Vladimir Valchuk
Corporate Manager
Microsoft

"Due to circumstances and the initiative of IBR I managed to join this programme. I call it circumstances because the fact that I participated in a promotion seminar of IBR in May 2001 was of pure accidental nature. It predetermined my choice of programme, a programme that has a unique format and advanced interactive technologies as well as own work. My expectations before and after I started the MBA differed tremendously. Even after a year I was purely motivated by my carrier and higher salary expectations. I didn't even think about benefits that the MBA might have for my employer. I was so mistaken when thinking about after-effects not the reasons for something happening.

Now I have totally different feelings. Firstly, at the certain stage I began to feel the real breakthrough. This feeling I had can be compared to water eroding the peak of a dam away step by step. Finally this leads to a complete collaps of the dam with power of water flooding the surroundings. This is exactly what happened to me. Today I know that sole experience means very little if it is not structured and you cannot think in business processes. Only when you are coached gradually to a deeper understanding of structures and business processes - what happened in the IBR MBA to me - something can grow what I would call wisdom.

Let's take another analogy: there is no need to add twenty times three. You better may use simple rules of multiplication and multiply one time twenty by three in order to receive the same result. With business it is exactly the same. You either sit there and think long, or your have structures and processes that help you to quickly solve new and unknown challenges. It's a pity that I did not started studying earlier.

On the other hand, I needed own experience how to apply business tools and instruments in real business set ups. It is impossibe for a business school to teach the "how". But IBR gave us again and again the opportunity to experiment which led to self-confidence independent of the level of difficulty. I am sure that analytical and problem solving skills as well as knowledge I obtained serve as a competitive advantage for both my company and myself. Before participating in the IBR MBA, I was guided by intuition and knowledge gained on the job. Today, I feel equipped to be professional and much more effective. I always thought I was a professional but that was mistaken - it was more of amateur efforts. I had to comprehend many things, which took essential time, the way I was doing my work could not be called optimal. So, now my work gained quality and speed (unfortunately, due to some strange paradox the workload does not decrease). Passing on to objective evaluations, I must state that this summer I received an offer under very favorable conditions to stay in this company for three more years. This offer is a qualitative indicator - I am not a surplus at labor market - my experience and knowledge are required by my company not only at my current position but also at the Ukrainian market."