TAXI DELIVERS KNOCKOUT PUNCH - Strategy

the entrepreneur & the academic
BY TONY CHAPMAN & KEN WONG
The next MBA
The Renegade CMOs tackle the burning issue of raising the next business leaders, and once again end up challenging
the industry to rally around Brand Canada.
Queen's prof Ken
Wong wants Canada
to create a worldclass
marketing
competency
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Ken: I often fi nd myself “advising” the
agency business what to do. I think
turnaround is fair play, so here’s a
problem for you: In the 1990s, Queen’s
took some bold moves when it offered
video-conferenced MBAs, went to a full-fee
pricing model (increasing prices tenfold!)
and decided to deviate from the
one-size-fi ts-all MBA to offer a series
of different “brands” of MBAs to
accommodate different needs. We made a
whack of changes to curriculum, facilities
and the like to support those moves.
And it worked. Our PR coverage, ratings,
applications, placements and customer
(student) satisfaction ratings went through the
roof. But success brought emulation, and now
many other programs offer the same features.
Some even offer things that we don’t.
It’s time for the “next” MBA and BComm
innovation. So here’s my question: Since
our value proposition is not about “granting
degrees” but rather about “accelerating
careers,” what would the renegade CMO
advise us to do in terms of identifying
the next “career-enhancing innovation in
business education”?
Tony: Canada continues to be a hewer
of wood, so to speak, a resource- and
commodity-dependent economy rather
than a country recognized for our ability
to solve the world’s future problems, not
simply fi ll their gas tanks. We need a vision
and a fully funded strategic plan for this
country that identifi es the areas in which
we can win on a global stage – areas where
intellectual capital and creativity are valued
over brawn. How can Queens’s adapt for
the new world without this plan?
University is where the heads, hearts and
hands of our future talent, the lifeblood
of our country, will be shaped. It can’t
act in isolation; it has to be part of a
choreographed plan involving the public,
private and educational sectors.
As I see it, our country’s direction
embodies the exchange between Alice and
the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland:
Alice asks, “Would you tell me, please,
which way I ought to go from here?”
“That depends a good deal on where you
want to get to,” said the Cat.
“I don’t much care where,” said Alice.
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you
go,” said the Cat.
Ken: I think you just identifi ed why we have
a brain drain in this country. People may not
like to hear this, but the market Queen’s and
other B-schools serve is not just Canadian
business. We have to practise what we
preach, and that means we are in global
business just like everyone else.
So what happens? The U.K. has a plan
and a vision for fostering creativity and
innovation, which leads fi rms to go there
and fl ourish. Guess where any tuned-in,
creative and innovative graduate wants
to be? And here’s the kicker: they leave
after enjoying a publicly funded education,
which means our tax dollars end up
www.strategymag.com
subsidizing the economic development of
other nations. That’s one of the reasons
why we went to the full-fee model.
I know it sounds clichéd, but we really do
need to bring government, business and
academia to a pow-wow and segment the
economic parties on a sector-by-sector
basis. Otherwise, the so-called dialogue
ends up with another motherhood
statement about the need to focus on
technology, blah-blah-blah.
Let’s be real renegades and actually
make something happen so that the
Let’s be real renegades and
actually make something happen
so that the marketing industry
in Canada does not go the way
of auto manufacturing
marketing industry in Canada does not
go the way of auto manufacturing. Let’s
become the place with a national plan to
create a global competence in marketing.
Tony: In doing so, let’s not just stop the
brain drain, let’s reverse it. We should
be recruiting the best minds around the
world and bringing them to Canada to help
us build a world-class creative industry.
Let’s brand Canada for what we are: a
multicultural, tolerant society, supported
by a great social system, a balanced
budget and deep resources the world will
treasure in the next 50 years.
Ken Wong is a career academic at Queen’s
School of Business who wedges consulting
between classes and speaking gigs. Tony
Chapman is an entrepreneur/career brand
guru and founder of Toronto-based agency
Capital C. Both are legends (according to
the Marketing Hall of Fame).