Online MBA Forum

Monday, May 01, 2006

MBA Venture

I received an email this morning from my friend who studied an Executive MBA at Insead last year. He has started one new venture which is well on it's way, but now has put together another new proposal. The reason is that during his development process for his first venture, it became obvious that many of his colleagues were interested in new ventures, but were not in a position to risk their all at this stage. However, they do have some personal capital or expertise to contribute, and as long as they were only involved tangentially, they would be prepared to get involved.

He wants me to put together a project around a product that he has specified that will use these people and their capital, so that they can have some of the experience of entrepreneurship without all the terrible risk it can entail. I'm very interested, and I think it will give me a further insight into how people who have gone through the MBA process think and act.

# posted by Mary @ 1:55 PM

Comments:

This use of networks in place of the settled management of the firm. I’m not quite sure where the analysis started, amongst economists or MBA types, but it seems generally agreed that technology can take a lot of the credit.
When the complex machinery required to run a firm was both expensive and concentrated (think a 1960s computer) and communications similarly so, management of a firm had to be concentrated in one place.
Today, both computing power and communications are so cheap that the human capital can be spread around the world, just like your MBA friend ’s network.
It’s also becoming true that with the commodification of manufacturing that the value of the firm is in the network: well done to MBA students spotting what the academics are only just beginning to think about.

# posted by failingeconomist : 11:20 AM

Online MBA Forum

Monday, May 01, 2006

MBA Venture

Archives