1.4. TO 618: Applied Business Analytics and Decisions

I took one of the most popular classes in Ross, “Applied Business Analytics and Decisions” in Fall term this year. I feel this class literally deserves one of the most popular courses in Ross.

The class objective is to learn how to make strategic and tactical decision on many various problems by using excel and its supportive software such as Power View, Power Pivot, Power Query, Solver, Analytic Solver and so on. A professor taught how to use the software in the class by using many examples, and students had worked on assignments with one or two students almost every week, and one or two teams made a presentation in class as a data consultant. This was something we cannot take away from reading textbooks.

I learned much stuff from this class, but here I will write three points which interested me the most.

• Data Mining tool is very useful in managing the massive amount of data with many common errors. It also classifies and predicts what we want from the data set by using kNN, Logistic Regression, classification trees, naïve Bayes, and so on.
• Analytic Solver® is also a powerful tool as enabling us to use sensitivity, optimization, and simulation analyses as well as to build statistical distribution models easily. This is more than naïve Excel Solver.
• Power Pivot is an excellent add-in tool as it easily connects all of the data like what you want.

Simply saying, naïve Excel solver and functions seem to be enough to make most of the analyses which we need in professional and daily routine work. We do not need to buy any software described above, but the thing that we can utilize both of them is the most important takeaway from the class.

1.3. ELI 592: Understanding Spoken English

ELI is a kind of English classes, which help non-native English speakers to improve their English ability; hence ELI is neither mandatory nor graded as the business school. It just grades students’ performance with “Satisfactory” or “Unsatisfactory.” I took an English listening class titled “Understanding Spoken English” with one credit.

For most non-native English learners, improving listening ability is the first necessary step to increase the learning in the U.S. as they learn everything in English. They cannot understand what native English professors speak especially when they speak very fast, utter something, and make American jokes.

The class was designed for those who struggle to understand native-English speakers. The main strategy is very simple; listen as much as you can! The problem is that implementing the strategy is very tough. So, the professor told us many listening resources from the beginning levels to daily topics through professional ones. Also, she encouraged students to write down what they listened to and what they felt difficult to understand. These memorandum helps the professor to give some appropriate advice to her students.

My learning after taking this class was very important to me. I learned listening needs less effort and helps me to get any information at a faster pace than reading books or browsing the internet. I preferred reading books to get any information to listening to something before, but now I always go to YouTube to search for meanings of unknown words. 5 years or more before, YouTube was a terrible website as its contents were piracy or useless. Now, good YouTubers and enthusiastic teachers in any field have posted many videos to explain esoteric terminology or whatever, making YouTube one of the valuable resources to learn something new.

1.2. STR 564: Strategies for Sustainable Development I

     The objective of this class was to obtain ways of thinking more deeply about business strategy regarding sustainability. As a professor and almost all of the students in the class were native English speaker, it was a tough time for me to catch up the content, especially American jokes.

Textbook

Competitive Environmental Strategy: A Guide To The Changing Business Landscape

     Sustainability is one of the most important factors which we cannot ignore these days. The professor began the class with an assumption that the economy has given a substantial positive impact on our lives while it also has generated many side effects (e.g., income inequality and environmental destruction). These adverse changes can be regarded as market changes or cultural changes, so throughout case studies the class tried to teach how companies develop their businesses corresponding to the changes.

     Of course, he claims that we can achieve both sustainability and economic growth (as he is the professor of sustainability). I could not learn any new knowledge or perspectives in the class. It might be an excellent class for those who have never learned environmental protection or sustainability.

     I have two arguments in general about sustainability. First, in my understanding, a few companies can balance sustainability and economic growth, but this implies that almost all of the companies in competitive markets cannot balance them. For the companies which have struggled to survive concerning sustainability, the class (or other classes in this field) does not provide any frameworks like being given in common strategy classes; hence I cannot say the class can give strategic viewpoints enough to make sure that we can do better after learning something in the class.

