Strategic Management [10/02 - 14/04]

Strategic Management is one of the core and higher level subject in the MBA course. In Adelaide Business School, there are 6 pre-requisites to Strategic Management: Accounting, Economics, Leadership, Marketing, Management and Finance.

There were 22 students for the subject held in Trimester 1 of 2012. This is one of the more comfortable size class I have attended so far. As such, I contributed frequently in class whenever the opportunity arises. The assessment allocation is 20% in-class case studies, 30% exams and 50% individual assignment. The subject is led by Dr Chris Smith. And the textbook used for the course is The Strategy Pathfinder. There are many live cases in the textbook which is a good read.

Intensive 1

We started on the Friday evening with a self-introduction. And we kick-off the lessons with an introduction into Strategy.

In the first intensive, we learnt about the Strategy Triangle covering Goals, Resources and Position. Thereafter we moved on into detail of Competitive Advantage (Differentiation and Cost Advantage), Positioning (Porter, Mintzberg, Bowman) and Resources (FNHO, VRIS). I find the 3 days lessons to be very well-structured and organised. There were many opportunities for students to participate. Dr Chris likewise asked some very deep-thinking questions. And there were scenario re-enactment. We explored what were each party considering at that point in time and the decision-making process. Strategic Management, being one of the tougher course in an MBA, is being taught by one of the best lecturer from Adelaide.

There were many opportunities for us to practise what we have learnt. It is not just theory but we have group discussion which covers 3 different case studies and 2 exercises, they are: The Iranian Hostage Crisis, US Apparel Industry in the late-80s, Toyota, Coca Cola and decreasing US spending. I find the case studies exercise to be very practical and it reinforces what we have learnt. In the same case studies group, we have Michael, Liu Yang, Kian Meng and Meena. Group synergy is quite strong with everyone providing different perspectives and willingness to evaluate our stand when a better one comes in.

The business concepts we have learnt previously in subjects such as Managerial Finance and Economics were used in this course. Many other companies were studied such as Coca Cola, Wal-Mart, Ryan Air, and so on.

I find the content and information provided in the first intensive to be perfect. It gave us enough exercises to reinforce and clarify any doubts we have. It is useful for us to apply in our individual assignment and perhaps for us to use in our work. Coincidentally, my job change last year placed me in a more strategic planning position and I understand the practical concepts which was taught.

Will look forward to the next intensive. Below is a photo of Dr Chris Smith explaining to us. (We are not recommended to use laptop, tablets or phone in class, which is very good - so we can concentrate fully in class).




Intensive 2

And now we are back to the second intensive on the 16th-18th weekend. We started by looking into the industry structure and what is considered to be strategic hell. The critical success factors of being in the game or win the game are discussed.

We went through many case studies analysis and discussion. The first of which is on McDonald's. And we have a sharing by Michael Porter below.



We have been taught to read critically. Even articles or books written by academics need to be questioned before accepting it one-off. We went through an article written by an academic which is based on incorrect assumptions and reasoning.

The notion of strategic groups were introduced and very detail coverage of the 5 forces were explained. Concepts explained in the strategic management course were put into practice through the case studies of the American Retail Banking industry, Motor industry in the US and McDonald's. The most interesting case study, which is out of the norm is the study of the drug industry. On how the distribution chain changes with police prosecution and the impact it has on the prices of drugs.

We finished the 2nd intensive with an interesting video of a corporate social responsibility video made by Nokia. They sent a consultant down to China to understand the factory environment and conditions of the workers. This video left quite a deep impression on me in understanding where does the things we use come from.

The strategic management class challenges all students to think critically, and we all have opportunity to discuss our ideas in class. The points brought across by the lecturer is concise and clear and we get to actually apply what was taught.

Managerial Finance [28/10 - 17/12]

The subject on Managerial Finance covers topics like bonds and shares valuation, capital budgeting, cash flow estimation, risk and return, capital market efficiency, portfolio management and asset pricing, cost of capital, capital structure and leverage. It can be classified into two main areas of Corporate Finance: Capital Budgeting (Investment Decisions) and Financing Decisions (Capital Structure). The textbook we used is Fundamentals of Corporate Finance by Berk, DeMarzo, Harford, Ford and Finch. Pre-requisites to this subject is Accounting For Managers which I have taken a year and a half before.

