“A good balance between academia and hands-on business experience”

Daniel Alvarsson joined the Gothenburg Executive MBA programme in 2014. Half-way through the programme, he thinks that the programme has given him a better understanding of the complete company and a wider perspective of the business.

“Several of the modules have been fitting well to my daily work. It has also been possible to use some of the assignments to address actual issues in my daily business. One example is that I made an analysis of our method for validation of machine operators as an assignment in the quantitative methods module. The timing of this job was very good because we were just about to evaluate a tool that we use, and the module provided useful insights in that evaluation.”

“After having completed the first half of the programme, I find most of the modules interesting. If I should choose one that stands out I would say Supply Chain Management, which in many ways is related to my work. I also liked the Accounting module because it gave insights and understanding for a very important part of the business that affects my daily work but that I have not been so much in direct contact with”.

“The main take-away however, is the networking in class. We have a very diverse group, which means that in almost every module we have some great sharing of knowledge from someone with a lot of practical experience. This provides a good balance between academia and more hands-on business experience during the lectures. For people like me, who work in a company that is expanding in China, and one that is going through a globalisation process supported by our Chinese owners, it is of great interest to learn more about how to do business in Asia. The 10-day trip we made to China gave a lot of insights that I think will be valuable for me in the future. I’m also looking forward to the trip to India in the second year. I have limited experience of India, so the Executive MBA programme will give me my first real hands-on experience from this interesting part of the world.”