MBA students succeeded in a highly competitive market in the Business Simulation Game
Recently in a one-week block seminar in March 2023, the MBA students joined forces in teams and experienced tough competition in the Business Simulation Game. This simulation was designed to offer hands-on experience regarding business administration, production, marketing and finance, and to depict the complexity of business structures.
In six teams, the students sat around a huge board which represented a company with production facilities (see picture below). Starting with a small-sized and rather old-fashioned manufacturing line, the teams had to face manifold decisions about product types, market development, stabilizing the financial situation and so on. To handle this complexity, the groups of three had to assign the functions of a marketing and sales manager, a head of finance and a production manager. In between the simulated years of production and sales, lectures about financial planning and investment analysis supported the understanding of the processes and offered explanations for the difficulties faced. This newly received knowledge could be directly integrated into the strategic planning and enhance the performance.
Due to a limited demand of the products and the use of a tendering process, the competition was fierce and the teams had to work hard on their strategy to succeed. But according to the students, this intensive week was worth it. For example, one team commented: “Thank you so much for this incredible module and learning experience. It was really amazing for us to understand the practicality of running a company in the real world and how one small mistake can lead to major issues.”
As lecturers, we would like to thank everyone for their active participation and wish them all the best for their upcoming Master's thesis and future career.
Prof. Dr. Hayo Reimers and Martin Haupt
//picture: Martin Haupt
//picture: Jan Freidank
Visiting the University of Bergamo (or Universita Degli Studi Di Bergamo) is part of our THM MBA program. Having listened to all the interesting stories from Professor Freidank about Bergamo (the city and the University) we were very much excited to take part of this journey. What makes this trip special is to meet with the students of our host, Professor Mauro Cavallone and together listen to expert speakers and to visit successful companies in the area of Bergamo so that we can gain insights on how the companies from Bergamo which are often family businesses can become globally well-known enterprises.
At the first day we started the program by mixing up with the Italian students in a groups to find out our similarities and the differences. The idea was in case there were differences how we could create value in our differences. It was then followed by listening to the guest speaker Giada Zambelli, who was previously a student from University of Bergamo and now successfully develops her family business. Miss Zambelli highlighted an important message to us which is to always keep updating our skills (in a formal or non-formal way) in order to be able to compete in global competition. After an interesting morning we left the university to visit the company Fratelli Beretta, a family-owned business founded in 1812, which is considered one of the biggest food processing companies of high-quality cured meat products in Italy. The important message which was delivered by Mr. Enrico Farina, the Marketing Director of Fratelli Beretta, was besides always keeping their product quality high in order to win the competition, to use digital marketing (social media with popular meme) to engage with their customers even closer.
... sagen viele Teilnehmer und Teilnehmerinnen der zwei Kohorten (16. & 17.), die im Restaurant Johannisberg in Bad Nauheim am 15. Juli ihre coronabedingt ausgefallenen Abschlussfeiern nachgeholt haben: Anwesend waren 20 der 38 Graduierten.
Im Gespräch mit Prof. Jan Freidank, MBA -Studiengangsleiter, haben wir folgendes erfahren können:
Die Absolvent:innen kommen aus sehr diversen Branchen und haben sehr verschiedene Studienschwerpunkte: Betriebswirte, Ingenieure, IT-ler und Juristen. Darunter drei Doktoren (Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Molekular Neurology); aber auch Akademiker aus dem Bereich der Ernährungs- und Sportwissenschaften und den Sozialwissenschaften waren dabei.
Gezeigt hat sich erstmals, dass das "Partial-Female-Scholarship"- Früchte getragen hat, den Frauenanteil zu steigern. Diese sind typischerweise in berufsbegleitenden Programmen unterrepräsentiert. Ein Highlight dieser Absolventenkohorten: insgesamt 7 Frauen und 19 internationale in Deutschland beschäftigte Personen aus Ursprungsländern wie Brasilien, Bosnien, Chile, Kamerun, Indien, Ungarn, Pakistan, Taiwan, China, Süd-Korea, Uruguay, Frankreich, Niederlande, UK und natürlich Deutschland.