     Second, I felt most people are very optimistic about the future new technology development when it comes to sustainability. It seems that the professor studied chemical engineering at MIT, and his opinion is like we will be able to solve environmental problems in the future because the new technology development will go well. I expected he understands how difficult to develop any new technology. But, do you agree that the new technology development in recent years, especially new energy and environmental protection technology, has been well more than we expected, realized, and enjoyed in the past few decades? At least the development of energy storage devices has never experienced drastic progress in the past several decades but included many cheap tricks (of course I recognize many scientists have made great efforts in this field). I feel there should be more specialists having a little more pessimistic viewpoint on the new technology development (even if they may lose their jobs once they express such opinions in public).

1.2. STR 564: Strategies for Sustainable Development I （持続可能な発展のための戦略I）

　この授業は持続可能性の観点からビジネス戦略をどのように考えるべきかを掘り下げることが目的でした。学生のほぼ全員がネイティブで教授もネイティブなだけあって、授業の速度は早く、アメリカンジョークについていくのがやっとの授業でした。

Textbook

Competitive Environmental Strategy: A Guide To The Changing Business Landscape

　昨今ではサステイナビリティは無視できない要因の一つです。授業は、経済が我々にとてつもなく大きな良好な影響を与えてきたことを前提とする一方で、同時に多くの副作用も生んできたと始まります。その代表例が所得格差であったり、環境破壊といったものです。会社にとってこれらはマーケットの変化、あるいは文化的変化と捉えることができ、それらの変化に対応してビジネスをどのように発展させるべきかをケーススタディを通して学びます。

　その領域の教授としては当然なのですが、彼の意見は、サステイナビリティと経済成長は両立できるというものです。授業の中で特に真新しい知識や見解は特に学べませんでした。まったく環境保護やサステイナビリティに関して知識がない人は満遍なく学べるという点で素晴らしい授業のように思います。

　個人的には二点考える点がありました。一点目は、サステイナビリティと会社の成長は、一部の企業で両立できるものの、それは厳しい競争環境の中では、大多数の企業が両立できないことを示唆していると考えます。その点で、他の戦略とは違ってフレームワークがあるわけでもなく、行き当たりばったりの議論をしていて、とても戦略とは言えないと思いました。

　二点目は、サステイナビリティを考える上で必須の新技術開発に関してあまりにも楽観的すぎると感じました。教授はMITの化学工学出身のようですが、近い将来技術開発が順当に進み、問題は解決されるというスタンスを持っています。しかし、ここ最近の特にエネルギーや環境関連技術の開発スピードは、我々が期待する以上のものになっているのでしょうか？少なくとも蓄電池の技術は数十年前から抜本的な進歩はしておらず、小手先の進歩に限られています。もう少し悲観的な見方をする人がいても良いのではないかと思いました。

4.1. Collaboration of Toyota and Softbank on autonomous technology

Toyota and Softbank announced they started to work together to build a network of mobility service using autonomous technology.

REUTERS 焦点：トヨタとソフトバンク、危機感が溶かした「水と油｣

CNN BUSINESS: SoftBank and Toyota want driverless cars to change the world

Personally, I anticipate this alliance will work well because of not the development of new battery technology but the autonomous technology. From the viewpoint of technology development, it is expected to make the development faster if a company with its own competitive know-how cooperates with another company of holding different expertise.

On the other hand, from the viewpoint of business, I see there is a significant gap which both companies cannot bridge easily. In detail, Softbank recognizes that cars are only one component of the future society, while Toyota acknowledges that cars' value is more than cars' name tells. 

 It can be seen that car is one of the categories in which many companies have been doing business in the past. All automobile companies have differentiated their cars company by company in the 'car' business category. However, as represented by a word, IoT, the whole city connecting everything such as people and stuff is assumed to be one of the business categories. What is the role of the cars in such a city? Some people may easily imagine that cars will become merely one of the components in the future society with popularization of autonomous cars. The businesses of both Toyota and Softbank depend on how the future society develops.

My view is that Softbank is seeking the future potential market while Toyota tries to become the first-mover in the next business market and make its car-related business more sustainable.

Lastly, I was very impressed by Toyota's way of thinking; among all products car is only one product that can be called the beloved car. We do not definitely say the beloved laptop (especially in Japan). 

