The two new programs will start in January 2021.

By JOSÉ ÁNGEL DE LA PAZ | EGADE BUSINESS SCHOOL

EGADE Business School - Tecnológico de Monterrey announced the launch of the Specialization in Digital Strategy and Master in Business Analytics, designed to develop digital transformation and data science experts capable of guiding their organizations towards the new business future.

The two graduate courses have different approaches, but both satisfy a growing demand for leaders trained with a comprehensive business vision and the technological skills necessary to compete in the new business landscape.

“There are technology experts in the market who lack the business knowledge necessary to lead complex business initiatives. There are also many competent leaders in the functional areas of business who fail to understand the potential of the digital revolution and cutting-edge technologies,” explained Gilberto Olavarrieta, Director of Digital Programs at EGADE Business School.

“The Specialization in Digital Strategy and the Master’s in Business Analytics develop both spectra of knowledge, offering the best of the two worlds: leaders with a transformative vision of business and the key skills to implement disruptive and highly competitive technological strategies,” said the academic director.

Specialization in Digital Strategy, a High-impact Opportunity

The new, one-year Specialization in Digital Strategy hones the business vision and technical skills of participants, preparing them to direct and implement digital transformation projects and respond to the needs of their organizations in the face of the accelerated changes of the new business reality.

"Today, companies are forced to 'digitally transform' because the business environment is changing. Some do not have specialists to implement this transformation and are unable to incorporate the technological changes at the required speed. This is both a cultural and a skills issue,” he said.

Through a laboratory-based experiential learning model and an integrating project, students of the Specialization in Digital Strategy learn how to enhance user experience, increase operational efficiency, reduce costs and increase the productivity of their organizations through multiple Industry 4.0  tools and channels designed to optimize results.

Master in Business Analytics, an Unprecedented Program

The new Master in Business Analytics develops in students a disruptive mindset based on data science, preparing them to maximize the results of their companies and giving them a competitive advantage in the growing digital economy.

"This program helps them get to the next level, to lead Business Intelligence and Business Analytics initiatives and solve complex business problems using cutting-edge tools and the most powerful algorithms in the market," said Olavarrieta.

The Master in Business Analytics maximizes learning with laboratories focused on mastering technologies such as Big Data, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, the IoT and Cloud Computing, and accelerates the growth of key skills for analytics, such as data mining, visualization, prediction and diagnostics, in addition to providing proficiency in languages ​​such as SQL, Python and R.

This graduate program also offers networking opportunities by sharing core subjects with students from the EGADE MBA, Master in Finance and Specialization in Digital Strategy.

The two new programs give students recognition as field experts, through certifications issued by leading institutions in the digital sector. Additionally, thanks to a high-value alliance, the technical part is taught by digital industry experts and leaders from the Tec de Monterrey School of Engineering.

Both programs will begin in January 2021 and taught in a part-time, hybrid format in Spanish, at the EGADE Business School’s Monterrey site. The duration of the Specialization and Master's Degree will be 12 and 24 months, respectively.

Episodes available on Tec Sounds, Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts.

By JOSÉ ÁNGEL DE LA PAZ | EGADE BUSINESS SCHOOL

EGADE Business School and the Undergraduate Business School of Tecnológico de Monterrey launched their podcast Business Territory on the Tec Sounds platform.

Through weekly episodes, the series presents the expert voices of faculty, students, alumni, business leaders, and entrepreneurs, in roundtables and dialogues on the latest business trends and transformations in Mexico, Latin America, and the world.

“We believe in the value of generating knowledge and ideas to develop a different corporate and individual purpose, and in their dissemination to achieve a positive impact on our societies. Nowadays, technology allows us to multiply our impact and cogenerate these ideas. Business Territory is another option for giving the entrepreneurial, business and academic communities a voice and, together, contribute to the generation of a world with a better purpose, in which there are more opportunities for everyone and prosperity is leveraged by collaboration, innovation, and sustainability,” commented Ignacio de la Vega, Dean of EGADE Business School and the Undergraduate Business School of Tec de Monterrey.

De la Vega, Jaime Martínez Bowness, Director of EGADE Business School, Mexico City, and Katia Villafuerte Cardona, professor in the Department of Management and Leadership, Tec de Monterrey, are the hosts of Business Territory.

Each episode offers the vision and experience of outstanding guests from the Tec community and the world of business. Five episodes have been posted so far:

• Ep. 1 – Small Changes, Widespread Digitalization. Guests: Jorge Luis Coronel Fuentes, Tec professor, Campus Puebla, and Mauricio Ariza Sánchez, B.A. Marketing and Communication student, Campus Puebla.
   
