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DCU Business School Executive MBA International Trip to Hong Kong – A bridge between east and west.

For decades now, we had a window to the west: we looked to the US and Silicon Valley for emerging trends in global business, innovation and business development. This year’s DCU Business School Executive MBA class took a different route; taking a path less travelled, embarking on a trip to Hong Kong to examine, first-hand, the nuances of global business developments through a very different lens.

A recent piece I read cites a relevant analogy, describing China not as an emerging market, but as a sleeping Dragon; awakening from a long slumber following a hiatus from its heydays under various dynasties. To prove such an analogy true, one has to look no further than Hong Kong to see that the dragon has already had her morning coffee.

Few global cities can rival the dynamism and resilience of a city like Hong Kong; with one step in China and the other firmly seeking to grow trade with the west. An established global finance hub, Hong Kong has cemented its place as a conduit for facilitating and doing business with China. Espousing an exciting ‘open for business’ mantra, the city, which is currently ‘under new management’ serves as the new silk road between east and west.

The Executive MBA class were exposed to a wide diversity of Multinational and indigenous firms including global consultancy organisations, insurance providers, local manufacturers, creative marketing firms, executive search agencies, hoteliers and social ventures. Insights were gained on the intricacies and opportunities of doing business within the region and more specifically on tapping into the global behemoth that is China.

Among the highlights, the Executive MBA class were invited to visit the Irish Consulate based in Hong Kong and to learn about the scale of cross-border trade currently being conducted within the region. In the evenings we sampled some of the finest cuisine Asia has to offer while taking in the bright lights of this vibrant city. Among the growing expat community we heard more than once an old adage that ‘a New York minute is a Hong Kong second’. One thing remains certain; I’d happily go back for seconds.

Dr Marty Reilly, Lecturer in Management

Learn more about the DCU Business School Executive MBA here

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DCU Business School MSc in Management enters World’s Top 90

DCU Business School is delighted to announce that it has been ranked for the first time by the Financial Times.

The ranking, which places the MSc in Management among the top 90 in the world, makes  DCU the youngest university to feature. As the Financial Times is considered one of the leading ranking system for business programmes it is a very significant achievement and another international endorsement of DCU’s quality as a young, dynamic university.

The MSc in Management at DCU is a well established programme with a reputation for excellent career development and already has a large community of successful alumni. It is renowned for its innovation and its creative approach to the postgraduate learning experience as seen in its multi-project Next Generation Management and the Practicum industry project.

Professor Anne Sinnott, Executive Dean of DCU Business School puts the success down to DCU Business School’s innovative approach to teaching and extensive industry links, “The ranking indicates that we are placed among the top universities in the world which deliver an MSc in Management Programme and further confirms our position as an innovative and quality business school, which prepares our graduates to be work-ready.”

This success also highlights the strong relationship between DCU Business School and its alumni as their endorsement was critical to this outcome.

DCU Business School is accredited by the AACSB which is the leading international accrediting body for Business Schools and the Financial Times MSc in Management ranking is another acknowledgement of the quality and success of its programmes and graduates.

For more information about the MSc in Management click here.

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Life after the DCU Executive MBA – A Graduate Perspective

I completed my Executive MBA in the summer of 2015  at DCU. It was a great experience and our class comprised a spectacular bunch of people. Before I start to explain what life has been like post the MBA, I would like to acknowledge what a great experience it was. It certainly tests you on all levels – it tests your time management, it tests your productivity, it tests your ability to be part of a team, it tests your leadership – but the end result is highly rewarding.

During my MBA studies I was a Director of Research in Dublin with 16 direct reports the majority of which are PhDs. A couple of months after completing the MBA I moved to New Jersey to take on new responsibilities at our research headquarters. At that time Bell Labs (and our mother company Alcatel-Lucent) was becoming part of a new parent company (Nokia) and in that time there was a lot of flux and changes in management and structure. I was promoted up one level in the organization and I am now responsible for 50 people across 3 different research departments spanning everything from audio visual research, to photonics integration & packaging, to efficient energy transfer research.

