Solve new challenges with a Melbourne Business School MBA

Businesses around the globe are facing unprecedented challenges, brought about by the recent pandemic.

But they can still thrive with the right resources, tools, and interventions.

Resilience, adaptability to change and the ability to pivot quickly have become essential skills for all business leaders, who can no longer rely on old solutions to solve new challenges. The need to upskill in key business areas has become crucial.

A full-time MBA at MBS will change the way you think about business 

Melbourne Business School (MBS) is the business and economics graduate school of the number one university in Australia, the University of Melbourne, as ranked by The Times Higher Education Rankings 2020.

Its MBA program attracts students from all over the world, seeking a solid business education in one of Australia’s most exciting cities.

The full-time MBS MBA program offers industry-oriented, application-based learning through innovative and practical subjects to maximise your potential to become an effective business leader.

The program focuses on real-world learning and gives students an arsenal of tools, knowledge, and opportunities to become a truly global business leader.

You can study a two-year, full-time MBA program or choose the fast-track option, depending on your career goals and personal circumstances.

The program places a strong emphasis on developing exceptional management and leadership capabilities.

Working in syndicate groups, students learn how to manage teams through complex challenges and develop practical know-how to produce positive business outcomes.

The program focuses on innovation and business strategy – marrying both concepts to produce business leaders who are adept at discovering opportunities amid challenges by leveraging technology and innovation.

It culminates in a Capstone project, where students work in groups to complete a business simulation in which they manage a company. This simulation requires them to apply and integrate the knowledge, skills, and attributes that they have developed over the MBA program.

Students also have the option to select from a wide range of electives that are designed to develop future-focused business leaders.

These electives allow you to strengthen your business skills with subjects such as brand management, business law, business analytics and marketing strategy or your technology knowledge through subjects focused on innovation, game theory for business strategy and fintech, including blockchain.

Students can also complete a four-week, full-time MBA internship that integrates MBA learning, employability, and workplace culture to sharpen their communication, interpersonal, analytical, problem‐solving, organisational, time‐management, and career-planning skills.

Graduates of the MBS MBA program emerge as future-ready leaders, able to forge strong industry partnerships and collaborative knowledge-transfer initiatives that produce successful business outcomes.

The program also provides opportunities to become a global leader through its study exchange partnerships with leading business schools all over the world

MBS is a member of the Partnership in International Management, which is a consortium of top business schools. Membership gives students who opt for the two-year study route access to a global network of more than 50 business schools across 23 countries.

Career support opens new doors

Tim Crane, the newly appointed Strategy Development Manager at Officeworks, attributes gaining his new role to the opportunities presented by MBS’s full-time MBA program.

“It all started when the Careers Management Centre at MBS team engaged me about an opportunity in the Strategy Development Team at Officeworks, as part of an internship opportunity. It is an industry strategy role, which was aligned to my long-term career goals.”

Armed with his freshly acquired MBA skills, Crane had the opportunity to lead commercial due-diligence activities related to customer payment options, which included strategic partnerships and mergers and acquisitions.

“Since commencing this role in October, I have continued my work on customer payment options, and I’m in the process of developing a strategic roadmap for our Geeks2U business,” he said.

Crane attributes his career progression to the broad toolkit of problem-solving skills, provided by the MBS MBA.

“In particular, the frameworks I learned from the various strategy and marketing subjects have been most helpful in my current role.

“Throughout a multitude of subjects in the MBA, the lecturers would regularly allocate problems for the class to solve in syndicate groups.

“Constantly doing this has improved my ability to work efficiently to solve problems, then communicate my response effectively and succinctly, so that it is easy to understand – these skills are helpful in my current role.”

According to Crane, the MBA program helped him absorb key information and taught him to develop structured frameworks, instrumental to problem-solving.

His membership of the Consulting Club at MBS gave him the opportunity to practice using frameworks and structured thinking and learn from guest speakers from visiting consulting firms that included McKinsey and Bain.

He said these skills were among the most important he gained from his MBA, which equipped him with many practical career skills.

“The Careers Management Centre held sessions that allowed me to improve career skills like networking, performing in an interview, effectively capturing interest with my LinkedIn profile, job applications and resume writing,” he said.

“Throughout the MBA, we were allocated to ‘syndicate groups’ for regular group work, with the opportunity to be the group leader.

“This allowed me to develop my leadership and people management skills. We also had the opportunity to be a part of leadership sessions, which helped me to develop skills in providing positive and constructive feedback.”

The program also enabled Crane to develop a much better understanding of the economy, the role businesses play in the macro-environment, and how it can impact them.

Additionally, he attributes the program to his newly developed understanding of the supply and demand dynamics of markets and how to use it effectively in negotiations.

“I know how to create a brand that builds brand equity and how to position it uniquely in a competitive market, such that customers will notice and have a better understanding of the interplay between data and strategy,” he said.

The MBS MBA program also helped him develop in-depth knowledge of the concepts that drive operational and cost efficiency and an understanding of the importance of an organisation’s core capabilities and how all that drives competitive advantage and ultimately return for shareholders.

Like Crane, the MBS MBA helped Michael Bielawski make a similarly successful career leap, in this case from engineering to a marketing career at L’Oreal.

Canadian-born Bielawski credits his MBA for a successful “triple leap”, which allowed him to change industry, function, and location — all at the same time.

“I wanted to expand my skillset and develop a toolkit for tackling any challenge, regardless of the role or industry.

“The MBA provided a broad course offering, covering the fundamentals of finance, economics, strategy, marketing and operations, which has allowed me to adapt and take on new roles at L’Oréal.”

Learn more about the full-time MBS MBA program, which is taking enrolments now for its September 2021 intake.