and we will need to get back up to speed in math and science in order to remain competitive.  In my opinion, understanding complex math problems or writing computer code is much harder than writing a paper.  My undergraduate major was political science, and I am pretty certain that my friends in the engineering, accounting, biology, and finance programs at Villanova took very difficult classes compared to most of mine.  Just from taking finance and accounting at Smeal, I can tell that quantitative classes can be quite hard.  We should take a lesson from the Czechs and other cultures, and master these challenging skills in order to remain competitive in the world economy.

In addition to the history and the business lessons, the beauty of the Czech Republic impressed me.  A tour of the Prague Castle on the first day in the city gave us a feel for the beautiful architecture of the city.  An elevator up to a high floor of an observation tower provided a magnificent view of the neighborhoods below.  The cobbled streets and stone buildings give the city a historic feel, unlike any city I have been to in the US.  There was tremendous beauty here, and there is incredible beauty back in the US.  The difference that I noticed was that much of the beauty in Prague involves man-made buildings and architecture, while the great scenery in the US involves natural wonders such as forests, lakes, and mountains.

The final impact of the trip to the Czech Republic was a greater appreciation of my own country.  We saw so many great things in Prague.  We drank some of the best beer in the world, tasted some delicious food, saw some beautiful architecture, and enjoyed some dazzling entertainment.  Still, even though we were only gone for a short time, I occasionally got homesick during the week.  The trip made me appreciate little things about the United States, and made me stop and think how great my country is, how wonderful American music is, how courageous and unselfish American troops are, and how beautiful American women are.  I would imagine many of my friends who came here from other countries hold similar feelings in their hearts about the greatness of their home.  I have to give the international students in our program a great deal of credit.  Leaving your home country for the MBA program must have been a tremendous sacrafice.  This was a brave, courageous decision on your part.  Many kudos to all of you, for not only have you left your home, but you have come to a new country with no prejudice or expectations.  All of the international students I have met have maintained a very positive attitude toward Americans.  I have not noticed any students complaining about our culture or our customs.  I am sure there are many cultural things about China, or India, or Russia, or whatever country you are from, that you miss.  Yet instead of wondering why we cannot be more like the people in your home country, you have made efforts to appreciate the positive things about our culture.  I am not sure that Americans have such a positive attitude when we go to other places.  We sometimes expect other people to speak English, or to have the same things available in their country that we have in ours.  For some, the MBA program in the US was an opportunity to escape from an oppressive culture, and perhaps some have no desire to return to their homeland.  But for many, home holds a special place in the heart.  For this reason, it is important that we continue to have events at Smeal to represent all of our cultures.

One can learn finance, accounting, and marketing at other MBA programs.  One can learn about debits and credits at Maryland.  One can learn about Weighted Average Cost of Capital and Net Present Value at Indiana.  One can gain an understanding of target markets, segmentation, forecasting, and the impact of interest rates on the economy at Iowa or Michigan.

The ability to see positively the diversity of other cultures while developing a greater appreciation for one´s own?  To the extent that this is present at Smeal, I do not believe one can find that anywhere else.

Michael M Meehan
Penn State Smeal MBA
Class of 2010

It all started last summer. Jeremiah Shackelford (class of 2008) received an invite from Mr. Warren Buffett’s team in response to his written request for meeting with the Oracle of Omaha. Jeremiah was kind enough to request the meeting on behalf of the Smeal and when his wish was granted, he sent an excited email to the class of 2009 asking to sign up for the 27 spots available (9 of which had to be women). This was the opportunity of a lifetime; to spend a whole day in Omaha, have a Q&A session with Mr. Buffett and go with him for lunch. Jeremy Reeh (class of 2009) and Ralph Vartan (class of 2008) helped plan the logistics and a batch of 27 students embarked on the dream journey to Omaha to meet the renowned Mr. Buffett.