With respect to how the DCU MBA helped me personally and in my career progression – the MBA gave me a much better sense of my strengths and areas for growth. Because I am in research I don’t get to explicitly use many of the elements thought in the MBA (for example, marketing, finance, accounting etc) but the fact that I have the fundamental leanings from the MBA program means I now have the ability to engage those skills at any moment and in any context. More importantly, and in my particular case, going through 2 years of extracurricular activity while also holding my day job, was viewed by senior management as extremely positive. They saw that I am serious about my personal growth and career progression and that I am willing to go many extra miles to be as good as I can be and use those growth experiences to help the company. I commenced the DCU Executive MBA programme for personal growth and to try and bring in business best practice into a research environment.

Domhnaill Hernon DCU MBA

Since moving to the U.S I have been asked to lead many large projects and I have been given much broader responsibility beyond the 3 departments I am directly responsible for. I think there are a few reasons for this but for sure the things I learned during my MBA, especially in the team aspects, have stood me in good stead. I am now also responsible for driving new site initiatives at our research head quarters in New Jersey and part of this role is to help build the Bell Labs brand by collaborating with external partners. One example of this work is shown below where we engaged in activities called Experiments in Arts and Technology (E.A.T). This is a gathering where technologists interact and collaborate with artists to help develop more advanced technology by pushing the limits of how we view the world and how our technology can be used to help humanity.

This post was kindly written by Domhnaill Hernon, Director of Research & Site Lead for Research Interactions, Nokia Bell Labs, New Jersey, U.S.A. You can follow him on Linkedin and on Twitter. 

Final applications for the DCU Executive MBA are being accepted now. If you’re considering undertaking an MBA, get in touch with DCU Business School today. 

 

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My DCU Executive MBA Journey

My MBA journey: “It’s about horsepower not brain power and I think that anyone who doubts their ability to do it, my advice would be to go for it”

Taking on two years of part-time study, whilst working in a full time job and raising a young family is no small task, but as Barry Gavigan (40) found out, it can be very rewarding and can also lead to greater things, career wise.

Gavigan has a degree in engineering from the University of Limerick and works for British Telecom. With years of management experience under his belt, he decided to go for a new job but wasn’t even shortlisted for interview. He began to ask the question, why?

The feedback he was given showed he was pigeonholed into engineering. He decided to take back control and have his management experience formally recognised in the form of a Master of Business Administration (MBA) at Dublin City University in 2013.

It wasn’t all plain sailing and he encountered many “peaks and troughs” along the way, but ultimately the hard work paid off.

“It’s a significant investment, both financially and of personal time. The family have to be brought in to it. I had a 4 year old, 2 year old and a newborn in the middle of it and I also changed jobs internally. It does involve a lot of personal sacrifice but it’s not one of these excruciating scenarios, and there are peaks and troughs, like your work life. The real ability is to cope with the workload and stay on top of it. It did mean sacrificing nights out and getting up early to study before the kids got up. It was a trade-off but good support from home was vital.”

As an MBA is usually paid for, or part paid for by the employer, it’s vital that they give full support. “My employer was extremely supportive. The MBA required a half day on Thursdays and other times outside of that, so the employer needs to be very committed towards it as well. British Telecom was very accommodating and flexible. It’s a two-way street, my commitment to them was that my work wouldn’t suffer and they got flexibility out of me in other ways.”

Gavigan says the MBA has broadened his mind and made him understand the value of carrying out a task in a certain way. “You recognise why best practice is used,” he says.

It has also got him a new job in another sector, something he says the MBA gave him the confidence to go for.

Peer learning is another key element of the course and he says the insight into other industries is invaluable. “People frankly and honestly share their experiences and rationale behind why a business has taken a certain line.”

He says he would advise anyone considering the masters to “stop procrastinating” and get on with applying.

“It’s about horsepower not brain power and I think that for anyone who doubts their ability to do it, my advice would be to go for it. Everyone who did it had busy lives and busy jobs but they all juggled it and managed it.”