• Ep. 2 - Pandemic: the (Necessary) Acceleration of Entrepreneurship. Guests: Pepe Medina, cofounder of Unreasonable México, and José Enrique Alba Escamilla, Zone Director of Innovative Entrepreneurship, Tec de Monterrey.
   
• Ep. 3 - Is this the End of Globalization as We Know It? Guests: Erik Musalem, CEO of Gilead Sciences in Mexico, and Evodio Kaltenecker, international visiting professor at EGADE Business School.
   
• Ep. 4 – Win or Lose in Times of Crisis. Guests: Nacho Álvarez, cofounder and CEO of Moneypool, and Luis Antonio Márquez, Director of the Full-Time MBA in Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
   
• Ep. 5 - From generation of wealth to creation of shared value: the ABC of the conscious company. Guest: José Varela, CEO of 3M Mexico.

The podcast is also available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.

Business Territory forms part of the Tec Sounds podcast bar, which includes TecReview, Historias para llevar, Con su permiso, EduTrends, Ola de salud and The World’s Greatest Challenge.

It is a site for the business community to submit their questions and view videos that promptly respond to their concerns.

By JOSÉ ÁNGEL DE LA PAZ | EGADE BUSINESSS SCHOOL

EGADE Business School in alliance with Coparmex has launched Ask the EGADE Experts, a platform for the business community to raise their main doubts and issues in the current context of uncertainty, and find strategic solutions directly from experts.

With this new open access platform, users can submit their questions and consult videos to find precise answers to their queries.

“We resolve the concerns of entrepreneurs, directors and executives regarding business management opportunities, crises and challenges. Their questions are answered briefly and precisely by our faculty, and academic and business leaders,” explained Jaime Martínez Bowness, Director of EGADE Business School, Mexico City.

​

​

Some of the videos available on the platform are:

• If I need to adjust salaries in my company, what criteria should I follow?
• How should companies reconfigure their physical offices?
• Which actions should be prioritized in my company during and after the contingency?
• How do I start my company’s digital transformation?
• Business loans: How much debt?
• Supply chains: How should they be managed during crises?

Ask the EGADE Experts forms part of the portfolio of EGADE Business School’s Alternative Learning programs and tools, and is one of the actions for economic and social reactivation highlighted by Tec de Monterrey.

Access the new platform here.

Twenty of the 100 participating companies with a social and environmental focus will additionally take a specialized course from EGADE Business School.

By JOSÉ ÁNGEL DE LA PAZ | EGADE BUSINESS SCHOOL

Representatives of the 100 social ventures selected for the 2020 edition of BBVA Momentum in Mexico embarked on their training process, with the support of EGADE Business School - Tecnológico de Monterrey.

The participating companies, characterized by their social and environmental focus consistent with the UN Sustainable Development Goals, will be taking a Tec de Monterrey online course and undergoing an acceleration stage with New Ventures over the next three months.

Subsequently, 20 entrepreneurs will be chosen to continue their training with a specialized course offered by EGADE Business School.

At the start of the activities, the social entrepreneurs were welcomed by Jaime Martínez Bowness, Director of EGADE Business School, Mexico City, as well as Christiane Molina and Luis Islas, Director and Coordinator of Strategic Projects at the school’s Center for Conscious Enterprises for a Sustainable Future.

In addition, they were received by Irma Acosta and Adriana Salazar, Director and Deputy Director of Responsible Business and Sustainability, BBVA México, and Armando Laborde and Keyla Campuzano, Business Strategy Director and Project Manager at New Ventures, respectively.

“At EGADE Business School and Tecnológico de Monterrey, our mission is to prepare transformational leaders for the development of society and human flourishment, and you reflect to perfection the best of the business spirit - creativity, innovation, and problem-solving capabilities - that is so urgently needed on every front,” Martínez Bowness told participants.

This is the eighth edition of BBVA Momentum, a program that seeks to support the growth of companies that have a relevant social impact and are economically sustainable, innovative and scalable.

Once they have completed the training, acceleration and mentoring stages, the participating entrepreneurs can apply to BBVA México for a special loan, for which the institution will have up to 150 million pesos available.

EGADE Business School’s Decalogue for the Economic-Business Refounding of Mexico maintains that country can rethink its regional orientation and leverage its ethnic, cultural and biological diversity as a competitive advantage.

