Alumni in profile
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James (Jim) Jennings
Graduate Certificate of Corporate Management 2000
Graduate Diploma of Management 2003 and
Master of Business Administration 2004
Jim Jennings started his career with Coles stacking shelves at their Chatswood supermarket in Sydney. These days, with a Deakin University MBA under his belt, the 40-year-old is in charge of grocery buying for all 700 Coles and Bi-Lo supermarkets nationally.
"I enjoy the diverse and dynamic nature of the retail industry, and the interaction with people," he says of his 22 years in the industry.
"No day is the same, and there is always plenty of opportunities to improve the business through applying learnings from on and off the job."
After completing high school at Newington College in Sydney, Jim was unsure as to what he wanted to do with his life. At 18, he deferred from university for a year to consider his options (which included arts, social work and business), and put in an application for the New South Wales Police Force. In the meantime, he took a job at Coles stacking shelves.
"I did enjoy it-I enjoyed the customer contact and I enjoyed the diversity in the job," he said.
After a couple of months with Coles, Jim was offered a trainee manager position. Jim completed the 12-month traineeship and then took up his first role as a department manager at Sydney's Castle Hill store. Further promotions followed-including grocery manager and assistant manager-before he became manager of the Coles supermarket in the Canberra suburb of Curtin in 1989.
These days Jim is based at the Coles head office in Melbourne where he is the business manager for grocery-food buying nationally.
Jim said he always intended to return to study at some point. The launch of the Coles Institute in 1999 (now known as the Coles Myer Institute-a partnership between the retailer and Deakin managed by the University's commercial arm, DeakinPrime) provided the perfect opportunity to do so. He was granted advanced standing for his previous study at North Sydney TAFE-two years of a Retail Certificate of Management.
"I started with the Graduate Certificate of Corporate Management, but always with a view that you could build that to an MBA," he said.
"I thought it was good to get a broader perspective of what I've learnt on the job-to have the opportunity to look at the total industry and to look at some of the theory behind some of the management practices and principles that we work with."
Over the next five years Jim completed a Graduate Diploma in Management, followed by an MBA which he completed in 2003.
Jim says that he found subjects tackling areas such as leadership and entrepreneurship particularly stimulating.
"But I think the overall benefit of the program was that it just gave a really good rounding and certainly covered off on areas for any business that I hadn't worked in directly such as finance, human resources and statistics-areas that it's really good to understand exactly how they contribute to the business and how I can leverage from those areas more."
According to Jim, Deakin's course materials were of a "very high standard", and interaction with lecturers and fellow students via the Internet was particularly helpful, as were the week-long residential units.
"For a distance ed. student, I felt that there was a fantastic opportunity to develop great networking opportunities with other students and experience a strong culture, particularly through the residential program," he said.
For Jim, finding a balance between work, study and spending time with his family (his wife and four children aged between six and 15, including twin 12-year-old sons) was challenging.
"I think that anything in life that's worthwhile is going to be challenging," he said. "It was really just a case of being well-organised."
"I would strongly recommend distance ed. as a great means of studying with flexibility to manage a full-time job as well. "
