Indiana State University and Wharton School offer variations on the traditional MBA

Source: Graduate Guide
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Though individuals of all ages can pursue a degree at the graduate level, some academic institutions offer programs that cater to a specific demographic such as working adults. In the case of business schools, many offer alternatives to their traditional MBA programs that allow them to cater to the needs of professionals.

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Indiana State University is one institution that will soon offer a professional MBA at its Plainfield site. This option will allow working professionals to balance a full-time job, family and any other responsibilities they might have as they pursue an education. The program will require students to take two classes during each 10-week term.

Professional students will have access to the same course offerings as their peers in the university's regular MBA program, with additional interactions and projects available through distance learning.

The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania offers an executive MBA, another variation on the advanced business degree.

This track was designed to cater to students who have about six more years of experience than those in traditional MBA programs, according to the school's official Web site. Executive-level courses are modified to take advantage of the additional knowledge professionals bring to the classroom.

By Monique Smith

MBA TiasNimbas Business School opens doors across globe

Source: The Local
An innovative Dutch business school is turning heads and attracting students to its unique offering of a European, American or British MBA degree taught in English.

TiasNimbas is the business school of the Netherlands' Tilburg University and Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e), offering courses in four different locations: Tilburg, Eindhoven and Utrecht in the Netherlands and Bonn, Germany.

The school combines its parent institutions' strengths in economics, research and technology to equip graduates with a challenging but relevant management education for the modern and ever-changing business world.

Although the school is based in the Netherlands, students can study TiasNimbas courses and earn a degree from the institution from a number of locations around the world. It also offers a broad and flexible portfolio of internationally recognised management programmes that lead to a European, American or British MBA degree.

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MBA and MSc degrees are offered on a full- or part-time basis, with the MBA taking one year of full-time study or two years on a part-time at Tilburg and Utrecht, the Netherlands and Bonn, Germany. The programmes are designed to accommodate various schedules and commitments.

TiasNimbas continues to climb in international rankings. It rose 25 places to 24th out of 75 in the Financial Times' annual ranking of European business schools, while The Economist Intelligence Unit ranked it 36th out of 100 schools.

It has also partnered with several highly regarded schools from around the world for its globally recognised international executive MBA programme, offered in conjunction with Purdue University of the US, Hungary's Central European University Budapest and GISMA Business School in Hanover, Germany.

TiasNimbas's motto is "Never stop asking." This is reflected in its programmes rooted in leading management research and designed to address the educational needs of individuals and organisations in the business world.

The school provides its experienced and reputable faculty members and international student body who come from diverse disciplines, resulting in a stimulating learning environment. In 2003, the European Economic Review ranked Tilburg University's faculty of economics as the best research institution in Europe.

TU/e is only the second institution of its kind in the Netherlands. Each year, it produces nearly 3,000 scientific publications, awards 140 PhDs and is granted 40 patents. It is also located in an area where top Dutch technology companies such as Philips, ASML and DAF Trucks conduct their research and development.

In a 2003 European Commission report, TU/e ranked third among European research universities after Cambridge and Oxford and was jointly the highest-ranked technical university in Europe thanks to the impact of its scientific research. In The Times Higher Education World University Rankings, it came in 114th last year.

Students learn in part through working with peers preparing, presenting and evaluating projects together. Each year, TiasNimbas attracts over 2,500 high-flying students from over 60 countries looking for new intellectual challenges and a more comprehensive understanding of global business management.

TiasNimbas is strongly ranked for value for money in light of the global recession and the increasing percentage of self-funded students, as well as international mobility. The school has also greatly facilitated the online application and enrollment process and staff are readily available to answer any questions along the way, both online, by telephone and in person.

The school conducts continuous and intensive knowledge exchanges with researchers at Tilburg University and the Eindhoven University of Technology. The schools' professors belong to the teaching faculty of TiasNimbas, as well as an extended network of international experts.

During their time at TiasNimbas, students hone their cross-cultural skills while building a worldwide network of contacts that will continue to be of benefit long after they have completed their degrees.

TiasNimbas' alumni network is a major benefit to studying at the school. Graduates leave TiasNimbas for challenging positions around the world at some of the world's most recognisable recognisable enterprises, including Fortune 500 companies, as well as starting their own ventures.

Alumni are eager to share their expertise and experiences with the school and students and are actively involved in reunions, special events, seminars, short courses and electives to keep their management skills current.

TiasNimbas organises events throughout the year to introduce and answer questions about its programmes on campus, at worldwide MBA fairs and online. Please consult the school's website for more information.

The iPad has a specific value in Japan. What is it and why ?

