LET’S DO THIS—MY LBS JOURNEY!

I started my Executive MBA (EMBA) program at Lagos Business School (LBS) in January 2023. It’s been three weeks since we started, and I want to use this blog to document my weekly experience. This blog will cover my reflections on learnings from the EMBA, interactions between my colleagues, and my general perception of the offerings at LBS.

Today, we will be focusing on my favorite subject: “Analysis of Business Problems”- (ABP), handled by one Dr. Segun. The course is designed to subject our thinking to rigorous exercises to further develop our analytical and problem-solving skills as a foundation for making better decisions. The lecturer appears to me as a fun, witty and street-savvy person. He makes learning fun, yet he enforces discipline and decorum amongst the various executives in his class.

ABP involves business cases, which we are expected to analyze using some started parameters and recommend solutions in line with the defined problems. Here, you don’t assume what is not stated in the case, your thoughts and clarity matter more than your final recommendations and you must be a fast reader who can easily assimilate what is being read.

THE CONCEPT OF PrOACTR

 PrOACTR is my given acronym for “Problem, Objectives, Alternatives, Consequences, Trade-off and Recommendation”. This is the tool we use for business case analysis. Today we will look at these tools, their meaning, and their functions while we look at the various cases we analyze from next week.

Problems

In business cases, we must ascertain the underlying problems while ensuring the proper framing of the problems. The problem is what we are finding a solution for, so if the problem is not properly stated our recommendation will most likely be wrong.

Objectives

Here, we specify the business objectives, interests, values, concerns, or aspirations. These will be our guide when taking any course of action or any recommendation route.

Alternatives

We are to consider all alternatives open to the business; we must critically analyze all alternatives and determine our decision criteria.

Consequences

We will be considering the expected consequences for taking any of the alternatives, we will seek to know whether the stated consequences are still in line with the company’s objectives.

Trade-off

Under Trade-off, we will be looking at the expected consequences for all the stated alternatives. What will happen if we take this alternative as against the other alternative? Are the alternatives and consequences still in line with the company’s objectives?

Recommendation

After considering the alternatives, their consequences, and trade-offs, we will make recommendations based on our analysis. Our recommendations will provide solutions to the stated problems while we must also justify this recommendation showing that our option will bring the best value for the company if implemented.

Expectations

As easy and direct as the course sounds, we are expected to read and analyze business cases ahead of the class, that is a big task if you ask me considering that this is meant to be a part-time course and we are supposed to be “busy executives”.

Well, we have signed up for the course, and being mindful that we are the 28^th set to be doing this, we will give it a good shot and a great fight.

Until when we see next week, have a great week ahead.

Wale Fasasi