Unlike accounting, this subject has a good mix of theories and calculations. Comparatively, I find this course to be quite intensive due to 5 online tests we have to attempt from the start of our first intensive till our final exams. The 5 online tests constitute 40% of our module marks, while the remaining 60% will come in from our final exams.

Our course lecturer for Managerial Finance is Dr Chee Cheong (below). He is actually from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and has spent many years studying and lecturing in Australia. From time to time, he will share with us on his big family business in Malaysia.




The course is quite enjoyable with Dr Chee sharing with us on many real case studies. He shared with us on the corporate finance of Microsoft, Apple, Citibank and so on. One of the example he cited was Foster in Australia. Foster is a famous beer company in Australia and they plan to expand into the Wine industry. Whether this was a wise decision will be judged by the market as subsequently, their share price declined. It may be difficult to manage both beer and wine products as the company do not have the expertise in this area. Next we have BHP in opening a mine with 30 years timeline. Billions are invested in this operation and the mine will eventually have to be returned back to its original state.

Centro Properties are mentioned where it used to be a leading property company in Australia. But it expanded rapidly and got into bad debts with the sub-prime crisis. Eventually its share plunged and never recovered. There are many good companies that have little or no debts and they are doing fine. This brings to us a question, so is leverage necessary?

In topic 1, we learnt about agency related issues. Ethical and motivational issues are tackled in this topic. It depicts the relationship between the principal and agent. Principal and agent relationship is similar to that of shareholder and managers, debt-issuers and investors, financial agent and clients. There maybe a conflict of interest between both parties and how do we actually reconcile between them.

In topic 2, we learnt how to calculate the Net Present Value (NPV) and IRR (Internal Rate of Return). Time value of money is always considered for our present value calculation. Most financial managers (more than 90%) actually use the NPV for their company's capital budgeting. This course left a deep impression on NPV in me so much so when I was explaining to my company's customers on the importance of cost management, business planning and budgeting, that I used corporate finance and NPV related concepts as reference.

For topic 3, it essentially is about ROI. Traditionally, companies use the simple Payback rule on their investment. That is, how long does it take for this investment to recover itself. There are actually other methods besides the payback, and it includes the NPV, IRR, discounted payback and so on.

Thereafter we moved on to analysing the cash flow for a company, conducting sensitivity analysis and scenario analysis to evaluate the impact of certain parameters on the profitability of a company.

The next few topics cover on shares investment. On how we can achieve the maximum expected return for a given level of risk. Diversification is also useful in reducing risk but there are methods on how to diversify, i.e. the shares should have minimal correlation between one another. While studying these few topics, I frequently think of my investments in shares, bonds, forex, etc. Sometime back, I realized some of my investments move in opposite direction to one another. Thus there is rarely a stage where my investments will all plunge.

The topic on dividends is also mentioned. For my side, I prefer to invest in high dividend paying stocks. But I realized from Modigliani and Miller theory as explained by Dr Chee, it does not matter whether dividends are paid or retention-generated capital gains. Thus for some shares, I noticed the capital yield far exceeds the dividends that may be paid for several years.

Personally, my approach towards shares purchase is the time of entry is important. The best time to purchase shares is when the whole world is gloomy and out. Other than high dividend stocks, there should also be a definitely date where shares should be cashed out for capital gains, especially the time when the whole world looks positive and bright (pre-election).




Like I have mentioned, this subject is actually one of the more intensive subjects I have taken so far. The online tests require a lot of time. Basically I spent all my weekends (5 weekends + 2 intensive weekends) studying for Managerial Finance. With weekdays spent on work and weekends spent at home studying, there is no much balance in life. We accessed the online test below from MyFinanceLab which comes together with the textbook.

For the exams, many of my classmates took 2-3 days leaves to study for it. For my side, I only could afford a Wednesday leave as the following Thursday/Friday is occupied with work.




After our exams on the 17th December (Saturday), all of us (Alisha, Adeline, William, Chiew, me) went down for a lunch celebration at Red Star Dim Sum.