4.1. トヨタとソフトバンクの自動運転技術についての協働

トヨタ自動車とソフトバンクがモビリティサービスの構築に向けてタッグを組んだというニュースが出ました。

REUTERS 焦点：トヨタとソフトバンク、危機感が溶かした「水と油｣

CNN BUSINESS: SoftBank and Toyota want driverless cars to change the world

個人的には、この同盟は上手くいくのではと思います。これは電池技術の開発などではなく、自動運転技術という点だからです。車とソフトウェアの融合は、やはりそれぞれ強みをもつ会社が協力した方が、開発を早期に進めることが期待できます。これは技術的な面での視点です。

その一方で、ビジネスの視点でみると、両社の認識の違いは埋められないものがあります。特にソフトバンク側は「将来の社会で車は単なるパーツにすぎない」と語っており、トヨタは「車は車以上の存在」というスタンスです。

これまでのビジネスは、車を一つのカテゴリーとしてビジネスが行われて来ました。車の中で自動車会社は差別化した車を販売してきました。しかし、将来の社会ではIoTに表現されるように、人、モノが繋がり街全体でひとつのビジネスカテゴリーのようになると予想されます。その中で車が果たす役割は何か？自動運転技術が普及すると「車は単なるコンポーネントにしかならない」のは容易に想像できます。そこに両社の将来のビジネスがかかっているのでしょう。

ソフトバンクは将来のビジネスフィールドを探り、トヨタはそのビジネスでファーストムーバーとしての立場を確立し、車ビジネスをよりサスティナブルなものにすることがそれぞれの目的として推測されます。

最後に、トヨタ側は「あらゆる製品の中で愛がつくのは車だけ」と考えているのは非常に興味深く印象強かったです。「愛パソコン」とは言わないですよね。

3.1 This I Believe

     I encountered an interesting website, whose title is "This I Believe", in a class of a business school. I wrote my essay in the class, and I would like to share it on my blog.


this i believe

 *****

            I believe that anyone should live their own life. As this rhetoric has become banal, used everywhere and anytime, people tend to think they have lived their own lives, as well as I do. However, I am not confident that I really live my own life when the sentence is rephrased like, “I should not live someone else’s life.”

            I had been educated under tight control until I graduated from high school in Japan. Students had to sit in their chairs, keep quiet, and behave very well during classes, and I was repeatedly trained to reach the only “correct” answer to many questions. Those tasks were very easy for me because they were just meant to be done as guided by teachers. Since I started to study at university, many varieties of options appeared in front of me; this was a very tough situation that I had never experienced. As I had just followed teachers’ instruction and never seriously thought of what I would like to do by myself, I tried to have a finger in every pie, and then anything and everything hung in midair.

            The first moment when I chose an option on my own will was when I selected my research topic for a master’s program in Chemistry. Looking back, I was lucky to have such a great professor in his laboratory. His questions, such as “Is your thinking coherent and logical?” and “Is that what you really want to do?” shaped my ambiguous desire and sorted out hazy processes to achieve my goal. After two years of research, I achieved an unprecedented result, which was presented at an international conference and finally patented. With great pleasure at going beyond my expectations, this experience taught me the importance of believing in my choice once I made it.

            The next moment, when I was devastated mentally, was when I was involved in an international project for the new product development. Harnessing my R&D experience, I had every confidence that I could manage it, but the project involved not only research and development, but also business aspects. Foreign scientists displayed their broad range of knowledge from manufacturing to brand marketing and managed the project far beyond my imagination. This was something which had never happened in Japan, therefore I started to realize that I needed other expertise to expand my role further. At the same time, I felt that this might be like the common expression, “The grass is always greener on the other side.” I had to ask myself a question: Do I try to live a life of others?

            Now, I study many things to find, open up, and integrate a new pathway for my life at a business school. This move seems to contradict This I Believe, but who can define a “correct” answer to the many questions coming one after another in my life? 

I believe that I should not live someone else’s life, and that I should strive for the “right” answers to my life. This belief gives me originality.

 *****

0.1 Japanese tutor

     I started a Japanese tutor by answering easy questions free of charge on the following website.

     HiNative

     One bad point of this site is that students cannot search for their favorite teachers, but I understand that this website is an open opportunity to make a question and answer to it very freely because of its design. I introduce this blog to my personal information page at HiNative, so if you find me, please visit my blog!

     If you need a Japanese tutor to help to study Japanese on a daily basis or for professional use, please send a message to me via this website! Don't hesitate to ask me! You should not miss any opportunity to start something.