By COMUNICACIÓN INSTITUCIONAL | EGADE BUSINESS SCHOOL

Some of the most visible consequences of COVID-19 pandemic are the ones that have affected globalization, world trade and multilateralism, areas where Mexico should rethink its role in the world.

Disruption in global supply chains, failures in the global governance system and the new geopolitical balances place the country in a situation that it can capitalize to renovate Mexico’s relevance in the international arena.  

This is revealed in three of the ten keys of the Decalogue for the Economic-Business Refounding of Mexico, published in July this year by EGADE Business School - Tecnológico de Monterrey:

Capitalize the opportunities of a new scheme of globalization and trade regionalization

• The coronavirus pandemic has interrupted the major global supply chains, demonstrating their fragility. The new post-COVID-19 reality puts a brake on everything related to globalization, megalopolis growth, and the conservation of global, fragmented supply chains that are geographically distant from the main operations and with little control from productive economies, forcing them to rethink their regional orientation and configure a new map of opportunities that, as a country, we should not miss out on.
   
• Mexico has an enormous opportunity to reindustrialize and diversify its trade, underpinning and growing the export market through new agreements signed with the USA and Canada  (USMCA) and the European Union (FTA EU-MX). In addition, it should identify new value chains based on the installed capacity of the country’s productive system and create a diversified economy with capabilities to compete on the regional and global levels.

Embrace digital transformation and the 4th Industrial Revolution  

• The drastic closure of companies and activities, migration to online education formats, and the shift of millions of jobs to the telework modality, as a strategy to fight the pandemic, has demonstrated the need to accelerate digital transformation, particularly in SMEs and strategic sectors, such as commerce.
   
• COVID-19 has highlighted the urgency of having a national program for the adoption of sales and distribution technologies for proximity commerce that will increase and diversify client bases and revenues and protect jobs, as well as of incorporating better e-commerce tools and logistics support mechanisms. The country should use the 4th Industrial Revolution to leverage its ethnic, cultural and biological diversity as a competitive advantage.

Strengthen global governance and multilateralism

• Facing the challenges of the future requires a meta-leadership that transcends the needs and capacities of a single institution or interest group, that cares about the common interest and incorporates the capacities of diverse groups—affected communities, government institutions, business sectors, civil society, and universities.
   
• The most effective solutions will be cocreated by integrating the capacities of companies and institutions, and rooted in the capacities, interests, and creativity of communities. A multilateral governance system can be the way to bring these interconnected realities together, recognizing the validity of diverse points of view, and acting in a more coordinated manner to tackle challenges that are global.

The complete document of EGADE Business School’s Decalogue for the Economic-Business Refounding of Mexico can be downloaded here.

Federico Trigos teams up with international researchers on a project that is funded by the Royal Academy of Engineering and Lloyd's Register Foundation in the UK

By JOSÉ ÁNGEL DE LA PAZ | EGADE BUSINESS SCHOOL

Federico Trigos, a Professor at EGADE Business School - Tecnológico de Monterrey is working on an international research project to collect, analyze and disseminate data to contribute to solving the environmental and occupational health problems of dismantling ships and offshore structures.

The initiative recently received funding from the  Engineering X program, promoted by the Royal Academy of Engineering and Lloyd's Register Foundation in the UK.

The team of researchers is led by Fraser Sturt, a Professor at the University of Southampton (United Kingdom), and also includes experts from Advisian (United Kingdom), the University of Teramo (Italy) and NGO Shipbreaking Platform (Belgium).

Trigos explained that the project addresses the complex social, environmental and engineering challenges posed by the growing number of ships and offshore platforms that reach the end of their useful lives and must be dismantled.

The International Labour Organization has classified shipbreaking as one of the most dangerous occupations in existence, “with unacceptably high levels of fatalities, injuries and work-related disease.”

"Quantifying the scale and nature of the challenge is far from easy," Trigos stated.

Therefore, the project starts from the premise that for informed decisions to be made, relevant data must be publicly available and people must be aware of it.

Thus, Trigos explained, the team’s main objective is to develop an open access, dynamic and graphical web-dashboard with associated evidential material and reports on a wide range of information, including the number, age and location of offshore structures and ships globally, the materials they contain, their legislative contexts and who has ownership and other responsibilities.

"By offering this space, where the interested public can examine data, discuss approaches and find results, faster and more effective changes are made possible," said the EGADE Business School Professor.

The project is called Establishing a global baseline and raising awareness to help deliver safety improvements and should be finished in 2023. It is one of the six initiatives that received together grants from Engineering X’s of nearly £1 million for Safer decommissioning of ships and offshore structures.