Managing Organisations [02/09 - 29/10]

This Managing Contemporary Organisations (MCO) course is being facilitated by 2 lecturers. On the first intensive we have Professor Julia Connell and the second is led by Dr Natalie Ferres.

The first intensive which is taught by Professor Julia covers Motivation, Performance Management, Workplace Values and Ethics and Organizational Culture.

At the start of MCO, Professor Julia shared with us a problem solving method by Einstein. He was posed a question that if he has only 1 hour to save the world, what would he do? He replied he will spend 55mins in problem analysis and 5mins solving it.

We looked into managing contemporary organisations and a video of Google "Best place to work for" was shared with us:



We moved on in the topic and there are 5 trends in managing contemporary organisations. When the topic of employment relationship is touched on, the discussion on networking came in. And Ron remarked that in business term, it is also known as golf.

The McKinsey 75 was also given to us as references which we can use for interviewing managers.

When it comes to motivational theories, we cover content theories (e.g. Maslow, Herzberg, etc) and Process theories (e.g. Adam's equity, etc). There was some discussion in hiring consultants and paying exorbitant money to them. To large enterprises, consultants are seen as impartial (and the not so often used reason is that they can be blamed if things go wrong).

The phenomenon of cognitive dissonance was shared with us. In which there maybe conflicts between what is expected of them and what they want to do. Ethical issues maybe involved and the concept of reverse marketing was briefly shared. (e.g. Macdonalds organising a running competition and Tobacco companies discouraging smoking)

Culture plays an important role in a company. HP used to have a good corporate culture in the past. When it comes to culture, Japanese culture are usually representative of the Asian culture. But nowadays there are many other Asian countries with strong enterprises, such as India, China, Korea, Taiwan, xetc.




The second intensive is led by Dr Natalie which include the topics of Organizational Change, Power and Politics, Organisational Structure, Decision Making and Innovation/Creativity.

We start on change management and the impact on an organization. It is important to explain on 'why' and not the 'what' when changes are made. Normally changes are explained when the overall morale of the company is positive, so as to minimize the negativity.

The difference sources of power: expert power, referent power, legitimate power, reward power, coercive power are explained to us. Thereafter it comes to decision-making and the fallacies to avoid when making decisions.

There are organizations who change their structure regularly. Change is important and the changes that come normally involve centralizing / decentralizing their business functions after every few years. A few films were shared with us on different organizational structure (Macdonalds vs Google).

And below we have Dr Natalie sharing on the whole brain model.




And there is a time when James came up to the front of the class and explained some concepts to us.




There is a group workplace project which we have to study in this subject. It involves interviewing a manager in a company and obtaining information on how he/she motivates employees. Liu Yang allows us to interview his previous company director.

As shown in the picture below, we have from left - Liu Yang, Michael and Hector. This is our first discussion held at the new student lounge.




We played some get to understand ourselves game below.



One unique feature of the exams is that we were given the case study a few days before to read through. The case study is about Disneyland and difficulties they face when they expanded to Paris (Euro Disneyland). Several topics are in discussion in this case study and primarily is about cultural differences.

Operations Management [01/07 - 14/08]

The weekend past, I just attended the first intensive for Operations Management. It is taught by Max Zornada and the lessons are amazing! But the part which left the most impression is how the lessons are conducted. There are the many real life examples and personal sharing by the lecturer.



The lecturer shared many case studies and they are:

1) Canon - On how they become the top printer and camera developers and manufacturers. They actually set a 10 year plan to make it happen and how they develop the technical know-how from where they were previously.

2) RAM Chips - In the 80s, the RAM chip makers were leaders in the US. But they follow the wrong operational process. As a result, when the Japanese joined the market, the US chip makers were wiped out.

3) Story of Dell - On how Dell become successful in the PC Desktop market. They basically took over the PC Desktop market when it is already saturated by established players. Their advantage is on operations management. On how they do things more efficiently and differently.

4) Qantas Airline - It is quite a paradox really. During the early-2000, they were a leader in the airline industry. The cost cutting measures implemented by them actually had a severely adverse effect on their profitability. The service standards dip as a result of the cost cutting measures. This pave the way for Emirates to dominate the Australian market.

