Fall 2011 Classes

B9877-004 The Business of Sustainability – Geoffrey Heal and Klaus Lackner

  • 36 student limit (24 MBA / 12 Environmental Engineering students)
  • Second-year MBA students or equivalent if Engineering School student
  • Attendance of first class is mandatory
  • Enrollment requires your written agreement to the Master Class Student Requirements and Code of Conduct

NOTE: Student are required to have non-binding commitments on each Friday of the semester to ensure that site visits and field work can be conducted with minimal scheduling conflict. Students must also be present through the end of finals week to provide their final briefing to the instructors and client in person. Students who cannot meet these requirements should not take the class.

This Master Class is offered in partnership with the Engineering School’s Earth and Environmental Engineering division.  This course will be co-taught by business school and engineering school faculty members Geoffrey Heal and Klaus Lackner (Chair, Earth and Environmental Engineering - Director, Lenfest Center for Sustainable Energy at the Earth Institute – watch a video of Klaus on NOVA in July 2008.

Students will be divided into teams and serve as consultants to client organizations on various sustainable business projects, primarily in the area of clean-tech and alternative energy, though the focus depends on the interest and needs of each client. Past projects included developing environmental impact metrics for a specialty retailer (ABC Home), evaluating wind energy for a local arts organization (the Tribeca Film Institute), and assessing the feasibility of geo-exchange heating/cooling in the city (Mayor’s Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability).  Project teams will be guided by the course instructors on both the technical and business dimensions of the work. Learning is primarily through the project work and one-on-one interaction with faculty, though the course will begin with some basic background lectures and frameworks. In addition we will have selected industry speakers present about current issues in sustainable business.

Like all Master Classes, this course is demanding in terms of the time commitment and the logistical complications of working in project teams and with outside client organizations. Students must be committed, flexible and interested in a hands-on project experience rather than a traditional, lecture-based class. Students who have questions are encouraged to seek further information from the instructors prior to bidding.

B9377-05 Communications, Internet, and Media – Eli Noam, Raul Katz and Robert Atkinson (respectively, Prof. of Finance and Economics, former head of Booz Allen’s telecom consulting practice in the Americas and former executive of a telecom startup)

  • 36 student limit
  • Second-year MBA students
  • Attendance of first class is mandatory, regular class attendance essential
  • Enrollment requires your written agreement to the Master Class Student Requirements and Code of Conduct
  • Pre-Semester Written Assignment: To be assigned to most appropriate team, students must provide a brief statement of interest prior to the first class (students who do not submit these materials will be assigned randomly by the faculty). Registered students must submit to Professors Noam, Katz, and Atkinson at jab2322@columbia.edu by Thursday, August 25 the following:
    • One brief Paragraph on reasons for taking this course, and why you believe the course will be relevant to your Columbia and career experience
    • Project Preferences for Team Selection: each student must submit a brief paragraph describing their skill sets and interests including relevant past experience, professional or academic.
  • Grades are based on team work and individual class participation.

The course consists of supervised team projects of students with companies. It includes lectures on how to do consulting and for thinking about the business dynamics, drivers, technologies, and policy framework of the telecom/internet/media industries. There will also be analyses of notable success and failure stories, with the participation of industry insiders, in order to provide teams with a sufficient basis for their consulting assignments. Teams interested in entrepreneurialism will focus on the internet, new media, and content projects. Teams oriented to finance and strategy will work with established telecom and media companies that are trying to adapt to new challenges. In the aggregate, the projects will provide understanding and skills for dealing with management challenges in a sector characterized by rapid change and boom-bust cycles, and to integrate the MBA curriculum with management practice in a feedback loop. Teams will be asked to account for the MBA tools they have utilized in the process. Each consulting team will deliver a written report and presentation to senior management at the company, and to their fellow students.