After reaching Omaha (Feb 5th 2009), we huddled as a group and made a list of the possible questions that we had come up with and put them in numeric order to better conduct the Q&A. The visit on Feb 6th 2009 began with a trip to the Nebraska Furniture Mart, one of Mr. Buffett’s businesses. After being impressed with the Furniture Mart’s unique concept of maximizing selection while keeping prices low, we were ushered into Berkshire Hathaway’s office to see the Oracle. I cannot express my anxiety and restlessness as my heartbeat accelerated and my mind raced in anticipation of finally seeing Mr. Buffett. There were six other schools with 30 or so students from each school and the room was packed to capacity. Mr. Buffett welcomed all of us and got into the Q&A in round robin fashion. He helped soothe anxious nerves, showed confidence in the government, the FED’s anti-depression tactics, and the economic stimulus package and said that the economy would bounce back slowly but surely.

Soon after the Q&A, we were asked to join Mr. Buffett to lunch at the Piccolo’s (Steak house in Omaha) which is one of Mr. Buffett’s subsidiaries. Mr. Buffett also asked one student each from 4 schools to ride with him…in his Cadillac (yippee). I was fortunate to be given the opportunity to ride with Mr. Buffett, thanks to my classmates. This was a total rock-star moment in my life. Here was my icon, in flesh and blood, sitting so close to me and having a candid conversation about life and family, including questions like “where all of us were originally from”, “what actors and sport-stars (including Tony Romo) Mr. Buffett associated with”.  I had to make most of this opportunity while ably representing Penn State. I asked him two questions; one was how he handled disparity between meeting with groups of MBAs like us for free and meeting entrepreneurs from the rest of the world who pay him more than handsomely for his time. He said that he has the same conversations with everyone, and the money ultimately goes to charity. At some point I asked him if he had any prophecies about the next big investment, the next big growth oriented sector. Although he did not answer that question he did hint at keeping a track of the companies he is buying. The car ride was short but those few minutes will remain etched in my being forever. After a scrumptious lunch at Piccolos’ we were treated to photo opportunity with Mr. Buffett.  Finally the day concluded with a visit to Borsheim’s jewelers (Mr. Buffett’s subsidiaries) and an evening of excited banter amongst the group.

The most important take away for me from the trip was that Mr. Warren Buffett displays extreme humility in spite of being the world’s richest person and the smartest one too. He drives his own car, lives in the same house as he used to 50 some years ago, he spends one whole day every couple of months or so with a host of students and talks to them like they were his family. I am not sure if I will be 1/100th as successful as he is at his age but I hope I can have the same compassion, simplicity and honesty as Mr. Buffett has. As I mentioned before, Mr. Buffett took individual pictures with all 150-170 students that came to meet him and that too as many pictures as one wanted and however they wanted it. Never once did he flinch or show any attitude. Although he is 78 years old, he was standing in the sun smiling and taking pictures with us and that to me is amazing in itself.

-Amishi Patel
Smeal MBA Class of 2009

On November 19th, Penn State Smeal MBA Students were treated to two different events in New York City.  A group of students received an exclusive invitation from David Polansky (MBA ’87) to come and tour U.S. Trust, Bank of America’s Private Wealth Management unit. The tour started at noon, and the MBA students were introduced to various groups inside the bank.  Students met with executives from the Private Client, Trust, Business Support, Portfolio Management, and Wealth Strategy divisions. They also had a session with an internal recruiter at U.S. Trust that gave them some great tips on how to be successful in an MBA level interview.

Later that night, Penn State students and alumni met at the new Bank of America building at 1111 6th Ave.  For people not familiar with the building, it is new construction that was recently Leeds Certified and is widely recognized as one of the world’s ‘Greenest’ buildings.  After a hour of cocktails and networking with 300+ Smeal Alumni, the attendees were treated to a panel of both Smeal Alumni and Wall Street Executives discussing the current economic crisis.

-Dave Noreen, MBA Class of 2009
dan171@psu.edu

The best teams are better than the best individuals and the worst teams are worse than the worst individuals – Good Advice from Teams Class

Last week, Smeal placed 1st in the fourth annual MBAE Minority Case Competition sponsored by Howard University and LMI Government Consulting.  Being a member of the team that brought home the Gold was a reward on to itself and I would never think twice about working again with Carl Asher and Tai Parks if the opportunity presented itself.