This article was originally published in conversation with the Irish Times.

To learn more about how the DCU Executive MBA fits with your career goals, download our brochure here.

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The Whats and Hows of Success in Family Business

A team within the DCU Centre for Family Business was commissioned by Fingal County Council to complete this case study. The Family Business Report, Lessons in Resilience and Success: a Snapshot of Multi-generational Family Businesses in Fingal, Dublin was produced by Martina Brophy and Eric Clinton. Their study follows twelve family businesses which are all multi-generational, family-owned and head-quartered in Fingal. Through conducting interviews with these individuals they were able to distinguish needs, challenges and strengths that come with running a family business.

 

“Family businesses are a complex and highly resourceful business type. Knowledge, learnings, resources, values and traditions pass across generations of a family: often, what is found are strategic resources and capabilities that can make a family firm distinctive and competitively advantaged,” writes Dr. Eric Clinton in this study.

 

The report provides a snapshot of 12 multi-generational family businesses in Fingal with family involvement ranging from second to fourth generation. Between them they employ over 3,500 and have turnovers ranging from €1.5 million to in excess of €100m per annum.

Business & Finance, Ireland’s leading business magazine, have covered the topic in an article, Talent in Family Business. Dr. Eric Clinton, Director of the DCU Centre for Family Business, covers a variety of topics within the topic of family business from how much family should get involved to how important it is to become a cohesive team.

Families have an effect in the businesses day-to-day happenings whether it is positive or negative. Thus, through the Family Business study Clinton and Brophy come together and provide information and recommendations on how to run a successful family run business.

 

Check out what the DCU Centre for Family Business is all about:

 

 

 

 

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DCU Executive MBA Student wins Special Award

Congratulations to Doireann Sheelan, a DCU Executive MBA student, who received a Special Award for her individual contribution at the recent MBA Association of Ireland Strategy Challenge competition, held recently at Waterford Institute of Technology.

Doireann was part of team, with fellow Executive MBA Students Kalum King, Neil Curran and James Cannon, who presented on the case study “Turkish Airlines – Widen Your World”. While they did not win the competition (the prize went to WIT) they acquitted themselves admirably receiving great praise from the judges for the depth of their analysis.

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DCU Executive MBA Team (Kalum King, Neil Curran and James Cannon)

This annual competition, hosted by the MBA Association of Ireland (MBAAI), attracts entrants from all the universities and institutes of technology in Ireland that run MBA programmes. Peter McNamara, Professor of Management & Head of School at NUI Maynooth, and Chairperson of the competition, commented: “All four of the teams did a very good job of analysing the case and making recommendations, especially under considerable time pressure.”

The DCU Executive MBA is now recruiting ambitious participants for September 2016.

For more information, visit postgrad.dcu.ie/mba or  email mba@dcu.ie.

 

Pictured is the DCU MBA team with the MBA Association of Ireland President Alacoque McMenamin,

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Part Time Postgraduate Programmes in DCU Business School

Give yourself the competitive advantage with DCU Business School. If you want to take your career to the next level, DCU Business School has the part-time postgraduate programme to help you realise your full potential. Part-time study is a very efficient way of raising and updating your skills while keeping your foot firmly in the professional world.

Our part time programmes are tailored for those who want to continue working while studying and usually involve committing a number of afternoons or evenings each week to attend classes or lectures. Undertaking a part-time postgraduate course can be of great benefit to personal and professional development as well as for career progression.

We are currently accepting applications for September 2016 via the Postgraduate Applications Centre (www.pac.ie/dcu) for the following part-time postgraduate programmes:

For details on our full-time postgraduate programmes, please click here.

 

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Spotlight: Masters in Ecommerce

The MSc in Electronic Commerce is the ideal postgraduate programme for graduates of business and computing degrees who are seeking to advance their careers in the growing ICT industry in Ireland and abroad.

