For nearly 125 years, the Wisconsin School of Business has built internationally ranked programs, advanced impactful research, and prepared the next generation of business leaders to develop bold solutions to complex problems. While a commitment to continuous improvement is something many schools and colleges make, at WSB, it’s more than just a buzzword. It’s a deliberate process of listening, testing, and adapting that sets the school apart.
As expectations for flexibility and accessibility shifted in the wake of the pandemic, WSB saw an opportunity to reimagine graduate business education. With market data and relevant insights, a wealth of faculty and administrative expertise, and a willingness to listen and learn from the students they serve, the Wisconsin School of Business expanded their portfolio of industry-leading MBA programs.
From the traditional full-time MBA to the part-time professional MBA and the redesigned executive MBA, there’s a degree program to fit students at each stage of their careers to prepare them for leadership roles in an ever-changing business landscape.
Enno Siemsen, Patrick A. Thiele Distinguished Chair in Business, a professor of operations and information management, and one of the architects of the reimagined offerings at WSB, reveals the four principles for building a better MBA. While serving as associate dean for WSB’s MBA and MS programs, Siemsen pulled together a team from across different disciplines and departments throughout the school, both faculty and staff, to work together on reimagining WSB’s MBA programs.
Listen to the market, relying on business expertise to get the fundamentals right.
Accessibility and social connection are necessary components of any degree program, but creating the optimal combination can be tricky.
Access to education should augment your life, not disrupt it, says Siemsen, but watching so many business schools create fully online programs “felt like a race to the bottom that would be barely sustainable for anyone.”
“At the same time, I could also sense that some of these programs were trying to put an in-person component back in, because everybody has this desire for connectedness,” he says. “You don’t want to be an isolated person sitting in your cabin, logging into online classes, and never really interacting with other people. You want to make friends; you want to develop networks. You want to know that the social component, which has always been an element of education, will always continue to be.”
The school conducted market research to determine the degree of access and in-person requirement that might work with people’s lives. The research was both qualitative and quantitative, with custom panels of prospective students using a range of methodologies, including conjoint analysis and focus groups. The team also looked at external research on demographic and economic trends.
The previous evening MBA required students to come to Madison twice a week for three years—“a really, really heavy lift,” Siemsen says. But this time, the research results suggested one required in-person weekend a month would work well in building social networks among cohort students—a compromise that gave students the ease of accessibility they were looking for while achieving their goal of networking and face-to-face interaction. The new model would become the basis for the professional MBA. The team was able to make a strategic decision based on what was best for the program while also balancing the needs of the market.
“For me, accessibility and social connection were two fundamental forces shaping the future of higher education, and strategically, I did not want to enter that race to the bottom,” says Siemsen. “My goal was always to have something which is accessible but also provides the inherent benefits of being in the room with other people.”
Assess curriculum fit, elevating the experience with an increased focus on practice.
First with the PMBA, Siemsen and the team reviewed what courses would be most relevant for the students they wanted to reach. Both programs used to be very economics-heavy, Siemsen says, even though those courses hadn’t shown up as particularly in demand based on internal data.
“We took a very close look at what the motivations were and changed quite a bit what students are exposed to,” says Siemsen. “We added things like project management, negotiations—both areas that all students need to know about. The approach we took was more about including practical skills in lieu of some of the theoretical economics perspective from business.”
The team made similar changes with the EMBA, integrating courses on leadership and decision-making into a larger design of communications training. The changes have produced positive results.
Before the program’s redesign, “we used to have one cohort of evening MBAs every year,” says Siemsen. “We now already have two cohorts of professional MBAs each year. So that speaks to the market relevance of the concept.”
Customize when possible, building on lessons learned.
WSB’s graduate-level Business Badge program grew in part out of the former evening MBA’s choice of two electives.
“I always thought, ‘Okay, that’s kind of nice, but it’s not really a way of customizing your program,’” Siemsen says. “So, we came up with this lifelong learning platform of badges where you can pick almost half of your program: one half is set, and the other half is your choice.”
One of the strengths of the design is that the badges capture the different motivations behind why students choose to pursue an MBA; perhaps it’s a desire to learn more about corporate finance, or to take a deep dive into data analytics or real estate.
The badge platform also supports students in their pursuit of lifelong learning—and the school as a support and resource for that aim.
“As a student, you’re going to take home some of these badges during your MBA program; what’s key is that there are certain badges that you won’t take, but later may wish that you had,” says Siemsen. “We want to keep you engaged longer than just your MBA by allowing you to come back post-graduation through this lifelong learning component and learn more.”
The badge platform also makes it easier for WSB to update its curriculum over time, since it’s more flexible than updating an entire program.
That flexibility allows the school to offer valuable learning opportunities as they arise, such as a recent applied-learning workshop on generative AI with visiting consulting firm McKinsey & Company. During the sessions, full-time MBA students worked in teams to engineer a marketing strategy and campaign using generative AI tools, with input and feedback from McKinsey experts.
Identify what sets your program apart.
Knowing what sets you apart from the crowd means being able to lean into that strength, cultivating it as you build a reputation and the vision to innovate with future programs.
For WSB, Siemsen and the team leaned into the market demand for greater flexibility and customization without missing out on the fundamentals of what makes a successful MBA program, which includes rich in-person learning experiences and the ability to develop a lifelong network of successful business professionals. They also redefined the MBA programs as a platform for continuous and lifelong growth.
As he reflects on WSB’s progress and watches the executive MBA launch this fall, Siemsen notes that taking the road less traveled already seems to have paid off.
“The bandwagon was completely online, and we very clearly resisted that bandwagon and went a different path,” he says. “I think that’s the fundamentals of strategy. You should not just do what everybody’s doing. You should try to understand the market forces, and then find a point of differentiation. I think we found that point of differentiation.”