B9777-009 NYC: Innovative and Entrepreneurial Solutions to the City’s Complex Challenges – Clifford Schorer, Entrepreneur in Residence

  • 36 student limit
  • Second-year MBA students
  • Attendance of first class is mandatory
  • Enrollment requires your written agreement to the Master Class Student Requirements and Code of Conduct
  • Pre-semester Written Assignment: registered students must submit to Professor Schorer by Thursday, August 25 the following:
    • One Paragraph (100 - 200 words) on reasons for taking this course, and why you believe the course will be relevant to their Columbia and career experience
    • Project Preferences for Team Selection: each student must submit a 100-200 word paragraph describing their skill sets and interests including:
    • Relevant past experience
    • Please highlight any relevant experience professional or academic

In partnership with the mayor’s office, this innovative, project driven course will allow closely mentored student teams to tackle top problems facing New York City today. Projects will allow students to work closely with members of the mayor’s office such as:

  • Deputy Mayor Robert Steel’s office for Economic Development and Rebuilding
  • Deputy Mayor Dennis Walcott’s office for Education and Community Development
  • Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith’s office for Operations
  • Commissioner Katherine Oliver’s office for Media and Entertainment

The overall objective of the course is to leverage the combined talents of the MBA candidates, Business School faculty, City Administration and industry experts. The course will provide an experience for Columbia’s MBA candidates to work with the City to enhance the efficiency of the City’s diverse operations. Efforts will be made to indentify and implement enhanced managerial techniques, deploy technologies that will generate significant cost savings, and enhance the life experience of the city’s population.

Selected corporations will be offered the opportunity to actively participate as partners in the program.  A triangle linking corporations with both Columbia and the City will provide a unique opportunity to heighten awareness of the programs and talent resident at Columbia Business School. The skills and knowledge acquired by the students will be those of addressing large scale problems in a complex environment, and this combination of knowledge and skill will prove useful regardless of the career path they choose.

B9877-01 Operations Consulting- Peter Kolesar and Wayne Cutler

  • 36 student limit
  • Second-year MBA students
  • Prerequisites: All core courses
  • This course will be challenging and will require substantial effort in and outside of class
  • Attendance of first class is mandatory
  • Enrollment requires your written agreement to the Master Class Student Requirements and Code of Conduct

This course is a hands-on laboratory in which sponsored real-world consulting projects are attacked by student teams under the guidance of professors who are experienced consultants. Students will bid on projects from a portfolio comprised of a variety of problem types in diverse industries. Past clients include such organizations as Church and Dwight, The US Postal Service, EMC, NaTech (a plastics manufacturer), Macys, the NYU Dental School, the Sheraton Manhattan Hotel, Starwood Hotels, and the Columbia University Medical Center Cytopathology Lab. The projects focus on actual performance problems for which the sponsors are seeking implementable solutions. With frequent mentoring from the professors and consulting industry representatives, students will learn how to apply critical thinking and modern operations management and consulting principles to help sponsoring organizations understand root causes, evaluate alternative solution approaches, quantify benefits, and present their results in a persuasive fashion that leads to action. While important consulting techniques and principles will be presented in class, the primary learning in this course will be experiential — occurring in the team interactions with each other, with the client and during team mentoring sessions with the professors.

This course has had a high project implementation success rate. It should be of interest to students with career objectives in entrepreneurship and general management, as well as in general consulting and operations.

A good number of site visits and project team meetings will take place on Fridays. While not all Fridays will be so used, students in this course should not have standing Friday conflicts.

B9777-04Private Equity and Entrepreneurship in Africa - Murray Low and Paul E. Tierney, Jr.

  • 36 student limit (30 MBA / three SIPA / three Law students)
  • Second-year MBA students or equivalent if SIPA or Law School student
  • Attendance of first class is mandatory
  • Student representatives of each team will be required to travel to Africa for a two week field study during the winter break; these representatives may be able to cover most of the cost through student loans by working with Financial Aid.

Private Equity and Entrepreneurship in Africa (PEEA) examines how private equity investors and entrepreneurial managers design, negotiate and execute financial agreements that make use of resources and opportunities in the challenging environments of continental Africa (sub-Saharan and North Africa). Through case studies and guest lecturers students will learn about successful and unsuccessful entrepreneurs and financiers. Up to 36 students will conduct consulting or case study assignments with Private Equity firms focused on Africa and African companies identified by our African business school partners or other sources. Students travel to Africa for a two week field study during the winter break. Each team will produce a consulting report, a case study or an analysis of a particular financial transaction. The materials will become available to other business schools in Africa and the West. Approximately half of the student teams will work with financial (PE) firms and half with operating entrepreneurs as sponsors/clients.