„Mit ein wenig Stolz können wir sagen, dass mittlerweile jedes nennenswerte Unternehmen aus Mittelhessen und viele darüber hinaus bereits Absolvent:innen unseres Programms beschäftigen – dies ist ein Entwicklungsschub für unsere Region!“
Nach nun mittlerweile 20 Jahren erfolgreicher Durchführung des MBA’s and der THM gibt es 324 Absolventinnen und Absolventen aus 17 Kursen; der 18. Kurs ist kurz vor seinem Abschluss und der 19. ist vor einem halben Jahr erfolgreich gestartet. In einer Zeit stärksten Wettbewerbs – immerhin gibt es mittlerweile über 200 MBA-Programme in Deutschland – konnte sich das Programm der THM als feste Größe in Hessen etablieren.
„Wir verstehen uns zwar als regionaler Anbieter aber sind dennoch international ausgerichtet. Lehrort ist der Campus in Friedberg, da viele Teilnehmer aus der Rhein-Main Region kommen.“
Seit längerem verzeichnet das Programm einen sehr positiven Trend: Mittlerweile gibt es aus vielen Unternehmen nicht nur einen Absolventen(in), sondern bereits mehrere. Ein wesentlicher Erfolgsfaktor ist die aktive Weiterempfehlung durch die Teilnehmer:innen. Dazu gehören u.a. Continental, Rittal, Bender, Samson, Küster, Evonik, Vodafone, Fuji, British Telekom, Deutsche Bank, Deutsche Bahn, Fresenius Kabi, Lilly und Schunk.
Aus einer im November 2015 durchgeführten, anonymen MBA-Befragung mit 78 Teilnehmer:innen (Studierende & Alumni) ergab sich repräsentativ für den MBA eine sehr gute Bewertung des Programms. Dabei sticht ein Wert hervor: 90% der Befragten haben uns bereits weiterempfohlen und insgesamt würden uns 93% wahrscheinlich oder sehr wahrscheinlich weiterempfehlen. Niemand sagte aus, dass er/sie das Programm nicht weiterempfehlen würde.
„Das ist ein tolles Kompliment und spornt uns gleichzeitig an, uns permanent zu verbessern und auch Ideen in unseren gesamten THM Wirtschaftsfachbereich zu streuen.“
Dies hat auch die CHE-Befragung des Zeitmagazins in 2021 ergeben, die Wirtschaftsmasterprogramme in ganz Deutschland untersucht hat, dabei befindet sich die THM unter den Top-10.“
Ebenfalls dabei waren vom THM-MBA-Alumniverein - Herr Cevenini & Herr Hildebrand, die die zukünftigen Alumni begrüßen konnten. Dem erfolgreichen Start der 20. Kohorte im Oktober dieses Jahres steht also nichts mehr im Wege.
//Jan Freidank
Our trip to Bergamo took place from 24th till 26th of March 2022. Due to the COVID-19 pandamic and travel restrictions, this was the first trip of students from our university to Bergamo since 2020.
Arrival and accommodation
We received information on the planned trip to Bergamo three months in advance, to enable us to book the flights and make a reservation for the hotel in due time.
Most of us decided to go by plane. There are some connections from Frankfurt and Frankfurt Hahn airport to Milan and Bergamo. Some of us went to Bergamo by car. Of cource it took approx. 3 hours longer. On the other hand, forming a carpool with interesting people, like in my case, provided the opportunity to further improve the relationships with fellow students and to discuss recent developments in our studies.
At least half of our team booked rooms in Citta Dei Mille und BB Hotel Bergamo – two hotels very close to each other, with very good price-performance ratio and approx. 10 min walking distance away from the university.
