Thursday, December 6, 2012

STRATEGIC THINKING FOR THE MBA STUDENT

One of the topics we encourage with our MBA students is strategic thinking. To be a good strategic thinker, one must not only anticipate likely problems to be faced in the future, but also determine how best to position your business to take advantage of what you predict is likely to happen.

There are a number of interesting technology issues on the horizon that will get confronted in the next 2-5 years. If you want to test your strategic thinking capability, decide where you think the technology issue below is headed. Then think about the impact it will have on your current organization and the possible positioning you might recommend to your company to leverage where you think things are headed.

The issue is privacy. At one end of the spectrum are consumers who are struggling to protect their online privacy and personal data. At the other end are companies whose business it is to collect data about consumers and track their online behavior in order to sell them things directly or sell their names to companies who will turn around and sell them something. Currently, rules for monitoring online behavior are only loosely defined. Expect some significant revisions in the antiquated Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 as well as additional privacy legislation that addresses how internet data can be collected and/or sold. The strategic thinking exercise is what that legislation will look like.

A good example of how things can change overnight is the Driver’s Privacy Protection Act of 1994 (commonly referred to as DPPA). Prior to this legislation, consumers had to “opt-out” to prevent their personal data from being accessed by marketers. Typically, less than 2% “opted-out” meaning that consumer data was generally available to anyone who wanted it on everyone who owned a motor vehicle in the U.S. After passage of DPPA, consumers had to “opt-in” for their information to be accessed. Guess what? Less than 1% opted-in and practically overnight, easy access to information gathered by state DMVs was eliminated.

Here’s another privacy related question: how would you feel about losing a juicy contract or promising job based upon something you posted on Facebook or information obtained by “Googling” your name? Think that’s a stretch? Don’t kid yourself. A study just conducted of college admissions officers indicated nearly one-third checked Facebook and Google as part of their applicant review process and 35% of those doing so found material that negatively impacted how they viewed the student!

By the way, once you figure out privacy, there are a few others technology issues on the horizon as well: piracy, cybersecurity, and STEM education. But that’s another day….

2 comments:

  1. Strategic thinking is very important in real life and business improvement. Every MBA students should have their particular planning of such thinking to make the difference in problem facing and creation solutions.

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  2. The value of post graduate education like MBA has significantly grown in the last years. Employers wish to have a qualified professional with a degree in business administration who can deal with all aspects of management and who has leadership abilities required to perform functions of a manager. nephrology fellowships

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