2.1 Record of acquitting AMEX Platinum card issued in the U.S.

   I tried to call AMEX desk to get an AMEX platinum card one day after arriving at the U.S. I will summarize the procedure in this article.

Procedure

1     -  Call a person in charge of Global Transfer (Accessible from a personal account)

           AMEX Global Transfer website

2      - Tell the person that you need “Global Transfer” clearly and would like to get a credit card issued at the U.S. using your credit history accumulated in Japan.

  The procedure looks very simple, but you may feel some hardship different from Japan when you get a credit card in the U.S. At the outset, international students like me, who are not workers, cannot get an SSN (Social Security Number), hence cannot get a credit card. There are some exceptions for this system, but as for AMEX, international students can get AMEX credit cards using the credit history if you have any experience of using AMEX credit cards.

   Also, as described above, you have to talk with an English native speaker on the call as the procedure of global transfer without SSN requires applicants to call the desk directly and does not allow them to apply for it on the website. In my case, a person who I talked first on a call, transacted my application by mistake and sent an email to request me of entering SSN information. Also, another telephone responder misunderstood my application as not to be global transfer but a typical application. These mistakes happened even though I repeatedly and explicitly said “My application is Global transfer” “I don’t have SSN.” As other applicants for AMEX Platinum said the same experiences, we have to confirm the conversation over and over in the U.S., and if the respondent says wrong things we have to confirm and modify these persistently.

   Applicants will be asked general things such as name, SSN, annual income, and assets so you can answer these questions without preparing something of papers handy. As far as I heard my friends’ experience, ordinary employees in Japan seem to meet the requirement of the Platinum card so you can apply for it at your ease. I called the desk three times, and my English was not good, it took me one and a half hours to complete the application. Although I felt it took a long time, the delivery of the card was speedy! I got the card, what!, in three days.

   I will explain the main characteristics of the AMEX Platinum card in the following article.

2.1 アメリカ版アメックスプラチナカード取得記録

　アメリカ到着翌日にアメリカンエクスプレスのプラチナカードを取得するためにアメックスに電話してみました。この記事ではその手続きについて説明しようと思います。

取得手続き

１．       アメックスGlobal Transferの担当に電話する（マイページからもアクセス可能）

AMEX Global Transfer ウェブサイト

２．       “Global Transfer”であることを明確に伝えて、日本のクレジットヒストリーを使用してアメリカのクレジットカードを作りたいと伝える

　手続きは非常に簡単ですが、アメリカでクレジットカードを作るには日本とは違う苦労があります。初めに、私のような労働者でない留学生は、基本的にSSN (Social Security Number)を取得できないため、クレジットカードも作成できない仕組みになっています。これには一部の例外がありますが、AMEXに関しては、日本でクレジットカードの使用歴があるとそのクレジットヒストリーを使用してアメリカのクレジットカードを発行できます。

　また、上記の通り、Global Transferは電話での申請になるため、当然のことながら電話でネイティブと話さなければいけません。私の場合、最初にAMEXに電話した時の担当者が処理を間違ってSSNの申請リンクをメールで送ってきたり、別の担当者がGlobal Transferではない普通のクレジットカード申し込みと誤解して処理したりと大変でした。これは電話越しに何度も「Global Transferである」「SSNはもっていない」と言ってもそうなってしまいます。ほかのアメックスプラチナ申し込み者からも同様な話を聞き、やはりアメリカでは何度も確認をし、相手が間違ったことを言った場合にはすぐに確認をして訂正しなければいけません。

　この電話で聞かれることは、氏名などの個人情報、SSN、年収、保有資産などの一般的なことで、なにか書類を用意しないと答えられないということはないです。私の知り合いの経験談も踏まえると、年収などの諸条件は日本の普通の会社員で満たせるようで、申請は気楽にしていいように思います。私の場合は電話のかけなおしを3回したため、合計で1時間３０分程電話していたと思います。ずいぶん苦労したなと思う反面、配達は実に早いです！なんと3日でクレジットカードが届きます！

この後の記事にアメリカ版アメックスプラチナカードの特徴を説明しようと思います。

1.1 Introduction to Management Accounting

I finished taking an accounting class “Introduction to Management Accounting” at a business school where I have studied in the U.S. This class is about cost accounting, and covers Japanese cost accounting and industrial bookkeeping which many Japanese learn as the official business skill test in bookkeeping. Since I passed the 1st-grade bookkeeping test in Japan, I took the class with fundamental knowledge about cost accounting. However, I felt some difficulties in learning in the class because the class of the business school focused on how we can utilize its knowledge in real business situations.

