Cornell Executive MBA Student Sam Panini Shares His Story

Accepted: Wed like to get to know you! Where are you from? Where and what did you study as an undergrad? Sam: My family is originally from South India. I was born in Cincinnati, OH, spent part of my childhood in Denver, CO and went to high school and college in Tennessee, where I earned a bachelors degree in electrical engineering from the University of Tennessee. Accepted: Can you share three fun facts about yourself? Sam: †¢Ã‚  I am married to a lovely lady from Mexico City. †¢Ã‚  I lived in Brazil for a couple of years and as a result I am idiomatically fluent in Mexican Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese and learned both without formal language lessons. †¢Ã‚  I have a 6 year old dog and two daughters under the age of 3. Accepted: Can you tell us about your experience at Cornells EMBA program so far and why you decided to go back to school?    Sam: My experience, like many others in EMBA programs, has been phenomenal. As a result of holding classes primarily every other weekend, the pace of any EMBA program is fast, and analogies like drinking from the firehose are not inaccurate. The professors are world-class and the cloistered format with an overnight stay on Saturday has allowed for excellent opportunities to expand my personal and professional network. Im happy to have such a supportive and close group of friends and colleagues. I had explored business school programs while living in Chicago a few years ago, but the timing wasnt right. In the process of changing jobs, one hiring manager, unprompted, said, Im looking at you, Im talking to you, you ought to think about getting an MBA. Another hiring manager, unprompted, said, Im looking at you, Im talking to you, out of curiosity, why dont you have an MBA? As far as Im concerned, I decided to go back to school because I listened to what the universe was telling me. Accepted: Were there any other programs you were considering? Why did you ultimately feel that Cornell was a good fit? Sam: Living in or around Manhattan, top-ranked programs in the city (e.g. Columbia or NYU Stern) are a logical choice for working professionals. A former colleague in a full-time program in Ithaca referred me to the Executive MBA Metro NY program at Johnson. After a campus visit, considering that the Saturday/Sunday format would not (overly) impact my work obligations, and research into the any person, any study Cornell ethos, the choice was clear for me. The overnight stay is very understated in its importance to the value that students get out of the program. Accepted: Was it difficult to go back to school after being in the working world for so long? What has the experience been like for you? Sam: Certainly, the first couple of months are an adjustment period for everyone. For some, its been a decade or more since spending extensive time (i.e. all day!) in a classroom setting. Gradually, I established a rhythm, which is very much dependent on the support system created along with my team and other classmates. In my opinion, much like it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village to get an MBA. I believe about 30% of the value of any business school curriculum is in the one-way transmission of information from professors to students in the classroom. The remaining 70% is exchanging information, ideas, concepts, tricks, tutoring, help, laughs, tears, etc. with other classmates, alumni and the schools wider network. The Cornell ethos distinguishes itself in this manner, and I think there is something in the water of Cayuga Lake that imparts the elite but not elitist nature to all who pass through the school. Accepted: Do you have any tips or advice to share for professionals who are considering an EMBA program? Sam: When I came through the open house for the Cornell Executive MBA program, my question to the student panelists was, Given that you were in our shoes 1 or 2 years ago, what would you ask yourself? It was a hard question to answer on the spot. Now a year into the program, my question would be, How important is it to be a manager of other people before coming into the program? The reason is: when a project is assigned in the team format, as the lead, you effectively have 4 to 5 direct reports. Having prior experience in effectively delegating, managing, motivating, correcting and providing feedback are very helpful given the nature of assignments and ensuring the success of a team. Accepted: Are you involved in any extracurricular activities or volunteer work? How have those activities helped shape your career? Sam: I have had the opportunity to participate in a workshop for the Johnson at Cornell Thought Leader series. It was an excellent opportunity to expand my network of connections in the Johnson and larger Cornell community. It was further evidence that the Cornell network will always help when it can. Accepted: What motivated you to start a separate Twitter account for your EMBA experience?   Sam: I have been using Twitter for nearly 10 years and given my familiarity, wanted to help promote the Johnson School on social media. A separate account offered the ability to target the scope of content for a specific purpose and help me to compartmentalize. Accepted: Anything else about your journey that youd like to share?   Sam: The key to success in any Executive MBA program is the support of family, friends and colleagues. Make sure expectations of your time, availability and obligations are set for at least 22 months. This, too, shall pass. When I heard current students talk about how they had made good friends, I remember my first thought was, I dont need more friends, I need an MBA. I wish I could tell that person that â€Å"friends† is just another word for relationships which are so important in building a career, especially post-MBA. Ignoring the social aspect is a risk your career and future success of the Executive MBA program. Choose an Executive MBA that helps facilitate building relationships. Choose Cornell. You can learn more about Sam by checking out his LinkedIn profile or by following him on Twitter (@CornellMBA_SP). Thank you Sam for sharing your story with us – we wish you loads of luck! Related Resources: †¢ 5 Key Qualifying Factors the EMBA Adcoms Look For †¢Ã‚  Cornell Executive MBA 2016 Essay Tips Deadlines †¢Ã‚  Excellent Executive MBA Admissions Advice, a podcast episode