5) Jacobs Creek story - On how it change the wine industry and standards from the 80s. It started by changing customer perceptions as Jacobs Creek make wine highly accessible and consumed on a daily basis like the European wines.

And many more...

We have to do a case study preparation before coming for the first intensive. And the first case study is on Benihana of Tokyo. We had a group discussion on this case by the end of the intensive. It's quite impressive on how Benihana ventured into the US market and managed to capture a sizable market. Even though many other restaurants introduced Teppanyaki, but what Benihana has are the professional chefs. Basically it's the fun factor that they have.



During class, we have some hands-on to evaluate the performance of manufacturing paper aeroplanes. There were 5 of us in the group and we began recording the time through the steps. Here we have below making the planes.



The second intensive is mainly on lean manufacturing and the toyota production system. Organisations have been changing over the last century. At the beginning of the 20th century it was on empowering the individual, follow by organisational structures and now at the start of the 21st century, concepts of lean organisations are affecting how businesses work. Organisations that fail to transform themselves will cease to exist 10 years from now.

We played an interesting game call the Beer Game in class. It is actually to demonstrate the BullWhip Effect on Supply Chain Management. Below we have the lecturer explaining to us on the rules of the game.



Here we are planning on the Inbound, Current Stock and Outbound inventory; carefully pondering over the inventory to order and supply.



And our lecturer Max concluding and sharing the results with the whole class. It's amazing to see the BullWhip Effect being demonstrated out directly from our planning and discussion.



30% of subject grading goes into group assignment and there are 6 members in our group. For our group, we have chosen to study a polyclinic process.

Individual assignment-wise, we find assignment 1 to be alright. But assignment 2 is really the toughest.

Here we are taking a group photo outside the polyclinic. Once we are in, it is about playing 'hide and seek' with the staffs. Toa Payoh is one of the newer polyclinics as it has just been recently renovated. We are quite surprised to see a few 'Kaizen' rooms in there.



After the polyclinic studies, we are back to the 4-12 room for our group discussion. Here we have Kenny and Adelene taking photo of the white board.



After our final group discussion on the 13th August, we arranged for a visit to the Teppanyaki restaurant at Hill Top Japanese Restaurant (Jurong Bird Park). The appointment was made at 7pm. We had been discussing about visiting the restaurant since the first intensive as one of the case study we had worked on is on Teppanyaki. I'm quite surprise there is a waiting area in the restaurant (quite similar to Benihana).



And we were led to the Teppanyaki room where the chef welcomed us.



The Teppanyaki experience is not exactly that of Benihana but the food is fabulous. One of the best Teppanyaki I had so far.

Coincidentally, Alisha's birthday is today and we have prepared a cake + candles + birthday songs. Here we have Adelene cutting the cake into 6 pieces.



Our group photo:
William, Kenny, me, Hong Hui, Alisha and Adelene.



Next, William suggested we can visit the NUS Society Guild House. He is a member there. We move on there and here we are.



Everyone celebrating the end of the Operations Management subject. It has been a very intensive 1.5 months. The many evenings and weekends we have spent together, having fun, coming up with jokes, planning on activities and of course, working on the tough assignments together brings back many memories.

Economics For Managers [25/03 - 30/04]

The Economics for Managers module is one of the final entry-level core subject I will be taking for my MBA course. This is also the last module I will be taking this quarter and I will be having a 2 months break after the final exams. An evaluation so far - I have completed 5 subjects to date since joining the MBA program a year ago.

I have taken an economics module during my first year in NUS. Some of my classmates have taken economics for their 'A' levels, giving them a good foundation. I have pretty much forgotten all that I have learnt during the 3 months in NUS.

The lecturer for the course is Mr David Murphy. He's a truly amazing lecturer. I find him to be very humorous. During the 2 intensives with Mr David Murphy, everyone of us really have great fun together.



Course Evaluation

There are 4 evaluation components to this subject. There are the 2 assessments during the 2 intensives (10% each), follow by a group project submission (30%) and finally the final exams (50%). For the group project, we got overseas organised early before the start of the first intensive. Our group leader is Lionel, who is a very capable and well-organised leader.

