Technology and Operations Management (TOM) is an area of business that brings together creativity, people skills and rational thinking in a distinctive way. During TOM courses at INSEAD, students learn to leverage technology and efficient operations to provide a unique source of competitive advantage, just as companies like Wal-Mart or Amazon have successfully done in the past.
The powerful combination of entrepreneurship electives and boot camps offered at INSEAD, together with courses in technology and operations management, has allowed many graduates to realize their startup dreams. One example is Frank Drummond (‘06J), a qualified medical doctor who began his MBA wanting to improve his hospital management skills. While teaming up with a design student and other classmates to create a mobile phone for elderly people, Drummond re-thought his career. Now, he is a serial entrepreneur who produces everything from telecommunications products to baby bottles, with international distribution. Due to the broad relevance of these electives, students interested in consulting or industry have also found TOM electives to add value to their careers post-MBA.
To give you a flavour of what to expect during your MBA, here’s a brief description of two very different TOM electives that are currently on offer to the ‘12D class:
Strategies for Product and Service Development:
This course addresses the managerial challenges associated with integrating various functions of the firm during the process of developing new products and services. In Professor Manuel Sosa’s class, a common project for the course is the design of the concept for a mobile application. The most successful groups then have the possibility to develop their concepts further with the support of the Professor and funding from the School.
Once a year, this hands-on course is delivered in coordination with the Art Center College of Design (Pasadena, California), bringing together designers and INSEAD MBA students in an effort to broaden each other’s horizons. To learn more about this exciting elective you can watch this short INSEAD Knowledge video.
Management of services:
This course provides a useful framework for approaching choices that managers must make when designing and executing a successful service strategy. Moreover, it pushes students to look at firms through a different lens and to think about services in a more holistic way.
According to Professor Sameer Hasija, who also teaches the Process and Operations Management core course: “there’s a component of service in every industry, so the course teaches you what you can do to differentiate yourself in this area in order to beat the competition. The course is taught more like a roundtable discussion than a lecture and while the concepts can be described in general, business cases are used to provide context and enrich the discussion”. A recent graduate, Prasad Dhumal (11J), inspired by Sameer’s courses, decided to return to India where he has designed a new instruction method to serve the specific needs of schools in India’s 2nd and 3rd tier cities. This means that the innovative thinking Sameer encourages his students to adopt in the class can manifest itself in many different types of businesses and can be applied to different parts of an organization.
Other TOM courses that are being offered this period are: Project Management, Business Sustainability, Social Media Strategies, Competitive Supply Chain, Corporate Governance and Identifying New Business Opportunities.
If you are passionate about this area and you wish to learn more about the professors and the courses they teach, visit these pages.
