Improvement in critical thinking and analyses by Graduate Students

Every generation needs a revolution - an entrepreneurial revolution

Rizal Philippines
December 18, 2016

I am writing this a reflection on my attendance for strama defense.

Peter Senge is right that the Fifth Discipline, shared learning and the rest of the disciplines:    Mental Models, Systemic Thinking, Shared Vision are important in strategy and successful management of enterprise or change.  Let us take mental models.

1. The use of macro data for EFE even for local business that have only local competitors-  It should be used for FMCG products and products and services that have national coverage.  The presentor for a hospital in an island that have local market in scope used only macro data as if she was in MM, like a big hospital in MM.  Some would advocate the use of B2C marketing strategy even if the business were B2B.   Use of mass and social media for a B2B company.

2.  Using irrelevant or hostile data or making wrong conclusions from the data presented.   Some would judge the the same stuff as both strength and weakness.  Say for instance, on the CFS, they would judge having more products as one of the factor for success in the business And somewhere in the paper, said that the company was progressive because of diverse products.  And the graphs and table shows indeed that the company was ahead of competitors in terms of products and services.  And yet in the internal analysis says that the company has fewer variants of the products.

3.  Failing to address the SWOT analysis.   Some students would say that the company is weak financially (low liquidity, high DE ratio, etc)   And yet after noting that, while the student would profess marketing strategy fail to address this issue. Why would you let a very weak company run a sprint or a marathon.  Are the weaknesses not to be addressed.?  We should beef our finance mentoring sirs?

Did the business school have better outcomes with new processes/procedures?

Every generation needs a revolution - an entrepreneurial revolution

Rizal Philippines
December 18, 2016

I have not been teaching for the last several months because of my inability to comply with the 7 days deadline for the submission of grades after the end of sem;  and rightly so.  Some erring profs were sent memo for their insubordination even those who were on foreign travels.

It is just a big disappointment too that 2 years ago in  faculty conference in Alabang, the incoming leaders were asked as to what was the elephant in the room -  (every one anticipated that the Loyola people would replace the current staff) and the managers were silent and non committal.  Today  they are doing just that - to replace the current faculty with doctorate and academicians.

I asked the current faculty, the chair of the panel which I attended (I braved the horrendous traffic just to attend to this chore, to honor the panel and the students defending their strama) said that as a whole the school is doing well but not the GSB.  Enrollment is down, the good professors have joined the rival schools.   DLS has moved to BGC;  what is the move of the school?  (Nawala strama for the grand moves/strategy to be competitive;   baka irrelevant ang mga new policies, nitty pricky or rubbed the ertswhile strength of the GSB - the professional at work profs  (whom I understand are happy with their consultancy work or businesses)

Facilitation for a food company's strategic planning for the next five years

Every generation needs a revolution - an entrepreneurial revolution

                    The facilitator together with the President
              center and the members of the family, the board
              members at the atrium of the hotel for the final
             session,  The facilitator still wears the signature I AM
             BEST  t shirt which the theme of the conference


We just concluded a strategic planning conference in a posh hotel at Camp John Hay amidst pledges and grand dreams:

The food company which is all ready amongst top 5 in the industry resolved to double its sales in five years (until 2021) via following strategy:

1.  entering Vismin market
2.  establishing a canning line of products
3.  establishing a brand management group to support sales to plan promotions and ads
4.  investment in automated plant facilities to be more efficient and save operating expenses\
5.  quality products

These are all meant to benchmark the strategies of the top food company and score higher in cpm critical success factors.  This author tried to explain very hard that being one of the top 4 being almost there, what separates them from the top are areas where they score low.  They were asked objectively if they score high in all.  And only in 4 out of 10.

I pray that my efforts and the resources expenses are resources well spent and are investments rather than expenses (became useless)   Its good that the board who joined the conference are seeing it that way.  It was explained by the new brand chief that its should be treated that way especially that the top notcher in the field has the strategy of continuously "investing  in brand equity."

Final closing session  (Day 2)

                         The story of the  carabao keeping
                              pace with the rabbit

                                   Together with the Best staff