Content

As with all basic economics course, it started off with the micro-economics aspects and thereafter move on to macro-economics. The recent Global Financial Crisis has been explained to us from an economics standpoint and we were taught to evaluate the decisions made by the different governments with regards to the crisis. The Singapore context is frequently used which is different from most western developed countries on how fiscal and monetary policies were used.

On the micro-economics end, we studied the demand, supply, elasticity, impact of tax and policies, monopoly and so on related cases. In the macro-economics, the important areas are the GDP, aggregate demand, supply, fiscal, monetary policies and so on. Lionel told me a few times that he find economics to be a very applicable subject.

As with typical MBA programme, there are regular class participation and discussion by the students. After every topic, there will be a tutorial to apply the concepts learnt.

Transition

While taking this subject, I was undergoing a transition in my career. I left my previous company on the 20th April (Wednesday) directly after the 2nd intensive and joined my next company before my exams on the 26th April (Tuesday). As such, I only have the weekday evenings to study for my exams. Previously, I will usually take a day leave to have a concentrated study.

Applied Project Management 1 [21/01 - 20/03]

I will be taking a cross-elective this term and it is the Applied Project Management 1 (APM1) module. As my work concerns mainly Project Management related activities and I plan to take the PMP certification, so APM1 is actually a course that will be very applicable on my side.

The first intensive is on the 23rd/24th January weekend and it is being conducted by Dr Andrew Finegan as Dr Vernon Ireland was feeling unwell. Dr Andrew added a few complementary information on top of our notes. Here he is below conducting a class for us.



I have to admit the Project Management module is quite a boring subject to take. When I studied the PMBOK (Project Management Book Of Knowledge), it is indeed one of the most challenging text to read through. As what the lecturer has mentioned, it is a reference text, and not a textbook or normal book.

The interesting aspect of the course is the discussion Workshop Exercise we have in groups. The students in our class looking on at the different group contributions below.



And we have Andrew reviewing and marking our writings.



Towards the end of the first intensive, the entire walls are pasted with our group discussion writings.



By the second intensive, it is Dr Andrew's turn to fall ill and Dr Vernon Ireland is here with us. According to a friend, Dr Vernon is the father of Adelaide's MPM programme. He started the programme many years ago and have been with it ever since. Dr Vernon is a lively lecturer and he gave many fascinating anecdotes on project management.



The approach to the Workshop Exercise is also slightly different and the groups are advised to present their discussion to the class instead of pasting onto the walls. This time round it is really more fun as more students are directly involved.



APM1 is actually one of the more intensive module in the MPM course. There are 3 x 10% assignment, an individual presentation (10%), a group assignment (30%) and a large individual assignment (30%).

I had made a few very good friends in the course and they are Ken, Huo Long and Kok Mun. At every breaks, we all sit together and have many things to chat about.

During the second intensive, the class decide to have a Luo Hei during the Sunday lunch and everyone just joined in together.



The knowledge obtained from the APM1 course is very useful. Project Management is largely about application and through the assignments, we are able to apply the knowledge effectively. Besides PMBOK, we also learnt about PRINCE2 model which I find it to be quite useful for newcomers to project management. It will require some experience to actually use PMBOK, but PRINCE2 is comparatively more structured.

This course actually combines the synergy of both PMBOK and PRINCE2, requiring us to understand the strengths and weaknesses of both models. Thereafter during the assignment, we were taught to harness and apply the models into Project Management activities.

My group partner is Ken and I had three discussions with him and via email/skype on the work forward. Our project plan is to roll out a new Credit Card product for a bank. I have absolutely no domain knowledge on it but Ken is very experienced, thus it is quite an enjoyable learning experience.

From this module, I have learnt a lot on the Project Management knowledge areas. Previously when I tried to self-study, I have difficulty linking and understanding how it falls into place; less so in applying it. After the course, I have a clearer understanding of it and will be able to use for my Project Management activities.

Fundamentals of Leadership [08/10 - 11/12]

The Fundamentals of Leadership is one of the first course in the University of Adelaide MBA programme. Personally, I find this to be a very fun module to take.