Smeal has and continues to do its part in preparing me for my career after school but it has been experiences such as this one that have reinforced my conviction in the strength of our MBA program and cemented by belief in the value of team work.  We were charged with providing short and long term solutions to an ongoing logistics problem that involved the untimely return of reusable intermodal containers for military supplies. What an interesting case this was going to be, I thought, especially having spent the past month in 3 Finance classes.  How would I add value to a supply chain case?

In the end and even while we drafted our solutions, it was not simply our understanding of “bottlenecks”, “customer wait times”, or “intermodal logistics” that helped us present a formidable argument but the uniqueness of our backgrounds and our willingness to challenge each other that ultimately propelled us to victory.  Carl was from Marketing, Tai from Supply Chain and I was from Finance.  We all have to focus our academic careers at some point in the program but the opportunities to develop a practical understanding of “foreign” concepts are many and available to those who actively seek them out.  Today, even as I remain focused in Finance, I am certain of my ability to add value to solving problems outside my field of expertise.

It had been a busy week for the three of us – to say the least – and despite demanding class schedules combined with meetings that went late into the night, we were able to pull it off.   And it’s a great feeling to say we did it together!!! We are!!!

Reggie Amoa
Smeal MBA Class of 2009
ramoa@psu.edu

Things do not exactly slow down over the summer. Like most MBA’s, I am working at my internship, trying to exercise a little more and spend some time with family and friends. A few weeks ago I received an email regarding an opportunity to participate in the Philadelphia LIVESTRONG Event as a member of TeamMBA. LIVESTRONG is the foundation started by Lance Armstrong devoted to fighting cancer, and TeamMBA is an organization designed to encourage and feature the community service of MBA students, faculty and staff. Since I had been riding regularly again, I figured I’d go big and sign up for the century. This meant I had to raise $250 dollars in short order and get ready to ride 100 miles up and down the hills of Montgomery County, PA. What I didn’t anticipate was the outpouring of support that I have received or the chain of events that would follow. Not only have I surpassed my fundraising goal, TeamMBA is far and away the leader in the team fundraising contest to date. As a result, there is talk that we will be invited to have dinner with Lance and get our pictures taken with him. As an avid and long time fan, I am in shock. Now, I just need to get ready to ride those hundred miles. Yeah, things do not exactly slow down over the summer.

If you would like to donate, please visit my homepage before August 21,  https://www.kintera.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=262613&supId=226134007

 - Ken Holmes
MBA Class of 2009

So what was happening in the MBA Program Office over the past few months as our incoming first-year students were preparing to arrive on campus and while our second-year students were busy with internship activities?

One primary focus has been working on the launch of the newly redesigned MBA website, Student Exchange, http://mbastudents.smeal.psu.edu The Student Exchange is designed to be your one-stop website for the resources you need as an MBA student. As a matter of fact this very blog is on that site now. We think you will find the site to be quite beneficial and we solicit your feedback to ensure that the site is meeting your needs.

We said goodbye to some very good friends and colleagues who have moved on to new endeavors — Brooke, Kristin and Lauren will be greatly missed.

We welcome some new smiling faces to the 220 family, please be sure to stop by to meet them.

Stacey Dorang, Assistant Director, MBA Admissions

Sandy Simler, Staff Assistant, Primary Receptionist

Dulin Clark, Associate Director MBA Career & Executive Coaching

And, obviously, there has been a flurry of activity in planning and managing a variety of activities geared to benefitting our students such as company information sessions, tailgate sponsorship, MBA Alumni Advisory Board meetings and mentoring planning, Global Immersion preliminary negotiations, curriculum changes, career workshop planning, company visits, marketing and promotional planning – printed and web-based, ramping up for another successful admissions season, professional development conferences to attend and the list goes on and on.

Now the time is here to put many of these plans into action and to say:

“Welcome – Class of 2010” and “Welcome Back – Class of 2009”!

-Robin Brouse
Director of MBA Student Services