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Topical Engineering Issues for MBA Dissertation Topic

jamiedgwilson
Hi All, I'm currently studying for an MBA and trying to determine a suitable Dissertation topic. I have some areas within my own organisation that could potentially be used but I wanted to get input from a wider range of engineers to hopefully make any research I do relevant to more people. Clearly it needs to be related to a business topic but I want the link to engineering to be as strong as possible to make it interesting to me. 


I'd love to hear what you all see as the engineering industries current business related challenges or anything you wish you'd have the time to research more on.


Appreciate any inputs. 


Thanks


n.b. For context, I've an MEng in Aero-Mechanical Engineering, Chartered with IMechE, and around 10yrs industry experience across Defence, Nuclear and Automotive industries.
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    I think you may have slightly misunderstood my suggestion. M&A is not the topic, it is how to deal with the result. As it happens my brother is an M&A specialist Lawyer, to him it is the deal which counts, in other words the money and contracts. To me it is management change which inevitably happens AFTER the merger. For example companies may use different IT systems, trying to merge these inevitably is very difficult. The question to address is why merge them at all, because the employes know how to run the business with what they have. It is only the new management (the aquiring company) which needs some view, and this can readily be obtained with much less upheaval of the aquiree. In my example, spare parts delivery to a customer went from next day via DHL, to up to 2 months via a warehouse on a different continent with often zero stock level. The question is, why make such a change, and did it save money? It certainly upset the customers. Was it to make everything the same for same sake (and it cannot have worked well for the existing business) or a properly taken and researched decision? I see chains of bad decisions and changes for no reason. Why would managers do this, and I think the underlying reason might be that the Managers cannot adapt to change! This is surely very bad for everyone, and one of the reasons why you want an MBA, to see change in a rather different light. I hope that helps.
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    I think you may have slightly misunderstood my suggestion. M&A is not the topic, it is how to deal with the result. As it happens my brother is an M&A specialist Lawyer, to him it is the deal which counts, in other words the money and contracts. To me it is management change which inevitably happens AFTER the merger. For example companies may use different IT systems, trying to merge these inevitably is very difficult. The question to address is why merge them at all, because the employes know how to run the business with what they have. It is only the new management (the aquiring company) which needs some view, and this can readily be obtained with much less upheaval of the aquiree. In my example, spare parts delivery to a customer went from next day via DHL, to up to 2 months via a warehouse on a different continent with often zero stock level. The question is, why make such a change, and did it save money? It certainly upset the customers. Was it to make everything the same for same sake (and it cannot have worked well for the existing business) or a properly taken and researched decision? I see chains of bad decisions and changes for no reason. Why would managers do this, and I think the underlying reason might be that the Managers cannot adapt to change! This is surely very bad for everyone, and one of the reasons why you want an MBA, to see change in a rather different light. I hope that helps.
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