The First Intensive - Understanding self and others

Before the start of the first weekend intensive, we were told to attempt a few questionnaires and go through the readings. The questionnaires we attempted were the Influence Dimension, Assessment of Management Skills, Belbin Team Roles Profil and Tolerance of Ambiguity.

On the Friday evening when we got started, we played a simple game by going around the class and getting to know everyone. There were 35 students in the class and we mapped one of the behavioral or interest characteristics mentioned in the sheet to the person's name. Thereafter we were brought to understand the context of Leaders and Managers.

The first picture below is a photo of Ms Lois from the University of Adelaide giving us a lecture on management. The different schools of thought on management were gone through with us and how business environment affects management style during the second day.



By the third day, we touched on Understanding self and that's where the questionnaire we have attempted comes in. We were segregated into the different groups and I am an Analyzer.

I find the topic on Understanding Self to be very applicable in our day to day life. There is a natural tendency to discriminate against people who are different and band together with people similar, but from this course I have learn to understand and appreciate differences. Actually differences is a good thing. There is also the danger of Group Think in that if we have people of same mindset and character together, priority maybe in preserving harmony over what is right, creativity and innovation maybe stifle by Group Thinking.



Group Project - Interviewing the Managers

As part of our group assignment (which take up 30% of the percentage allocation for the course), we have to interview two leaders. Two of our team mates recommend their managers and on the 23rd October (Saturday) morning we went down to Jurong East and interview the General Manager of a Japanese company (below).



And also a senior financial manager from Prudential below.



During the interview with the General Manager of the Japanese Company (he has more than 30 years of working experience), he shared with us on his life perspective and leadership style. I have learn a lot from him during this 3 hours long interview. He shared with us on financial management, spending within our means, of leading by example and relating to people around and finally of leaving a legacy behind in life. He told us not to work for the money but to work for the passion.

Group Project - Preparing the Report

We spent several evenings chilling out at TCC Boat Quay for our project work. It's a great place to hang out. But do note that it closes at 11pm. I still fondly look back at the many evenings we spent there.



The Second Intensive - Presentation and Group Photos

As part of our course assessment, everyone have to give a presentation. We were the first group to do the presentation. The photo below shows another group conducting the presentation. After each presentation, we were individually given feedback via emails on our presentation.



Here is our group photo. We had lots of fun together. From left we have Adeline, Michelle, Edwin, Kar Yong and me.



Another group photo with Lois in there.



Here is a group photo of another group.



The Second Intensive - Supportive Communication and Conflict Management

One of the key learning from the second intensive is on Supportive Communication and Conflict Management. These are the most practical skills which I have learn from the course. There are actually certain ways of communicating which can be positive to people around. And when we encounter conflicts, what are the methods of resolving it. It is all taught in the FOL subject.

This is definitely one of the most applicable subject.

Marketing Management [30/07 - 18/09]

Introduction

The second module for my University of Adelaide MBA programme will be Marketing Management. I was deciding between Managerial Finance (which comes directly after my Accounting module) and Marketing Management (which is more relevant to my work). Finally I decided on the latter as I hope to use whatever I can learn from marketing to my work as soon as possible and also to take a break from all the financial jargons.

Coincidentally, one of my good friend, William also enrolled for the module. We matriculated at the same time during Term 2 of 2010. The lecturer for the course is Dr Cullen Habel from the University of Adelaide.

He is a great lecturer-cum-facilitator who goes through with us many of the case studies. Below is Dr Cullen leading us through one of the marketing session.

Some case studies include Procter & Gamble approach towards introducing new products, CRM@Tesco for market segmentation, Singapore Airlines' Singapore Girl branding, David Beckham as a brand and Nivea product line extension.



Social Media on Marketing

The impact of social media on marketing has been touched on very early in the course. This shows the University of Adelaide MBA programme has been kept abreast with the latest happenings on the technological developments these few years. Social medias include Facebook, Twitter, Blogs and online Forums, and a case study of how Dell bad customer service in 2005 resulted in an Internal Inferno (Hart, C and Blackshaw).