Day 1
Our group of 3 persons arrived at 6 pm, checked in and went for a dinner, where we met some other fellow students. I don’t remember what I had for supper this evening, but I remember it was really good.
After our dinner we found some local bar and as all seats were occupied inside (on Wednesday night!) we took our seats outside and enjoyed our drinks freezing and shaking under the street lights.
We are very much looking forward to travelling to our Partner Program in Bergamo this week. It is the first foreign trip after the Corona Crisis. We very much looking forward to meeting our friends and partners again in person.
This interview with the program director in Bergamo, Prof. Mauro Cavallone and myself will tell you about the beginning of our program and our special partnership.
A report about the trip will follow soon!
Jan Freidank
Program Director
Free expert workshop with Volker Michel sponsored by Executive MBA of the THM Business School
Wednesday, July 14th from 18:30 - 19:30 (via Zoom)
„This won’t work anyway…“
Killer phrases like that are very effective in disrupting communication, dampening creativity and finding an excuse for someone´s inaction.
Don´t let this happen!
Learning how to identify and defuse killer phrases are the key to improve your communication and leading abilities.
Volker Michel our leadership and communication expert will provide valuable insights on how to successfully deal with this widespread phenomenon. As a former top athlete and member of the national handball team he offers leadership and communication trainings for professional athletes and national sports associations and is a top expert for this topic.
Agenda:
- Welcome by Director of MBA Program Prof. Jan Freidank
- Topic Introduction
- Types of Killer Phrases
- How to deal with Killer Phrases
- Hands on training session to work with Killer Phrases
- Summary and Reflection
We are looking forward to seeing you at the event.
For those who are interested we will offer a Q&A session about our MBA program after the workshop.
First modules have been successfully completed online with live teaching sessions
The Corona Crisis has also affected our MBA. Like all programs around the world we were faced with a complete University shut down since March. Being a program which does all its teaching in presence, we had to make a decision to either pause the program or to switch to an online format. To not loose time and not knowing how long the shutdown would last, we quickly decided, together with our students, to continue with live streaming sessions.
Luckily we already had some experience with digital education because two years ago we started to tape teaching sessions of core MBA modules and provided the content as “Digital Video Handouts” to students for better preparation for assignments.
This was very well received as helpful digital study support. However, transferring a whole module to a digital format was a big challenge. One thing was clear from the start: We wanted to provide the best teaching quality possible as this is the core competence of our program. Thanks to the help of our excellent technical staff and the professional curiosity of our lecturers we switched to online teaching, keeping the original schedule to give everyone maximum planning security.
After successfully completing two modules “Strategic Management” taught by me and “Financial Accounting” taught by my colleague Prof. Frank Althoff, we became braver. Included in the module “Leadership” (lecturer Prof. Waldemar Pelz) there was a 2 weekend communication training session held by Volker Michel, who is an experienced personal communication trainer. The session included topics such as body posture and body language or use of language and intonation as well as peer reviews on presentation skills. These topics already pose challenges to a presence format. Moving everything online was a very special effort. We decided to install a studio set up in one of our empty classrooms to be able to show Volker in full size using studio sound, light and cameras. Besides being al lot of fun for everyone, it was a memorable experience and showed the full potential of online teaching.
I would like to take the opportunity to thank Volker for his great Online adaptation of this module and Andy Deublein who as our technical specialist provided the professional environment which made everything possible.
Design Thinking drives Innovation” was the theme of this year’s MBA Alumni Day from November 15th to 16th
The MBA Alumni Association once again chose a very important business topic for this year’s Alumni Day: Innovation and its drivers.
The stylish location for creative thinking “Out of Office” in Frankfurt-Sachsenhausen with a fantastic view on the Frankfurt Skyline, provided the perfect setting for the event. Almost 50 Alumni including 15 students from our partner University Bergamo met to get inspired and meet old and new friends.