B9677-10 Retailing: Design & Marketing of Luxury Products - Ketty Maisonrouge and Heico Wesselius (Parsons)

  • 40 student limit (20 MBA / 20 Parsons students)
  • Second-year MBA students
  • Enrollment requires your written agreement to the Master Class Student Requirements and Code of Conduct
  • Attendance to all classes and meetings is MANDATORY (see below for attendance policy):
    • Students who do not attend first class are automatically dropped from the course — students who are trying to get in the class during the add/drop period must attend first class
    • Failure to attend classes or meetings without advance notice and faculty approval will impact student's final grade
  • Prerequisites:
    • Student must have received an HP or better in both the B6601 Marketing Strategy and the B6602 Managing Marketing Programs core courses
    • Must have taken or be enrolled in at least one of the following courses:
      • B8610 Integrated Marketing Strategy
      • B8617 Marketing Research
      • B9601-43 Managing Brands, Identity & Experience
      • B8699-25 Marketing and the Internet
      • B9601-69 Retail Fundamentals
      • B9601-55 Retailing Leadership
      • B9601-60 Retailing: Finance Marketing & Strategic Integration
      • B8601 Strategic Consumer Insights
      • B8699-09 Marketing Plans Workshop
  • Pre-Semester Written Assignment: registered students must submit to Prof. Maisonrouge by Thursday, August 25th the following:
    • One Paragraph (100-200 words) on reasons for taking this course, and what the student expects the course to add to his/her Columbia MBA experience
    • Project Preferences for Team Selection: each student must submit a 100-200 word paragraph describing their possible contribution to and perspective on each particular project (one paragraph per project - therefore a total of five paragraphs), including:
      • Relevant past experience
      • Specific skills relevant to project - please highlight any relevant financial, analytical, marketing research, design and other professional or academic assets/talents
  • Team Assignments will be issued by Monday, August 29 at 12 p.m.
    • We cannot guarantee that all students will be assigned to the project of their first or second choice
    • Once the team contact information has been issued, students will be required to contact their Parsons and CBS teammates by 12 p.m. on Tuesday, August 30 (before Parsons' first class)
    • Student should also include his/her resume when reaching out to teammates, so that the teams have a chance to review everyone's professional background and strengths (Parsons will do the same)
  • In-person Meeting with Prof. Maisonrouge on Tues, Sept 6th: Registered students (and students who wish to register during the add/drop period) will be required to meet with Prof. Maisonrouge on campus for a 15 minute one-on-one interview on Tuesday, September 6 before the first class meets on September 6 at 6 p.m. (sign-in sheet will be emailed to registered students end of August). This meeting will allow students to be fully prepared for the first meeting with companies as work on projects will start right away (Parsons semester starts before Columbia Business School so the Parsons students will have already met before our first class together)
  • Company Meetings and Conference Call: this course will be challenging and will require substantial time and effort in and outside of class. Each student will have to attend FOUR team meetings and one conference call on Fridays with Professor Maisonrouge and their team's senior executives at their company's headquarters in Manhattan:
    • Tentative Meeting Dates (All dates TBC):
      • Meeting #1: Friday, September 9 (except Cartier on Monday, September 12 at 4:30-6 p.m.)
      • Meeting #2: Friday, September 23 (except Gucci on Fri, September 30 TBC)
      • Conference call: Friday, October 14 (except Dior on Monday, October 17 at 6 p.m.)
      • Meeting #3: Friday, October 28
      • Meeting #4: Friday, November 18

This class addresses the unique properties, opportunities, and challenges of the luxury industry by studying issues relevant to the field in the various aspects of the business, from design, production and management to distribution and promotion. The course structure includes presentations (by faculty and by industry presidents, CEOs, and senior executives), discussions, and the team projects.

In this semester-long course, MBA students from Columbia Business School work in teams of eight with undergraduate students from Parsons School of Design (four MBA and four Parsons students) to solve actual case studies formulated exclusively for this class by the participating companies. The following companies will participate in the Fall 2011 semester: Cartier, Dior Parfums, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, and Prada.