Dr Cullen also touched on Personal Marketing and this aspect of which interest me. I maybe creating a personal professional profile on the internet soon as part of the discussions on personal marketing.


Group Project

Our group project is to analyze Kraft's name change of Vegemite to iSnack 2.0. Dr Cullen let us have a bite into Vegemite during our very first lesson. It can be found in certain supermarkets in Singapore. It taste a bit like Marmite. But it's extremely salty and it's much thicker (guess Singaporeans are not used to this taste).



I really enjoy working with everyone in the group. We met 3 times in all (first time in Raffles Place MRT TCC, second and third time in Adelaide's discussion room). There are lots of topics we can talk about besides studies. The synergy between all of us just flows through naturally and William is our leader.

The group photo is below. From left we have Raymond, me, Shu Ping and William. After our exams, we went down to Graces Court Hotel Vegetarian restaurant for lunch. We always chat for hours. It's really so much fun working with everyone. Really hope to be able to work together on it again.



Wine Research

Dr Cullen is an expert in wine research. I have also done a bit on reading and research into wine due to my involvement with the Wine Hub below. The other reason why I choose the Marketing Management module is to see whether I can link up between Dr Cullen's research expertise with the Wine Hub Exchange. Finally managed to make that happen on the 5th August (Thursday). Truth to tell, I abstain from alcohol whenever possible due to personal reasons. As such, I am unable to participate in wine research. It's great that they are able to meet one another. Really enjoy the positive energy from this exchange. The link to Dr Cullen’s blog entry is here.



Gruen Transfer

Dr Cullen showed several videos of the Gruen Transfer in class. I enjoy it greatly cos it's extremely humorous! From what I understand, Gruen Transfer originally is about consumers walking into a shopping mall and be dazzle by all the sights and sounds in a mall setting. They may have plans initially to just buy a few stuffs, but they will eventually be distracted into buying more.

The Gruen Transfer series is broadcast by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in Australia. It is all about advertising and marketing. Not only it is funny, i has a great bit of educational value, definitely a must-watch for advertisers and marketers. You can search on YouTube on the videos.

Accounting for Managers [14/05 - 26/06]

Here is my review of the first module I have taken for my Master of Business Administration Course - Accounting for Managers.

My Background

I have absolutely no knowledge or background in accounting. I haven't studied it in school as compared to the rest of my group mates. And my work has nothing to do with accounting. Within this 1.5 months, I have come to appreciate and understand the work done by accountants and its importance.

Lecturer

My lecturer for the course is Dr Chris Graves (in the picture below). He's an amazing lecturer and has a great sense of humor. Most importantly, he is able to explain abstract accounting concepts in layman's terms. I spent 3 weeks before the course reading up the textbook and got a bit confused. All the doubts are cleared in the 3 days intensive session where he easily explained and connect all the concepts together. Thumbs Up!



The main parts of the course are on Financial Accounting with the latter half on introductory to Managerial Accounting.

Learning to Invest

There is great emphasis in understanding the main financial statements covering the Income Statement, Balance Sheet and Statement of Cash Flow. Real corporate financial reports have been used. Of course the non-corporate financial reports are also highlighted such as governmental financial reports, not-for-profit financial reports and so on.

To evaluate the profitability, liquidity and solvency of a company, the accounting ratios were used. One of the most valuable skill I have learnt is in reading financial reports. I have a few large bluechip equities holdings in the Singapore Stock Exchange and they would send me big fat financial reports which I would normally just throw them straight into the bin. Normally I invest based on insights given by my dad and they are always accurate, who is accounting trained. Currently, I am able to do the analysis myself.

Now I understand why bluechips like SPH give lots of dividends but there is not much fluctuation in its share price while Keppel Land give little dividends but there is considerable gain in its share price.

Case Studies

Several case studies were explored with the students, the most notable of which is ABC Learning - the corporate entity which Temasek Holdings invested in and went bust. The idea of creative accounting has been shared with us and we understand there are limitations to financial statements.