Prof. Stefanie Wannow, THM Business School Professor for Marketing and a specialist on innovation, started the day with a very insightful presentation on role of innovation for modern business. In her view innovation will drive future business success more than ever in business history. Acceleration of knowledge, low cost innovation and user-centered & open innovation lead to a democratization of innovation. To capture the full potential companies have to adjust and align structures, resources and systems and develop a company culture to foster innovation. Innovation needs creative thinking which means to think out of the box using new ways to approach a problem by activating the right side of the brain. Besides creative minds companies also need an entrepreneurial spirit. To prove the point she analyzed several successful entrepreneurs and startup businesses such as Elon Musk from Tesla or Ethan Brown from Beyond Meat who possess very special skills such as vision, self-confidence, purpose, sacrifice and endurance in order to grow their creative ideas into a successful business. Finally, she outlined success factors for effective innovation teams such as psychological safety, diversity, shared purpose & meaning, conflict resolution management, autonomy & integration.
Baltic Management Institute visits THM Business School for Innovation and Industrie 4.0 Conference
From October 10th to 12th the THM Business School hosted the 4th annual conference on Industrie 4.0 for our partner the Baltic Management Institute. 16 Participants from Vilnius met in Frankfurt to listen to the latest developments in this very dynamic field of innovation. Prof. Hayo Reimers opened up the conference with an insightful macroeconomic outlook on the German and European economy followed by Prof. Nils Madeja who analyzed the Innovation Environment in Germany which is fueled by the Digitalization. New business models are challenging existing businesses and their revenue streams. With real business cases he highlighted the need for transformation for many traditional German businesses. They have to refocus innovation on business models and systems rather than single products. Finally, Prof. Gerrit Sames presented the latest technology and systems for the Industrie 4.0 revolution. According to him whole business streams need to be looked at in order to successfully implement digital tools. Hereby the developed system will only be as strong as its weakest part. He criticizes that many businesses are still thinking too much in isolated solutions.
Absolvent Stephan Schwilden vom THM MBA-Programm berichtet in der Süddeutschen Zeitung
(Nr. 218, Freitag, 20.9.2019)
„Man kann sich nur durchbeißen, wenn man das selbst will“
Da saß er dann, Wochenende für Wochenende, ein erfahrener Anwalt aus Frankfurt am Main und Mitgründer einer großen, international agierenden Kanzlei, unter jüngeren Berufsanfängern, fast als einziger Jurist:
In seinem MBA-Kurs an der Technischen Hochschule Mittelhessen fühlte sich Stephan Schwilden manchmal schon etwas exotisch. Auf seiner Visitenkarte stand bereits der Doktortitel, promoviert hatte der Jurist 2004. „Bei mittelständischen Unternehmen in Deutschland ist der Doktortitel wichtig, der schafft Vertrauen“, sagt Schwilden.
Warum dann ein MBA-Studium? „Als Karrierebooster brauchte ich das nicht“, betont der Jurist, „doch durch den MBA konnte ich mein wirtschaftliches Wissen vertiefen, und das auch in Bereichen, mit denen man als Jurist eher wenig zu tun hat – etwa ‚ Sales and Management‘.“ Und noch einen Aspekt führt Schwilden an: Im Internationalen Umfeld verliert der Doktortitel an Bedeutung, der MBA dagegen zählt mehr. Schwildens Kanzlei hat eine große Mandatsbasis im Ausland, da schafft der Master of Business Administration einen Vertrauensvorschuss. Da seine Mandanten ausschließlich Wirtschaftsunternehmen sind, muss ihr Anwalt eine Bilanz interpretieren können –und die Sprache der Wirtschaftsleute verstehen und selbst sprechen, erklärt Stephan Schwilden.