Each team will work closely with faculty from both Columbia Business School and Parsons the New School for Design, and their company's senior executive(s). Teams will present progress report(s) throughout the semester to the class, the faculty and the client, and a final presentation in front of the class and all participating companies.

Case Study Project Briefs

Cartier

The objective of the case study is to propose innovative yet achievable marketing tactics, especially with an emphasis on digital properties, to gain market share of the highly competitive Bridal business in North America. In particular, the key deliverables of the projects are a) profiling the current customers b) identifying "like-minded" prospects and future customers c) defining an effective digital communication strategy to deliver Cartier's brand identity to the target audience d) developing a strong concept for the next Cartier Bridal app 2.0 version.

Dior Parfums

The Dior Diva program is Dior's Customer Retention Management program that was developed in 2005 to garner brand loyalty and to build a client database. When a client makes a purchase at a Dior Beauty counter, they are given a card that invites them to register for Dior Diva program by visiting www.diordivavip.com. Once they are registered, they receive 1 Dior Diva point for every $1 they spend on Dior Beauty products. The client is responsible for maintaining their receipts and points (they are not automatically tracked). Once they have reached their desired point level, they can send their receipts to Dior to redeem a shopping reward. Beginning this fall, there will be six reward levels (100 points, 250 points, 500 points, 1,000 points, 2,500 points, and 5,000 points). The shopping rewards contain a collection of deluxe miniatures, full size product, couture inspired items, and beauty pouches. The program has been a huge success and to date, Dior has collected over 125,000 email addresses of loyal customers and redemptions valuing $10 million.

In November of 2010, Dior launched e-commerce on Dior.com. A primary sales driver for the site is to send weekly e-blasts to our database of Dior Divas. To date, these e-blasts have generated 15-20 percent of Dior.com sales. Although this number is significant, we believe the e-blasts could drive a higher percentage of sales if our data base was larger.

The goals of this case study are three-fold:

  1. How do we grow our Dior Diva database?
  2. What special incentives can we offer for joining?
  3. Once a client is a member, what other incentives can we offer to make membership exciting both online and in store?

Gucci

"Forever Now" is a philosophy that represents the enduring legacy of the Gucci brand: past, present and future. It also symbolizes the unique duality of the brand, blending the history and tradition of a 90-year-old Italian luxury house with the modern design and innovation of a leading fashion brand.

First introduced as an advertising campaign in 2010, the "Forever Now" philosophy has been leveraged throughout the 90th anniversary year to underscore Gucci's timeless, iconic products as well as the company's modern day appeal. Recognized internally as one of the company's unique assets, we believe the concept of "Forever Now" has greater potential to communicate the core values of the Gucci brand to a broad spectrum of consumers. The objective of this study is to continue to interpret the "Forever Now" philosophy through innovative business and marketing tools, with an aim to increase awareness and understanding of the "Forever Now" values, and to further engage existing and new clients with the Gucci brand.

Louis Vuitton

NYC is one of the largest and most important markets for Louis Vuitton North America. In the Manhattan borough, we have five large stores: Maison Fifth Avenue (our North America flagship), Soho (a global store carrying both shoes and RTW), Bloomindales, Macy's Herald Square and Saks New York (split between a ground floor store carrying LG, Accessories and Shoes and a 3rd floor RTW boutique). In the next two years, three of these stores — Fifth Avenue, Soho and Macy’s — will undergo major renovation-expansions.

Project: How should Louis Vuitton differentiate these five stores in the NYC metro — both amongst the LV stores and within the particular competitive contexts of their respective local neighborhoods? Dimensions to consider can include, but are not limited to: product assortment, store architecture, customer experience/ services, marketing, organization/ staffing, special features, etc. The objective of this project is to define an overall vision and then go deep into either one store or into 1-2 specific dimensions across all five stores.

Prada

Since its inception in 1993 - Miu Miu - designer Miuccia Prada's childhood nickname - has symbolized an offbeat and idiosyncratic style, characterized by a unique and ever evolving identity. It is a brand that has continually grown up in the shadow of the already established Prada brand. With double digit sales growth, in Europe and Asian markets, and aggressive branding and sales goals slated for the US market, the challenge becomes how can two luxury brands born from the same designer coexist and grow independently of one another? Or should there be a more concerted effort to distinguish them from one another?