In Cramped Japan, the iPad Is the Home Library
Families save space by paying startups to digitize their books
Source: Bloomberg Business Week
By Pavel Alpeyev and Yoshinori Eki
After his son was born in 2009, Satoshi Tagomori started having nightmares that the bookshelves lining his cramped living room would rain heavy tomes on the infant. Armed with a cutting board, the 28-year-old pharmaceutical company employee chopped his 850 titles to fit inside a cheap scanner and converted each book into a PDF file. His library now lives in his preferred tablet computer, a Samsung Galaxy Tab. "There was just no more room for books when my son was born," he says.

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Japan's famously small living spaces—the country's average home size is half that of the U.S.—make it a natural market for such space-saving innovations as digital books. Japanese have taken to tablet computers, especially Apple's (AAPL) market-leading iPad. While the iPad has opened the doors for e-books, the publishing industry has been slow to walk through them and still offers few Japanese-language editions. A cottage industry of pulp-to-PDF scanning startups are filling the void and now offer to digitize books for a modest fee.

Some Japanese, such as Tagomori, are doing the scanning on their own. Fujitsu's PFU scanner-manufacturing subsidiary says sales of its consumer models rose 80 percent in June, the month after the iPad was released, and more than doubled the following month. The Tokyo-based company had to charter special flights from its China factories to meet demand, according to Tadashi Oura, PFU's head of marketing.

Publishers have been slow to react to the change in reading habits in part because they're reluctant to offer digital titles at reduced prices, as is common in the U.S., says Toshihiro Takagi, an analyst at market researcher Impress R&D. It also took time to develop standards for how Japanese characters, which are read from top to bottom rather than left to right, should be displayed on various screen formats. "People are taking matters in their own hands because the publishers are not meeting the market's needs," says Toshihiro Takagi, an analyst at Impress.

One of those people is Yusuke Ohki, a 28-year-old entrepreneur in Tokyo. As pre-release iPad fever hit Japan last April, Ohki and a childhood friend, Shinya Iwamatsu, founded Bookscan. The startup charges 100 yen, or $1.22, to digitize a book and produce PDFs replete with original highlighting and marginalia. After Takafumi Horie, a well-known Internet entrepreneur, tweeted about the company, a wave of media attention followed. Bookscan now has 140 employees and about 12,000 customers. Despite plenty of competition—Ohki estimates Bookscan is one of 60 such companies—the startup has a four-month waiting list.

Independent book scanners are filling a void but may also create headaches for copyright owners. Under Japanese law, book owners are allowed to digitize their libraries for personal use, but there's always the risk that "these homemade contents begin to circulate illegally," says Nobuo Kurahashi, an analyst at Mizuho Financial Group in Tokyo.

The bottom line: The rise of book-scanning startups in Japan is a sign of latent demand for e-books, which publishers have been slow to meet.

Alpeyev is a reporter for Bloomberg News. Eki is a reporter for Bloomberg News.

Telemarketing: Direct Marketing / Mailing List

A mailing list is a collection of names and addresses used by an individual or an organization to send material to multiple recipients. The term is often extended to include the people subscribed to such a list, so the group of subscribers is referred to as "the mailing list", or simply "the list".

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Direct marketing is a form of advertising that reaches its audience without using traditional formal channels of advertising, such as TV, newspapers or radio. Businesses communicate straight to the consumer with advertising techniques such as fliers, catalogue distribution, promotional letters, and street advertising.
Direct Advertising is a sub-discipline and type of marketing. There are two main definitional characteristics which distinguish it from other types of marketing. The first is that it sends its message directly to consumers, without the use of intervening commercial communication media. The second characteristic is the core principle of successful Advertising driving a specific "call to action." This aspect of direct marketing involves an emphasis on trackable, measurable, positive responses from consumers (known simply as "response" in the industry) regardless of medium.
If the advertisement asks the prospect to take a specific action, for instance call a free phone number or visit a Web site, then the effort is considered to be direct response advertising.
Direct marketing is predominantly used by small to medium-size enterprises with limited advertising budgets that do not have a well-recognized brand message. A well-executed direct advertising campaign can offer a positive return on investment as the message is not hidden with overcomplicated branding. Instead, direct advertising is straight to the point; offers a product, service, or event; and explains how to get the offered product, service, or event.

Fiat promises massive investment in Italy: official

ROME (AFP) — Italian auto giant Fiat, under pressure to abandon any plan to move its headquarters to the United States, committed Saturday to invest 20 billion euros to produce 1.4 million vehicles in Italy.

Meeting Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and senior officials, angered over the possible headquarters transfer, top Fiat management confirmed the investment plan, a government statement said.

But the question of whether Fiat would remain based in its birthplace of Turin remained unclear, with local officials saying it had been put off for three years and would depend on the company's performance.

"The Fiat president and chief executive, John Elkann and Sergio Marchionne, confirmed to the government their intention to pursue their development targets ... which envisage auto production rising from 650,000 vehicles to 1.4 million annually after an investment of some 20 billion euros ($27.2 billion)," the statement said.

"The government notes positively the position taken (by Fiat) and ... for its part confirms its willingness to bring about the best competitive conditions" in Italy, it added.