Balanced Scorecard And Communication Plan Coursework - 1375 Words

Balanced Scorecard And Communication Plan Coursework (Coursework Sample) Content: NAMEUNIVERSITY AFFILIATIONINSTRUCTORS NAMEDATEBALANCED SCORECARD AND COMMUNICATION PLANINTRODUCTIONBalanced scorecards are systems set in use for effective management of strategy in an organization. A balanced scorecard is operative on four perspectives which are; Financial perspective, Customer perspective, internal process and Organizational capacity. Each of this perspective has different measures which are aimed at adding value to the business.A Manufacturing ScorecardOBJECTIVESMain objectives to be achieved by use of the score card are:To enhance the performance of a business card.To monitor performance of the business.To monitor both internal and external communications within the business businessTo identify the mission and vision of which a business holds to and key indicators used to evaluate the level of performance.DISCUSSIONAs mentioned above, a balanced scorecard has four operative perspectives. Each of these perspectives have different measures which are positioned to adding value to the business. These can be analysed as follows:Financial performance:Seeks to establish the effectiveness of business operations in terms of finances. This can be ascertained through the investment returns and profits earned from the lot (Lucco, 2017). Some of the measures to increase the financial performance would include: Among options such as adding IT managers, security team, and data and information supervisors to facilitate operations within the company. All these would be a liability in that the profits would be divided for some other uses. However, it would be more preferential to embrace the use of an effective management control platform that would aid in the gathering of information and use it to evaluate the performance of various organizational elements. Such would include, physical entities, financial entities, and strategies laid within the company(Langfield, 1997).Use of effective risk assessment methods to curb the cost of any losses or incurred risk costs. Therefore, it would boost the financial performance of the company at large. In this case, qualitative risk assessment would serve perfectly to ensure all the attributes within the scorecard work towards positive revenue gain. These would also be effective in the sense that quality production of products with minimal losses incurred due to curbed risk situations. Therefore, a low overhead cost of production would be registered giving a bigger allowance for profits (Otley, 1999).Customer perspective:Seeks to establish how the customer needs and the level of customer satisfaction. Customer relations are also established through this perspective and used to enhance better ways of retaining and attracting customers. To evaluate the efficiency of this platform, customer feedback would be gathered through ratings and comments. These may be used to access the level of service offered and even the conformity of the goods to the customer needs (Lucco, 2017).Internal service perspectiveIt is used to evaluate all business operations as conducted by the firm. This would, therefore, give a clear indication of how effective the whole business is at large. Performance indicators for this perspective would be the level of quality output in regard to skill input, and the quantity of production within a specific given time. Overheads incurred in production would generate a unit cost which would also significantly evaluate the level of success of the business. Organizational capacity would refer back to the business level of knowledge management, innovation of new ideas and products and the ability of the company to retain employees. Therefore, the scorecard gives a bigger view of the overall business performance and gauges its longevity in success. A key advantage of this concept is that it involves all individuals in the business at large and not specific stakeholders. It's also highly flexible which is a key advantage as it can easily adapt to changes (Lucco, 2017).A qualitative risk assessment within the internal operations subjected by the proposition: The company's network framework is subject to high traffic in regards to the multiple operations taking place all at the same time. It, therefore, proves key to subject each level of operation under scrutiny to access if there is any possible risk likely to happen. Qualitative risk assessment works through what-if analysis of every procedure. What if an analysis is an effective form of risk assessment as it subjects each strategy or procedure to identify the possible threats and risks. It breaks down a process into basic units, therefore, a more comprehensive form of assessment. Countermeasures are formulated at the breakpoint of each strategy or procedure that seems to be prone to threat, vulnerability or exposure. As a result this would improve on the quality of products, servicing hence added value that would stipulate better financial performance.COMMUNICATION PLANA synchron y of a superior Information system would also enhance the efficiency at which a scorecard achieves. Such would include;.ITIL ( Information Technology Infrastructure Library) an IT framework that seeks to enhance the effectiveness of business activities. Its main perspectives includes Service strategy, Service Design, Service Transition, and service operation. The service strategy main focus is on the development of strategies to boost the long-term operation of IT-based companies. Strategies mainly focused on include Portfolio management and Financial management. Service Design involves catalog management, service management, availability management, capacity management and security management (Itinfo, 2017)..Service Transition refers to strategies set in place to handle changes that may arise along in the course of pursuing a business. Strategies mainly focused on by this include: change management, change evaluation, knowledge management, and deployment management. Service operati on mainly aims at enhancing the level service quality being offered. Main functionalities under service operation include problem management, event management, identity management and application management (Itinfo, 2017).Adopting proper management plans would also aid transmission of information within the company both internally and externally. This can be put across by the use of a System and Organization Control (SOC) would enhance the performance by availing a connection compatible with the level controls set for the network system. Its main functionality is based on Providing reports on internal controls of the system; the reports are of great significance to the users as it would be used to assess the efficiency of the current system and any risks that may arise from the latter. It also facilitates internal auditing of the system in place hence offering a better way to compare and address threats that may be related to a service that has been externally outsourced. In these c ase, the level of information security of all operations executed within the network will be well enhanced (Langfield, 1997).CONCLUSIONIn comparing Scorecard to ITIL IT framework, they pose lots of similarities in their functionali...