Case Study: Gordon Dewar
At the same time as holding down his full-time job, Gordon Dewar studied for his MBA part-time at the University of Strathclyde Business School, commuting two evenings a week from his east coast home across the central belt to Glasgow.
At one point in his career, he even traveled up from the north of England to attend the two weekly sessions.
The traveling did not seem to have a significant impact on him as, not only did he complete his MBA over three years, he changed job twice during his course due to what he terms "expanded horizons" and he has since been promoted to General Manager of First in Edinburgh, responsible for a 250 bus public transport organisation.
Gordon says he chose SBS in spite of the fact there were business schools closer at hand because it had the best name for business schools in Scotland.
Gordon gained a Geography degree from the London School of Economics and then spent 10 years working in Transport Consultancy in the UK, based in London and Edinburgh, before doing his MBA. He decided to embark on an MBA because, "It was the most appropriate degree to learn more about wider business skills and improve my breadth of understanding of issues for future management positions." He wished to broaden his career from the quite narrow transport consultancy field and harness the more general management elements that he had some experience of and enjoyed.
"The combination of the skills, tools and added confidence in their application was a clear advantage in advancing my career over the three-year study period. The MBA has given me increased breadth of understanding of key business theory and practice."
Many of the skills Gordon learned were applied throughout the course on a daily programme and his final project was implemented by First in Edinburgh.
He developed and specified a Management Information System that analyses the key sales and operational performance data within the companies and allows managers to view this information in new and more valuable ways.
The pilot was carried out in Glasgow and was expected to be rolled out across all companies from 2002, representing an investment of £2 million.