MSM Dean welcomes new students with a lesson in management

It was with much excitement and anticipation that the Dean of Maastricht School of Management, Prof. Wim Naudé, and Director Global Education Programs, Oliver Olson, opened the new academic year at the school on Monday 26 September. Before them sat a full audience of over 100 students from several programs, including the two-year MSc program in Management and Engineering run jointly between MSM and RWTH Aachen University, the residential Master in Management program, the 33^rd intake of the residential Maastricht MBA program and the group of students from the joint International MBA program between MSM and Centrum Católica in Peru.

Prof. Naudé saw the opening ceremony as a privileged opportunity to give the new students their very first lesson in management by taking MSM itself as a case study.

What is a business school education about?
opening-acedemic-year_3 Prof. Naudé started out by explaining that a business school education is fundamentally “all about teaching you strategy and strategic behavior”. Strategic behavior is necessary if people and organizations are to achieve their objectives. “A good business school teaches you how to mobilize resources, manage them effectively, and more importantly even, to outwit the competition,” he said. “Managing an organization is like a chess game, but even more complex, because you can change the rules, if you are smart, and have to face new players all the time.”

He used the case of MSM as a business organization to give students their first lesson in management. “The questions that we ask ourselves at MSM are valid for any business organization: How to be competitive? How to survive? What is our mission and vision? What do we want to accomplish? What are our products and services? What is our value proposition?” He described how MSM formulated its mission and vision, and developed education and research programs to achieve these, with supporting physical and human resources. “Our value proposition is constantly checked against the market, against our customers’ needs”, he explained, and cited examples of MSM’s highly innovative, flexible and entrepreneurial approach in the last three years to develop new degree programs, new partners, and new markets.

Prof. Naudé’s purpose in giving this lesson in management through concrete examples from MSM was to show the students “that we do what we teach”.

Prof. Naudé ended his speech with a bold statement: “I wish you to struggle and to have a difficult year, so that you feel at the end of the program that you have successfully overcome a personal battle and not given up. You will learn a lot about yourself as an individual and this knowledge will help you in your career after MSM.”

opening-acedemic-year_4 Oliver Olson thanked Prof. Naudé and gave the students some final words of encouragement:

“It will be tough, but you’re not alone,” he said, before asking all staff and faculty members to stand up: “Everyone is here for you, anyone of them. We are all dedicated to helping you become a change maker in your career and your community.”

“Thank you for choosing MSM.”

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