Natürlich sei ein MBA aufwendig, aber nicht ganz so aufwendig wie ein komplettes BWL-Studium. „Im Rückblick sagt man ja gerne, war halb so schlimm. Doch es ist die Extra-Meile, die man gehen muss, das frisst Zeit am Wochenende“, gibt der Anwalt zu. Dank der richtigen Einstellung habe er sich gut motivieren können. Und die klingt so: „Man sollte den MBA nicht für jemand anderen machen, auch nicht für das Unternehmen oder weil man dann eine Gehaltsklasse höher rutscht, sondern nur für sich selbst. Man kann sich nur durchbeißen, wenn man das selbst will.“
Für Schwilden war es bereichernd, aus seinem gewohnten Umfeld herauszukommen und sich mit Chemikern, Betriebswirten, Vertriebsspezialisten auszutauschen, sich andere Gedankengänge zu erlauben. „Das hat den Horizont erweitert“, sagt er. Direkt nach dem MBA analysierte er mittels eines speziellen Analyse-Tools die Wettbewerbsposition seiner Kanzlei und richtete mit seinen Partnern die Strategien für die Zukunft neu aus. „Anwälte beschäftigen sich im Tagesgeschäft oft viel zu wenig mit der eigenen Positionierung am Markt und mit Wachstumsstrategien“, hat Schwilden beobachtet. „Der MBA gibt einem noch einmal das Rüstzeug und den Gedankenanstoß, in diesen Bereichen etwas zu ändern.“
Weitere Informationen erhalten Sie unter www.mba-school.de oder telefonisch: 0641-309-2707.
//Stephan Schwilden, Christiane Bertelsmann - Süddeutsche Zeitung 20.September 2019
After having visited the Charlotte area three years ago, as a part of my own MBA-studies, I gratefully took the chance to join the MBA XVI group on their stay to beautiful North Carolina as the accompanying lecturer and representative of the THM Business School and its MBA-Program. Charlotte and its surrounding area represent a prosperous and rising region in the Southeast of the United States, midway between Washington DC and Atlanta. The “Queen-City” is home to the corporate headquarters of Bank of America and the east coast operations of Wells Fargo, which along with other financial institutions has made it the second-largest banking center in the United States. Furthermore, many industries have production sites and subsidiaries in the area; a steadily growing number of corporations from Germany is active in and around Charlotte. Moreover, it is a great place for sport-enthusiasts with its prominent teams in American Football (Carolina Panthers), Basketball (Charlotte Hornets) and Baseball (Charlotte Knights). In addition, it is a great place to visit music concerts.
Within the few days a stayed there, Guns n’ Roses (sad I missed them) and Phil Collins (not so sad) had performances in the local spectrum arena. Getting to Charlotte from Germany is relatively easy; several airlines provide a direct connection from Frankfurt to this international hub. For a number years, Prof. Christopher “Doc” Howard holds the International Business Seminar at Pfeiffer University and it was an exciting experience to meet him as a colleague this time and not as a student. Dana Hanson, another dear person I was enthusiastic to meet again, organized the program and planned our agenda. Moreover, she empathically served as a fixer for all upcoming problems during our stay.
Academically, the twelve students received a number of case studies in advance, which had to be read prior to the visit. In class, Doc and the students discussed possible strategies and operations to resolve the problems entailed in the cases. As a final exam, each group got their own case on Friday, which they had to solve within a few hours. The official visiting program included a Charlotte City Tour, on which we could see many wealthy parts of town, former cotton-factories turning into housing and breweries (!) and the inner city. During the week, we also had the chance to listen to two stimulating guest speakers. Mr. Sven Gerzer, Vice President of Economic Development at the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce, gave us information and fun facts about the general economic situation in Charlotte and the possibilities for foreign direct investments in the area. Ms. Kristin Whalen, Attorney at Law at Bridgehouse Law, contributed an interesting speech on “Product Liability in the United States vs Germany”. The visits at four major corporations were on the schedule, too. The earlier mentioned Wells Fargo impressed us with its huge trading floors, gigantic halls in which traders buy and sell bonds and securities while they gather information from sometimes six monitors at a time.