As far as background in the field is concerned, Trigos previously participated in the research project Environmental and social consequences of decommissioning offshore infrastructure, which received funding from the Worldwide Universities Network in 2018.

The challenges and opportunities of international business in the post-COVID-19 era were broached in live sessions and other activities for students from this innovative program.

By JOSÉ ÁNGEL DE LA PAZ | EGADE BUSINESS SCHOOL

Master in Business Management students from EGADE Business School - Tecnológico de Monterrey experienced a virtual International MBM Week, focused on the topic International Business Under the New Normal: Challenges and Opportunities.

Through this intensive online experience, over 50 recent graduates and young professionals, who study the program at the Monterrey and Guadalajara sites, connected from August 9 to 14 with faculty and world-renowned special guests.

​

Ignacio de la Vega, Dean of EGADE Business School and the Tec de Monterrey School of Business, and Eduardo Aquiñaga, Master in Business Management National Program Director, were in charge of welcoming participants to the event.

Activities included live videoconference sessions, pre-readings, asynchronous assignments through the virtual classroom platform, and the presentation of projects developed in remote teams.

Master classes were also offered by David Bach, Dean of Innovation and Programs, Institute for Management Development (IMD); Mike Szymanski, Professor, Moscow School of Management Skolkovo; Florence Pinot, Director of the Center of Studies and Research for Europe and Latin America (CERALE); and Sascha Fuerst, Professor, EGADE Business School.

The topics addressed by these experts were globalization, ethics in international business, EU-Latin America cooperation policies and dynamics, and global entrepreneurship in the new normal.

​

Special guests included Enrique Cortés, Director of Artificial Intelligence Hub, Tecnológico de Monterrey; Chip Merritt, Senior Vice-President of Investor Relations, Standard & Poor’s Global; Brian Bauer, Circular Economy and Alliances Leader, Algramo; Pedro Álamos, General Manager, Algramo; and María de Lourdes Dieck-Assad, Emeritus Dean, EGADE Business School.

In addition, EGADE Business School faculty broached a variety of topics, such as innovation, digital transformation and international consumer markets, among others.

To close the week, participants enjoyed a networking activity in which they learned business cocktail recipes, with Javier Íñiguez, founder of SaberVino, and Alicia Boy, travel journalist.

​

In an article published in Sustainability journal, EGADE professor examines the moderating effect that household income on entrepreneurs' motivations and their growth aspirations.

By JOSÉ ÁNGEL DE LA PAZ | EGADE BUSINESS SCHOOL

Policies focused on supporting entrepreneurs motivated by opportunity rather than necessity can favorably pave the way to grow high-impact entrepreneurship in Mexico.

These are the observations of professor Pedro Carreón, EGADE MBA Program Director at the Guadalajara site of EGADE Business School, in an article coauthored with professor José Manuel Saiz and published in the scholarly journal Sustainability.

With data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, the researchers examine the moderating effect of household income on the relationship between entrepreneurs’ opportunity motivations and their growth aspirations.

These entrepreneurs are more likely to grow to the level of their high aspirations, since they capitalize on the stimulus offered by their main motivations, to obtain increased revenues and independence, and often turn to household income for support.

On the other hand, since entrepreneurs driven by necessity, they commented, normally have low motivations and less access to capital, their growth aspirations are limited.

​

Given the relationship between motivations and aspiration rates, the academics suggest that entrepreneurship policies which pay attention to enhancing the aspirations of entrepreneurs will be more profitable.

“In Mexico, entrepreneurship policies are shifting their focus from seeking to increase the number of entrepreneurs to improve the quality of entrepreneurship,” they noted.

High-impact entrepreneurs usually have the aforementioned high aspirations for their businesses and, therefore, ultimately make a significant contribution to the country’s employment creation and economic growth, they conclude.

​

Their research, titled Opportunity Motivation and Growth Aspirations of Mexican Entrepreneurs: The Moderating Role of the Household Income, can be viewed here.

Saiz formerly served as a professor at EGADE Business School and is currently a researcher at Centro de Estudios Enzo Faletto of Universidad de Santiago de Chile.

Both professors also coauthored the article Product Newness, Low Competition, Recent Technology, and Export Orientation as Predictors for Entrepreneurial Growth Aspirations, published in Sustainability and available here.

Sustainability is an international, interdisciplinary open access journal on environmental, cultural, economic and social sustainability, published fortnightly by MDPI.