DBA
The administration (DBA) programme is aimed at business professionals seeking a challenge, and having received a distinction for his Master of Entrepreneurship at Otago, Jim decided to extend the concepts he had been developing in his studies to a DBA programme. The subject of his DBA was marketing myopia.
“Marketing myopia is a concept originally articulated by Theodore Levitt in the 1960's. It argues that once the preconditions for marketing myopia are met, an organisation is vulnerable to failure. Examples of the impact of marketing myopia can be seen in the failures of enterprises like Blockbuster Video, Kodak, Nokia and Yahoo, to name a few. Essentially, marketing myopia is a lack of insight about how an enterprise generates customer satisfactions.”
Jim examined New Zealand's red meat industry and he believes his findings were “a wake-up call about looking after your customers”.
He had very high expectations of the University of Otago and the DBA programme, and he feels that they were exceeded. A straight talker, Jim needs only a few words to explain.
“Great university, great staff and it felt like home to me. I was very happy and very comfortable – in a good way – at Otago. The University provided me with all sorts of unique opportunities, such as having my business used as the inaugural case study for the MBA Case Competition, which included 28 students from around New Zealand.”
Outside of his studies, Jim is a keen amateur photographer, wanna-be grill expert and a passionate content creator. He is currently working on putting together a project to further extend his research into the creation and development of new marketing approaches. Jim owns Troika, a consultancy which provides marketing, strategy and management advisory. So what does he think completing his DBA has added to his business acumen?
“The DBA has helped me with gravitas. By that I mean, as a subject expert, it is helping me to knock down some doors.”
And what advice would he give someone who is thinking about studying a DBA at Otago?
“Make sure you are very committed and very passionate, because it is a long road.”
