专业方向介绍系列之八: Op. & Info Management

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(Operations and Information Management)

尽管MBA 申请不象其它master program那样强调专业方向, 但由于每个申请人的工作背景和职业目标还是多有确定的取向的; B-School在录取人的特点上以及课程设置上也充分考虑到专业发展方向的问题. 下面继续给大家介绍B-School一般的专业课程设置.

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The mission of the Department is to provide educational programs and pursue research activities in the areas of operations and information management and decision-making. Teaching and research in the Department build on the economics of information and electronic markets, coupled with management science and decision modeling technologies. Problems addressed by faculty in the Department include E-business, supply chain management, risk and environmental management, product development, decision support systems, information-based strategy, and decision making under uncertainty for individuals, groups and organizations.

On the teaching side, the Department teaches courses at the Undergraduate, MBA and PhD levels in the area of decision processes (DP), information strategy, systems and economics (ISSE), information and decision technologies and management science (IDT) and operations management (OM). The Fishman Davidson Center and the Risk Management and Decision Processes Center, both closely aligned with the OPIM Department, provide opportunities for students to engage in research on applied problems.

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Information: Strategy, Systems, and Economics
The availability of information at an acceptable cost - anywhere, any time, at any speed, and for almost any purpose - has profoundly affected all aspects of management:

By improving the ability to perform detailed customer profitability analyses modern information technology changes the balance between strategies based on scale and strategies based on market micro-segmentation and differential pricing. This has affected marketing strategies in insurance, credit card operations, telecommunications, and numerous other service industries.

By improving performance monitoring capabilities throughout the firm communications technologies alter the balance between centralization and decentralization and the optimal locus of control and decision rights; this has changed the structure of firm's internal control structures as well as the tradeoffs among internal production, external procurement, and joint ventures.
Advances in computing, information storage and retrieval, and communications have improved the quality of customer information throughout the channel and have affected the balance of power among retailers, distributors, and manufacturers or primary suppliers, altering the distribution of profits and the design of appropriate channel strategies. This is restructuring distribution for travel services, and is affecting industries as diverse as retail financial services and consumer packaged goods.
As power continues to shift among retailers, distributors, and manufacturers / primary suppliers, many industries are being forced to deal with restructuring caused by disintermediation resulting from electronic channels.
While these changes are directly driven by information technology, it is the management challenges, and not the underlying technology, that will be addressed by this new inter-disciplinary major.

What is the appropriate production strategy as the balance between local and global production, between internal production and external procurement, and between short term contracting and long term strategic alliances are all altered?
What is the appropriate marketing strategy as the balance shifts between established competitors with dominant share and apparent cost advantages and new entrants with targeted strategies? What pricing strategies are thus enabled? How can information be used to provide enhanced differentiation strategies by allowing more accurate targeting of individualized products and services?
What is the appropriate distribution strategy as disintermediation becomes possible, but intermediaries still retain considerable power over segments of the customer population, and thus will retaliate against premature attempts at bypassing them?
Once appropriate strategies are determined, how can they be implemented and how can the organization be led into its new vision?
These management challenges create a significant opportunity for  Business Schools to create a new management focus through an interdisciplinary major that draws upon existing strengths in management, marketing, and information management to create a powerful and innovative interdisciplinary focus on information strategy.

Understanding the strategic aspects of information and information management is being transformed; what were once skills of specialized technologists are now critical aspects of the preparation of all executives. This major will prepare students for careers in consulting and venture capital, and for senior management positions in a wide range of industries already being transformed by the interacting forces of information, globalization, and deregulation.