Prof Raymond Zammuto a Performer in the Class & Favorite Subject "Strategic Management"

Long awaited to write something about prof Ray Zummuto a prof with a composed and blissful look. At first sight his panache strikes you, the second time his bass voice strikes you, and the third time its his bliss and calmness which strikes you.


I had a liking to do strategic management from very early on. Because, this subject for me out of everything else was most close to reality and day to day business life. Due to this desire,early in my 2nd semester I entered the 1st strategic management class. The person on the podium was none other than Ray himself, taking his first class after coming down from colorado.


The first thing which i noticed was how enthusiastic he was . He expected the same from the class when he said "i wanna see more cheer in the class room, this is the start of the semester...". Slowly minutes ticked by and he moved on to what the strategic management was going to cover and the capstone simulations which would be done parellaly over the next 12 weeks .

Half way through his 1st class it was apparent that this class of his is going to be a rewarding one in my entire uni life. However his thoughts in that class also indicated that I have to be on the top of my game to maximize in his class. For instance he just flashed porche's suv in one slide and raised the question why the luxury car manufacturer entered the suv market? why would anybody do that with such a successful brand??...brrr silence in the class...

While still the class i was making up my mind whether to wait for one more semester to get the maximum out of his class. Just when i was contemplating i noticed that in the seat next to me there was only slides, the bloke who was there had already left the class. The bloke's decision was much quicker than mine. He had vanished without a trace. So after understanding the level at which the thoughts were coming, I made up my mind that my last sem is going to be when i would do his subject. There after i hopped into his class once in a while in the next 12 weeks to follow.

Fast forward next semester Feb 2007, we got to know that Ray is not going to take strategic management during the sem starting August 2007. So i had to do the subject during the semester starting feb 07 (recently finished one). Whether i was at the top or bottom of the game was out of question this time around, because the world wasn't going to wait for me to step up. Thus started the 12 weeks of glory in the best subject i have done in melb uni. Everyday I would go with lot of expectations to the class and Ray would just raise the bar. He would just make the class feel awed with spontaneity in whatever he says.

The subject focussed on business level strategy(strategic positioning, fit,competitive advantage, strategic capabilities, intended and emergent strategy) and branched out to corporate level strategy( m & a, globalisation). My capstone simulation game as part of the subject had a unique mix of gender as i was the only male in a group of five. We had to compete with another 4 teams in the class with the winning team getting maximum marks followed by he rest of the teams at the end of week 7. We started of with a bang and slowly lost market share and bounced back in the end. Rays weekly capstone deebrief was a much awaited session at the end of the class.

The subject's weekly readings where some mind numbing HBS articles. I had fallen prey to some of the thinkers. And how Ray described those in the class. Just for an example Porter's view point on operational effectiveness: that its not enough just to have effectiveness in operations because competitors can easily immitate that, but rather what is required is a set of activities which are done differently from competitors or choosing a different set of activities to provide a unique mix of value. Just as Toyota or Dell. The way porter has described this point just blew me over. Pankaj Ghemawats article on globalization, the level 5 leadership article, Dr Clayton Christensen article on 'Disruptive technologies: Catching the wave' were a pure pleasure to understand.

To top all my pleasure with this subject and lectures by Ray, i had to somehow get a distinction in the subject. It seemed unlikely for me as our capstone performance didn't earn our group as much marks as we would have liked. However with the obsession i had for this subject i had gone to the exam like never before with all ideas at my finger tips.The result .....my 1st distinction ever in strategic management...holla...

I can go on typing so many thing which Ray had told in the class which i liked so much, because i started admiring him. But to end my longest post the last point which he told in the last class would be most suitable. Most of the capstone teams had played the simulation without wanting to take much risk: ie not wanting to bomb the virtual company run by the group. Hence whenever a small strategic risk failed every team jumped in changing it in the very next round.
For this Ray argued that --its not always the case of taking wrong risks, rather it is a case of others (other teams' companies) performance having a baring on the risk which one has taken. May be if the risk was sustained a little bit more it would have ended up fruitful, but we as humans soon come to a conclusion that the risk has falied the moment we some negative results.
So he said that risk in life as well as business with an initial set back doesn't mean that the risk has failed...take more risks..

i was never out of sorts...
with the subject and his immortal thoughts...:)