It’s fashionable in this fast-paced era of exponentially accelerating technology to deride the value of a traditional M.B.A. Indeed, some people believe that even an undergraduate degree is not particularly useful for a would-be entrepreneur, and the most vocal adherents of this school of thought are encouraging ambitious young people to drop out of college and immediately start their own businesses.

I could not disagree more.

The M.B.A. degree was created in the early 20th century as “scientific” approaches to business management were first being developed, and gained its foothold in the booming post-war years when rapidly expanding American industries needed a steady supply of new managers to administer their ever-increasing workforces. It saw its apotheosis with a pivot as the financial markets of the late 20th century glorified the arcane financial analysis and marketing skills required of the so-called Masters of the Universe in investment banking and consulting.

When I received my M.B.A. from Columbia University Graduate School of Business in 1983, there wasn’t a single course or activity with the word “entrepreneurship” in its title. Many — if not most — of my classmates were fast-tracked managers from utility companies, large retailers, consumer goods conglomerates and financial firms. But over the past few decades, as companies began to shrink and brand new upstarts like Apple and Microsoft became the most valuable companies in the world, Newsweek identified the country’s most endangered species as the “Bached White Male” corporate middle-manager.

There is no question that the game has changed, fundamentally and irrevocably. As I noted in my closing talk on The Evolution of Success at TEDxWallStreet we are moving at an ever-accelerating pace to a time in which entrepreneurship will be the cornerstone of the business world, large companies will continue to shrink, agile methodologies will replace traditional top-down management, and “career management” will be a personal rather than institutional responsibility.

In response to this core shift in the commercial world, M.B.A. programs have not remained stagnant, as some would seem to imply. Rather, they are themselves pivoting with the changing market, and squarely addressing the new realities.

I serve on the advisory boards of the entrepreneurship programs at both Columbia and Yale, and was mentor of the year at NYU’s Stern School of Business, so I have had a first-hand view of these fundamental transformations.

Originally pioneered by schools like Babson, where entrepreneurship is embedded into every class and activity, and picked up and expanded by top-tier schools such as Stanford, where their online Technology Entrepreneurship course has been taken by more than 25,000 students, academic business programs have adapted to the times. At NYU Stern, the annual business-plan competition organized by the Berkeley Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation is the heart of the program, with more than 500 teams participating in recent years. This is where companies like Pinterest and Comixology found their initial teams and their seed investors.

As The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania notes in its online introduction to its M.B.A., a modern business school degree provides a host of benefits that have great value in the new world of fast-moving, entrepreneurial innovation. In addition to the network and brand-validation that comes along with a high end M.B.A. program, these courses of study provide a true grounding in the “hard skills” of economics, finance, marketing, operations, management and accounting, as well as the “soft skills ” of leadership, teamwork, ethics and communication that are so critical for effectively creating and managing both innovation and growth.

Whether it is internalizing crucial concepts such as the time value of money, or really understanding the core values of agile project management, a 2013 version M.B.A. from a strong program represents to me an indication (along with many other factors) of someone who can potentially make a major, positive contribution to our team.

* Original post can be found on Wall Street Journal Blogs @ http://blogs.wsj.com/accelerators/2013/04/04/david-rose-m-b-a-programs-have-adapted-to-the-startup-model/ *

Sometimes as  enteprenuers  we are encountered of  multi problems  to solve,especially during operation of the business.Managers and excecutive usually face some questions which are risky to answer, even though  they must answer them in a timeframe to  secure operations and the business process which is the matter we are talking about today.

 As  enteprenuers  we always must be full equiped with researches of production,market and financials, whether  they are logical or illogical so as to secure business processes;in other words-being able to solve the questions at the right time.

The simplest way to handle the researches of the important parts of business is by having the question'slog that hinder uncertainity,for example;What are the innovative solution to a problem an how will the solution standout of many? What are the market reqiurements?What amount of money is available to excute the a certain process?

In your reseach you can also have a number of riskies that must be overcomed in every series of processes.Mind you that, a successfull is that include you team in any point of business prcess,as we know that business is not a one man show.

Lastly we must bear this in our minds that;researches are the bidge to innovation unwillingly in a series of processes,wheather  the firm aimed or not aimed to innovation,If the reseaches are there ,are the everything to come out with smart decisions.

This article was posted by David Marcus,President at PayPalin linkedin,and published Under the permission.

Every marketing department these days is under pressure to prove how they’re contributing to the bottom line. And with all the Big Data available now, gathering that proof should be easy, right? Yes and no. A lot of companies are still struggling to determine their marketing return on investment (MROI).The fact is that while advanced analytics is a powerful tool to unearth growth opportunities and increase marketing effectiveness, there is rarely a single model, tool, or answer. There are different approaches for different businesses and problems. We call this approach “smart analytics” because it’s about figuring what analytics makes the most sense for the problem you’re trying to solve.

This video by my colleagues Dennis Spillecke (@dspillecke) and Jesko Perrey breaks down three useful approaches for tracking MROI:

1. Test and learn – Basic but effective, especially in the digital world, where you can experiment a lot without spending a lot of money. The main point here is that companies need to institutionalize this approach so you don't have one-off experiments that don't sustain real learning.

2. Reach-Cost-Quality (RCQ) – A great way of judging return when you don't have enough data, RCQ can also be helpful in predicting future impact of marketing spend

3. Media mix modeling (MMM) – MMM has been around for years, but the birth of Big Data and the ability to integrate new channels (e.g. social media, which we do through a SocialGRP) has allowed this approach to be more relevant. There's a great piece about how MMM needs to modernize: 5 steps to squeeze more ROI from your marketing.

Before the ROI models ever come into play, however, Jesko and Dennis highlight a critical determinant to success, which is the need to ask some critical questions, such as: What’s your goal? Who’s your target? What are you trying to accomplish? It’s surprising how often this step is overlooked or short-changed. Without sufficient thought about good questions (and the best answers to them), the result is often confused action, irrelevant data, and, ultimately, a poor return on investment.

Starting with the right questions is the best investment you can make.

What questions are you asking to improve your marketing?

Learn more about ROI and other topics on the Chief Marketing & Sales Officer Forum site, and follow us @McK_CMSOForum. And please follow me @davidedelman.