Summary

-      - Cost accounting system is important in giving economic signals to decision-makers. Dropping off a division in red will transfer indirect costs to the other existing divisions, worsen that profitability, and increase indirect cost distribution ratio, resulting in the death spiral.

-      - Single cost pool makes its calculation easy, but generates a problem; cross-subsidization that part of indirect costs are allocated to not-relevant divisions. It is desirable to use relevant cost drivers.

-      - Quantitatively, high-quality cost accounting system can minimize both cross-subsidization and death spiral. Qualitatively, there are two problems, motivation problem, which triggers inter-departmental conflicts and impair the company’s profit, and coordination problem, which impairs usage of tangible or intangible assets at the right types, scales, places, and times. Decision-makers need to design employees’ compensation system and transfer prices to solve the two problems.

Textbook

Fundamentals of Cost Accounting by Lanen, Anderson, and Maher, McGraw-Hill Irwin, 5th edition.

Throughout the past classes I took including the cost accounting, many Japanese seem to struggle to study in the U.S. because there are no “absolutely correct answers” for problems (I think that is very common sense). In Japan, all of workers and students tend to ask questions like ‘What is the correct answer?.’ And if the person to be questioned cannot answer them, all questioners think ‘you are not eligible’ ‘What an ignorant guy to make a question?’. I recognize that pursuing a perfect answer is on the right track, but the problem is the degree to which we pursue the answer and improve the accuracy. In this sense, there is a significant difference between Japan and the other countries. 

1.1 Introduction to Management Accounting（管理会計基礎）

現在通っているビジネススクールでManagement Accountingの授業が終了しました。この授業の学習内容は主にCost Accountingに相当するもので、日本では簿記検定の原価計算や工業簿記にあたります。私は大学院生の時に簿記検定一級を取得したので、ある程度の基本的な内容を理解している状態で授業を受けることができました。しかしながら、ビジネススクールで学ぶ内容は、それを実際にどのように生かすのか、に軸足が置いてあるので、簿記資格を持っていても難しい部分がありました。

学習内容

・原価管理システムは意思決定者に経済的なシグナルを与える点で重要である。赤字を出しているという理由だけで部門を切り落とすと、間接費が存続部門に転嫁され、収益性の悪化、間接費率の増加というDeath Spiralに陥る。

・コストプールを一つにすると計算は簡単になるが、一部の間接費がそれと関連のない部門に配賦されるCross-subsidizationが問題になる。関連があり適切な数のコストドライバーを使用することが望ましい。

・定量的には、Cross-subsidizationとDeath spiralを最小にする原価システムが高い質をもっていると言える。定性的には、間接費配分などで企業全体の利益を損なう部門間の争いのようなMotivation problemと、適切な種類、規模、場所、時間で資産が使用されることを可能にするCoordination problemを解決するため、意思決定者は従業員評価制度、内部転嫁価格を適切に設定するのが望ましい。

教科書

Fundamentals of Cost Accounting by Lanen, Anderson and Maher, McGraw-Hill Irwin, 5th edition.

過去に履修した授業でも感じたことですが、やはりビジネススクールで問われる質問は、「絶対的な正解」がないので、（私はそれが普通だと思うのですが）多くの日本人は苦労しているようです。日本だと、会社員でも学生でも「正解はなにか？」「答えは何か？」と聞きがちで、それに答えられないと、「お前はダメだ」「何もわかっていないのに質問したのか？」と返事が返ってきます。絶対的な答えを求める努力を絶え間なく続けるのは、方向性としては悪くないのですが、どこまで頑張るのか、答えの精度をどこまで高めるのかは、日本とほかの国で大きく異なるように感じました。

0.0 Introduction

This blog is a place where I will describe what I have felt something in daily life.

Things I am interested in are;

-English
-Science
-Stationery
-Journey
-Credit cards
-Money/Investment
-Books

I may add other topics later. I will write all articles in both Japanese and English.

I will also introduce myself to another page.