The Eduniversal Best Masters rankings, which rates Master’s degrees on reputation, student satisfaction, and employment prospects, placed the MSc in E-Commerce in 18th position globally. Further, the Ecommerce programme has been awarded the prestigious EPAS accreditation which recognises the quality of alumni of the programme and their career progression, the market positioning of the programme nationally and internationally, the curriculum content and delivery system, the extent to which the programme has an international focus, its balance between academic and managerial dimensions, and the appropriateness of the faculty who deliver the programme.

This one-year Masters programme is designed to produce the kind of e-business technologists, managers, entrepreneurs and innovators in greatest demand by the information economy. It does this by providing students on each stream with a powerful combination of technological and business skills of relevance to electronic commerce applications. A strong collaborative ethos across the business and technical streams is fostered through the extensive shared curriculum, interactive teaching modes and overall entrepreneurial and innovative orientation.

Throughout the programme, students will be given the opportunity to apply their knowledge to real-world projects. The MSc in e-Commerce is part of DCU Business School’s Next Generation Management initiative. This initiative provides students with a unique and flexible learning opportunity to develop the competencies required for successful management careers and to contribute to business success.

The Practicum module is taken over the summer months and is a great opportunity to apply all the learning that you will do over the year to a real world case and will be a great asset on your CV upon graduation.

Read more about the MSc in Ecommerce & see how to apply here.

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MSDM Student Wins An Post Smart Marketing Student of the Year Award

Congratulations to DCU Business School student Garron Clarke (BSc in Marketing Innovation and Technology 2014 & MSc in Digital Marketing 2016) who has won the An Post Smart Marketing Student of the Year award for 2016.

The An Post Student Smart Marketing Campaign of the Year Award recognises excellence in marketing strategy, design and creativity. Garron, who is currently carrying out the Masters in Digital Marketing in DCU Business School, was awarded for  his campaign ‘The Chronicle’.

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DCU Executive MBA Career Skills Day

As part of the DCU Executive MBA (EMBA) personal and career development theme, a programme of activities was designed by the Programme Director to develop EMBA participants self-awareness, leadership competencies and career development competencies.

These activities include partaking in an assessment centre, coaching clinics with professional coaches, CV and Interview workshops. This culminates in a career and personal development day, which was organised and run by DCU Career Service in collaboration with DCU Business School and DCU Alumni Office. The result was a packed day consisting of 1:1 coaching sessions, mock panel interviewers, assessment centre feedback sessions, CV clinics and a keynote inspirational speaker.

DCU Career Service through Yvonne McLoughlin organised top calibre professionals to deliver each activity. Professional coaches provided excellent career or personal development advice to EMBA participants. DCU Alumni working in top calibre organisations in HR Director or recruitment or consultancy roles put our EMBA’s through their paces in challenging mock panel interviews and provided immediate feedback on their performance. HR and management professionals ran CV clinics to provide personalised advice on CV’s.

Our EMBA’s described the line-up of activities and the feedback obtained as ‘one of the highlights’ of their MBA journey thus far. The participants were very impressed with the extent of personalised feedback they received. They were grateful for the opportunity to be challenged by top professionals in a no-consequences context. This event is testament to the value to be obtained from collaboration between a Business School, Career Services and Alumni where each unit delivers on what it is best at.

The DCU Executive MBA programme is the capstone programme in the Business School and attracts a diversity of participants in terms of demographics, industry and professional expertise- participants must have at least a 2.1 degree and a minimum of 3 years management level experience. This calibre of EMBA participant and their organisations make a large commitment to completing an EMBA and they expect a professional offering of the highest international standard. The DCU Career Service delivered such an event this year as judged by our customers – the DCU Executive MBA’s.

“A timely and wonderful event that provides the skills to go out and progress your career. Professionally organised with highly talented interviewers and coaches, it has been a very positive experience and one that will help me secure the next phase of my career”.

“The day offered an opportunity to test yourself on not only your skill set for interviewing, but also in personal development. The CV clinic provided some real nuggets that may just prove the difference in getting selected for that next big interview”.

(Pictured: MBA2 class with Paralympic athlete, gold and silver medal winner Dave Malone)

Learn more about the DCU Executive MBA programme

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