A Roadmap for Success: MAP goes to Durban!
What do Wendy Luhabe, Romeo Khumalo, Noeleen Maholwana Sangqu and Vusi Thembekwayo have in common? They are among the thousands of successful South African businesspeople who have graduated from Wits Business School’s Management Advancement Programme (MAP), and now the popular programme will be available in Durban!
What do Wendy Luhabe, Romeo Khumalo, Noeleen Maholwana Sangqu and Vusi Thembekwayo have in common?
They are among the thousands of successful South African businesspeople who have graduated from Wits Business School’s Management Advancement Programme (MAP), and now the popular programme will be available in Durban!
Since 1979, this flagship executive education programme has opened the door for thousands of managers to advance their careers to senior level - and is still going strong. “In fact, enrolments for MAP have grown exponentially because of its solid reputation and results driven orientation, and there is not a corner in the world where you will not bump into a WBS MAP graduate”, says Dr Renee Horne, Director of the MAP Programme at Wits Business School (WBS).
“We live in an intensely competitive world of business, and managers need to ask themselves: what can I do to get that competitive edge? MAP has been designed specifically to accelerate the careers of those individuals who have managerial experience but perhaps lack general business knowledge,” Horne says.
Even though MAP has been going for 40 years, the programme has kept pace with trends and WBS has continually updated and redesigned MAP to reflect a changing global environment and new business and career skill demands.
An exciting new development is the introduction of an optional global study tour to give students international exposure at one of WBS’s several partner schools around the world and to expose the students to international business environments. While not compulsory, students currently have the option of being placed for two weeks during the duration of the MAP course in London, New York or Sao Paulo, with numerous local business school and corporate visits planned.
Another development is that MAP now articulates into WBS’s Postgraduate Diploma in Business Administration (PDBA) for students who want to continue their studies through academic channels. “As many of our students do!” says Horne. A PDBA is both a popular stand-alone post graduate management qualification, but is also a key precursor degree to the rigorous MBA qualification, with many shared modules between the two courses.
What business skills do MAP students learn? The core modules include all the ‘usual suspects’ of business principles: human resource (HR) management, accounting and finance, economics, marketing, operations and strategy, but presented in such a way that they can be immediately transferred into your daily tasks, which is essential for the pressurised and demanding environment that is the norm of today’s workplace.
“The programme targets those who have at least four to five years of functional managerial experience, but are lacking in general business knowledge,” explains Lehlohonolo Mmolotsane, MAP Programme Manager at WBS. “An example is a person with a BSc Engineering, but no business qualification. Graduates of MAP emerge with a wider perspective on the various functions of a business, and therefore more confident in their decision-making skills.”
“The beauty of MAP is that it not only provides students with a holistic view of how a business functions, but it also offers ‘real life’ exercises which managers can go and apply immediately in their own office situations. It’s not just about the qualification but the critical knowledge and skills acquired.”
“MAP equips managers to navigate a business environment that is constantly evolving,” says Horne. “It has been designed to provide a holistic grounding in business which takes into account innovation, disruption, digitisation and other developments that are shaping our business world.”
“WBS is thrilled to be offering this flagship management programme to the growing commercial environment of KwaZulu-Natal. There is both a need and demand in the context of the burgeoning ocean economy for managers with the skillsets needed to take advantage of the many opportunities this region is presenting,” says Horne.
MAP 2019 is taking place in Durban from 12 February to 21 June 2019.
For more details, please contact Khosi Nkosion011 7173628 or Khosi.Nkosi@wits.ac.za
