Enterprise Management Certificate

Applying Integrated Management Perspectives

The EM Certificate has two major Action Learning components: the EM-Lab, which takes place during the students’ first fall term, and the Management Practice Hack-a-Thon, which takes place during the Sloan Innovation Period in the first spring term.

Enterprise Management Lab

The Enterprise Management Lab, or EM-Lab, titled “Introduction to Enterprise Management,” is the first Action Learning component of the EM Certificate.

The EM-Lab, taken during the fall of a student’s first year, is designed to lay the foundation by developing a student’s abilities to apply integrated management perspectives and practices to real business challenges in large organizations.

As with all Action Learning initiatives, EM-Lab combines classroom lectures and faculty mentorship with project work for real companies. EM-Lab host companies represent leaders and innovators in both the for-profit and non-profit sectors. Sample past and current host companies include:

• Amazon
• BD
• BMW
• Boston Symphony Orchestra
• Dell
• Google
• IDEO
• Microsoft
• NPR
• Philips
• Procter & Gamble/Gillette
• SAP
• Verizon
• VMWare

EM-Lab students work in small teams on tightly scoped projects focused on marketing, operations, and/or strategy for host companies. Though projects may be housed in one of these functional areas, students are encouraged to stretch their thinking beyond their projects’ primary functional domain to develop holistic solutions. The goal of every EM-Lab project is to promote an integrated mindset through which students will address and view business issues.

EM-Lab project work typically takes place over an eight-week period starting in October. Students receive project descriptions from participating companies and work with their respective clients for several hours per week. The projects culminate with the student teams creating formal presentations for their client companies that feature the teams’ findings and recommendations. In some cases, student teams may be offered summer internships to continue their project work.

Companies interested in hosting MIT Sloan students for an EM-Lab project should contact Dr. Sharmila C. Chatterjee, Senior Lecturer and Head of Enterprise Management Certificate at schatterjee@mit.edu.

Management Practice Hackathon

The Management Practice Hack-a-Thon is the second Action Learning component of the EM Certificate and is completed by participants in the spring of their first year. It is an innovative competition that enables students to integrate the lessons they’ve learned in the classroom with their business experience to help companies solve their most pressing interdisciplinary challenges.

Collaborating with EM Certificate students on cross-functional problems, host companies gain access to talented system thinkers and contribute to the community by providing critical experiences necessary for developing seasoned professionals. Participating students benefit from real-world experience in a tightly scoped, fast-paced, and exciting four-day competition environment. The Management Practice Hack-a-Thon pits three to four student teams against each other as they compete to solve marketing, operations, or strategy problem. They then present their recommendations to a panel of judges. The goal of the competition—and of the EM Certificate as a whole—is to encourage students to stretch their thinking beyond functional silos to design the best solution to the problem at hand.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THE 2024 HACK-A-THON

In 2017, over a four-day Action Learning Hack-a-Thon, EM Certificate students were challenged with improving the quality of life for seniors.

Click here to read more about the 2017 Hack-a-thon   

In 2018, the Hackathon's business challenge focused on using technology and data to enable early intervention and treatment of opioid use disorder. The 2018 winning concept: Planned Parenthood for substance abuse.