Marchione has sharply criticised working practices in Italy, saying they put Fiat at a huge competitive disadvantage.

On Monday, the government said Berlusconi would meet Marchionne on Saturday following the Fiat chief's controversial remarks that the auto maker could headquarter in the United States after a merger with Chrysler.

Marchionne, who had assured workers earlier this month he had no immediate plans to merge Fiat with its American partner, said in San Francisco last week that the two groups could combine within three years into a company with US headquarters.

His comments caused outrage in Italy, where Fiat is a national symbol and the country's largest private sector employer.

Trade unions and politicians have already accused Marchionne of "blackmail" in pushing through a tough deal on working conditions at Fiat's flagship Mirafiori plant in Turin to save the factory from closure.

"Fiat is a great multinational which is growing in the world but its heart remaine Italian, Industry Minister Paolo Romani said Saturday, adding, "All arguments are now closed."

Romanni had said Monday that he would be asking Marchionne "to commit to investing in our country and remain with head and heart" in Italy.

Mayor of Turin Sergio Chiamparino said Saturday the Fiat bosses had confirmed "the Italian nature" of the company but "in a dynamically developing context which demands daily work so that things don't change."

Provincial governor Antonio Saitta said that according to Marchionne, the terms for the city remaining Fiat headquarters would be discussed in 2014.
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Last month Fiat raised its stake in Chrysler from 20 to 25 percent with an option to go up to 51 percent this year.

The two groups plan to produce six million vehicles annually by 2014, up from the current four million.

Pakistan court orders arrest of ex-president Musharraf

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - A Pakistani court on Saturday issued an arrest warrant for exiled former president Pervez Musharraf in connection with the 2007 assassination of Benazir Bhutto, officially implicating him for first time in the death of the former prime minister and rival.

Bhutto, who was an opponent of Musharraf's rule, was killed in a gun and suicide bomb attack after an election rally in the city of Rawalpindi on December 27, 2007, weeks after she returned to Pakistan following years in self-imposed exile.

Her assassination was one of the most shocking events in Pakistan's turbulent history and remains shrouded in mystery.

"The court has issued an arrest warrant and asked that he (Musharraf) should be produced before the court during the next hearing on February 19," said Musharraf spokesman Mohammad Ali Saif, adding that Musharraf is accused of not providing adequate security for Bhutto.

"There is a frivolous allegation, a baseless allegation... that he was involved in the assassination of Benazir Bhutto."

Since Musharraf has limited support within Pakistan, the arrest warrant is unlikely to stir up a backlash against the government of this unstable U.S. ally where a coalition headed by the Pakistan People's Party of the late Bhutto is in power.

Her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, is now president and is struggling to cope with the multiple challenges, including a stubborn Taliban insurgency and a stagnant economy.

Saif said Musharraf would cooperate with the judiciary if asked to recount his version of events, but did not say if he would appear in court.

The former military chief, who came to power in a bloodless coup in 1999, has lived in self-imposed exile since he stepped down under threat of impeachment in 2008. He spends most of his time in London and Dubai.

Prosecutor Chaudhry Zulfiqar Ali said the warrant had been issued on the recommendations of a joint investigation team which "had attached evidence" against Musharraf and declared him an absconder. He did not elaborate.

Shafqat Mahmood, a political analyst, described the arrest warrant as a "symbolic gesture" that would have no impact on Pakistani politics.

"Nothing is happening. Musharraf actually doesn't mean much in Pakistani politics. We are making too much of him," he said.

Musharraf, who become embroiled in a row with the judiciary and briefly imposed a state of emergency in 2007, has said he realized his popularity had plummeted because of some wrong decisions he had made in the last year of his presidency.

A U.N. report said no one believed the 15-year-old suicide bomber who killed Bhutto acted alone, and the failure to examine her death effectively appeared to be deliberate, but the commission did not say who it believed was guilty.

In October, Musharraf apologized to Pakistan for mistakes he made in office and said he would return to the country as the new head of a political party in time for elections due by 2013.

The warrant for Musharraf's arrest follows a similar court order in December for the arrest of two senior police officers on allegations they failed to provide adequate security for Bhutto before her assassination.

A report by a U.N. commission of inquiry released last year said any credible investigation into Bhutto's killing should not rule out the possibility that members of Pakistan's military and security establishment were involved.
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It heavily criticized Pakistani authorities, saying they had "severely hampered" the investigation.

Musharraf, himself the target of at least two bomb attacks, has repeatedly dismissed suggestions he, the security agencies or military were involved in killing his old rival.

Lawyers say if he were to return to Pakistan Musharraf could face a number of court cases, including over the death of a Baluch separatist leader and violation of the constitution.

He could also risk assassination by Islamist militants seeking revenge for crackdowns he ordered against them.

(Reporting by Augustine Anthony and Sheree Sardar; Editing by Michael Georgy and Miral Fahmy)

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