AUA Hosts Dartmouth University MBA Students for Case Discussion

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YEREVAN, Armenia – On March 18, 2015, Sergey Tantushyan, Program Chair and Strategy Professor at the American University of Armenia (AUA)’s College of Business and Economics (CBE), co-taught a class with Dartmouth University Tuck Business School Professor Steven Powell and his MBA class. The case was recently developed by Professor Tantushyan, with contribution from Professor Powell. Twenty-two Master of Business Administration (MBA) students from Tuck traveled to Armenia from Hanover, New Hampshire to join the case discussion.

The case deals with Synergy International Systems, a major Armenian-American IT company. The case focuses on Human Resources policies in particular and gave the students the opportunity to assess the company’s success and analyze its particular industry, including its competitors, barriers faced, suppliers, and buyers. The case also describes the products Synergy offers, their unique characteristics, and their competitive advantages, with direct input from company representatives.

During the class, AUA and Tuck students formed consulting teams and spent twenty minutes analyzing the information and brainstorming in order to provide recommendations to Synergy Director for Monitoring and Evaluation David Kocharov and Human Resources Manager Anna Stepanyan, who were also invited to be part of the class.

Steve Powell has been a professor at Tuck since 1987. His research interests include modeling production lines and service sector business processes, as well as how novices formulate models and use models in decision making. He is co-author of Management Science: The Art of Modeling with Spreadsheets, with Ken Baker, and Modeling for Insight, with Bob Batt. He received the 2001 INFORMS Prize for Teaching of OR/MS Practice.

Founded in 1991, the American University of Armenia (AUA) is a private, independent university located in Yerevan, Armenia and affiliated with the University of California. AUA provides a global education in Armenia and the region, offering high-quality, graduate and undergraduate studies, encouraging civic engagement, and promoting public service and democratic values.

 

Sergey Tantushyan, Program Chair and Professor at AUA’s College of Business and Economics

Professor Steven Powell from Dartmouth University’s Tuck School of Business