Daniel Bonatti, from Newcastle, north of Sydney, had heard work colleagues question the benefit in him studying an MBA on a path to a future managerial or executive position.
However, despite some scepticism surrounding him, the recent Chifley Business School, Torrens University Australia, MBA graduate says the decision to pursue his MBA was “an easy one.”
“Now that I’ve finished, I know the practical value the course has given me from day one,” Daniel, an engineer and architectural designer, said.
“I can see the intrinsic link between my two areas of expertise, engineering and architecture, plus appreciate the new disciplines I was exposed to.”
Daniel runs his own business, Leida Constructions, an accredited building certification and inspection consultancy.
He describes his work as being very technical in nature and the MBA made some immediate returns in how he manages his consultancy, especially from a management and administration perspective. He had decided that his own consultancy required a job re-design and his MBA studies provided an immediate boost.
Daniel says initially his MBA studies felt like “walking through a forest, with so much reading to do before you even got to the question”, though the learning progression was constant and very satisfying. He says the regular assessment submissions kept the learning momentum going.
An area he received great help in from Torrens University was in problem solving.
“The MBA helped me with developing strategies for problem solving, especially in addressing questions like, Are you diversifying? Are you focusing? Are you developing your leadership? It helped me understand terminology, have a plan, and develop the strategy.
“The Torrens MBA brings together a lot of different disciplines including psychology, finance, economics and accounting, legal, business administration, strategy, marketing and HR. It opened up my world from a business understanding and strategy sense.”
Collaborative Group Work Brings Excitement
Studying part-time was a very collaborative way of learning from Daniel’s experience. He found himself working on group assignments with students from around Australia and overseas.
“The group work definitely took me out of my comfort zone and made it exciting,” he said.
“Overall, the assessment was a good mix of individual and group tasks. We were each encouraged to bring our own work experience and skills to tackle problems.
“The collaboration was occurring with students all over which made it interesting, and we were all speaking the same language.”
Daniel’s online course was complemented by ‘flex’ units which allowed him to meet with other students and work on challenges for Australian companies looking to enter new export markets like South Africa and Brazil.
One subject area which really jumped out to Daniel in his MBA was economics. “The economics really grabbed me especially the technical part of it with all the graphs. I hadn’t been exposed to it before. It was challenging, but so worth doing.”
When asked where his career will take him in five years’ time, Daniel says possibly holding an executive position in building and engineering design, perhaps in one of the big councils or for a multinational builder.
A final word of advice from Daniel for someone choosing an MBA? “Look for one like Torrens that does business analytics,” he said. “I found it of great benefit.”
