Deal or No Deal

Professor Matthias Seifert puts €20 up for grabs to demonstrate probability in our Managerial Decision Making class

I'm actually still 2 posts behind~ but I wanted to deviate for a moment to post something about some interesting stuff I picked up from school these past 2 weeks. Although I've taken up business in my undergraduate degree and some supplementary courses after that, I've found that some of the things they teach here at IE are quite practical and valuable. It would've been cool if I knew someone who told me about these things earlier (that way I could actually look it up even further out of sheer interest). Thankfully, there's school for that.

Managerial Decision Making
In this class, we talk about creating different models to determine the right course of action to take given a certain situation. I've heard of modeling before... but I've only had a very limited understanding which industries it could apply to. Taking this class helped me broaden my perspective on the various ways it could be applied in any industry.

One case was about this Napa Valley wine brand~

I particularly enjoyed one of our group projects~ which involved reviewing the overbooking policy of an airline. Originally, I thought a quick fix on Excel (determining a break-even point or to minimize costs) would indicate the proper overbooking policy. I would later be introduced to this software called @Risk for Excel, and would later better understand that there are still ways to improve the model & policy. The case showed that we could cut costs down by 80%. Wow~ like seriously!

I'm likewise finding the latest class I took interesting. It's an interesting approach to decide based on decision trees & probabilities. As per the main photo above, our professor invited one of my classmates to select an envelope. If he gets the correct envelope, he gets €20. And essentially it shows how probabilities change depending on the amount of information you're given (and yes, in the end my classmate got it).

I'm pretty optimistic about this class... although I have to admit it's also a bit challenging. Our professor tends to go pretty fast and it can be quite difficult to catch up while working things out on your computer. Once, I looked to my screen to simulate on Excel what he just explained in class. When I shifted my attention back to the board, he was completely on a different topic altogether. Wow. But anyway, the book is there and so are the class PPT decks.

Calle de Maria de Molina 31~ where all the magic happens lol. Also home for the next 12 months~

Financial Accounting
I've taken accounting before... but it wasn't this fun and clear (from a non-numbers kinda guy). What I appreciated in this class though was that we were taught how certain parts of the financial statements behaved, and how some of these items could be adjusted or manipulated to show certain results. This totally changed my perspective on reading financial statements. Before, I used to just jump straight at the Operating Income of a company and do some ratios. Now, I am keen to question the other parts of the statements to see whether it truly reflects the company's performance.

It's quite interesting~ really. I should probably re-look at all those investments I made in the past!

Strategy
Possibly one of my favorite classes at IE. I often feel that attending this class is like reading the earlier works of M. Night Shyamalan in that every case has a twist in the end. And in that twist that's where the learning comes. These past few weeks, I've come to learn about pricing / cost-saving strategies, price wars and even deciding to do certain things based on what a competitor might do. Just like in our Managerial Decision Making class we also have decision trees~ but here we focus more on best options for both sides (and how to force the competition into your best option). Fantastic, seriously!

Anyway, there. That's all I wanted to share for now!