There are also business ethics in relation to accounting. Dr Chris Graves shared with us a few heartfelt events in accounting where corporate entities have to make decisions based on their bottomline over human lives. The first case is the Ford Pinto incident. He said 'When you add value to human lives...' It is very true indeed that we cannot just add a numerical value (insurance claim) to human lives lost. He also shared with us on a World War II run Buchenwald Concentration Camp record. Prisoners generate revenue based on their work and upon death and there is an accounting value for their work. A closer to date example is the BP oil spill incident.


Let's branch off a bit from the course and take a look at some light moments in class. Dr Chris Graves asked us a question below. My style towards study since the university days has been answer A! No point worrying about it, let's worry about it later. Just have fun~ ^_^



Everything is Business Accounting

From this course, I have realized that everything around us is based on business accounting. The government, not-for-profit organizations, religious bodies and of course corporate entities all following the same accounting principle and places great emphasis on the bottom line.

When I look at bank statements and there is a Debit and Credit to my account, I now know that the statement is generated from a bank's perspective. A credit means it's bad for them, good for us. While a debit means it's good for them, bad for us. So credit does not always mean deduction.

Even from a business school point of view, they are similarly run like business entities. We were working on a case study on how a business school is being ran. You can imagine how much those big business schools gets based on their tuition fees. And you can start implementing strategies on rapid student intake, getting accreditation, having online courses and so on while keeping fixed costs in check. Business schools spent a lot on marketing and charge high for student fees. At the end of the day, what they have learnt are pretty much the same. I still remember during the information session where the lecturer shared with us on the problem with accreditation. Imagine all business schools conform to the same standards, where is the uniqueness in each school. I shared this knowledge with a friend studying full-time in one of the top European Business school and he was amazed that I came to this insight in my first term. He realized it halfway through his course. It is actually thanks to the University of Adelaide Business School and its staff for their unique teaching experience.

All in all, for personal accounting, I have learnt not to pay my credit card bills so soon (pay it towards the end of the credit card bill deadline - accounts payable), and to collect cash owned by others as soon as possible (getting the pay check fast if possible - accounts receivable) and finally to invest idle cash in safe instruments while keeping inventory low (don't anyhow buy things).

I still remember the sharing by the Hungarian Zen Master Chong An Sunim that when we add value to everything, problems will arise. He relates a simple Greek story of how a king has a golden touch. Eventually everything he touches become gold. His love ones, his food, his followers. He also mentioned the flaws with regard to a Capitalist ideal. Capitalism is supposed to create wealth amongst all people. But currently, capitalism generated the greatest societal income disparity in history and created the most number of people living in poverty. Likewise, Communism ideal is supposed to be about a community of people living in harmony. But never in history has there been such an isolated group of people, living in fear amongst one another. This shows the extremes of ideals, the nature of duality.



Group Project
There is a 30% component in the module allocated to group project work. The entire class of 26 students have been divided into 4-5 students per group. I belong to the 'lucky' group with 5 students in it. All the members in the group are fabulous. The objective of the group project is to analyze the financial reports of Sigma Pharmaceutical and Australian Pharmaceutical Industries Limited.

As it is my first group project, I decided to be a group follower and observe how the more experienced students go about coordinating the project. It started out great with Gantt Charts and members name/contact all listed. As time goes by, with no definite leader within the group, it became quite chaotic and there is no clear sense of direction.

There are a few major mistakes that has been made and they are:
1) Too much time has been spent on numbers-crunching. Just a week before the group assignment deadline submissions, we are still doing verification of the numbers to ensure they are correct.
2) The group discussion time has not been spent constructively in discussing the integration and conclusion aspect. It's still spent working on the individual portion.
3) Without a clear direction of what is to be written, there are different analysis methods even a day before the assignment deadline.

This resulted in burnt-out and resigned members within the group. I did a check with the other groups on how they go about coordinating their portions. They said their respective tasks are delegated out right at the beginning so they are in-charge of their respective data integrity and correctness. The group discussion time is mainly spent on integration and in clarifying doubts along the way. That explains why they completed way before the deadline instead of rushing through at the last minute.

I noticed some of the problems have been recurring for some of the current group members based on their sharing. So the group management approach has to be changed. Using this first group assignment as experience, think I will play a more active role in guiding the direction of group assignments in the next module.