BCom students immersed in a world of business consulting

By?Dr Andr? Sammartino

January 2012 saw 20 fresh-faced students descend on Bangkok for two weeks of intensive immersion in the world of business consulting. They were here as part of an exciting subject in the University of Melbourne?s Bachelor of Commerce ? the Global Consulting Project. Teams of four students are placed with ?host? firms where they work on ?live? projects with clear deliverables and very tight deadlines.

This subject kicked off in Bangkok back in 2008, and with the cooperation of fantastic host companies the University has returned with a new batch of students every January.? Over the past five years the program has expanded into Hong Kong, Ho Chi Minh City, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Mumbai and Shanghai.

There are several key drivers for the expansion. ?As part of the substantial reinvention of the University of Melbourne?s program offerings ? known as the Melbourne Model ? the University has committed to enhancing the global citizenship of its students, and to engaging more directly with the wider community.? For the Faculty of Business and Economics, that translates to graduating more work-ready, globally aware students, and developing closer ties to multinational firms in the region, especially Australian firms working in exciting Asian hubs such as Bangkok.

Business education needs to be more than a development of high-level functional expertise.? It should prepare students for the globalized business world of dynamic and complex institutional settings, culturally diverse workplaces, and high uncertainties!

The Global Consulting Project offers students a taste of all these elements. University staff work closely with the host firms to identify challenging projects that focus on real problems and opportunities. In previous years, teams have

• undertaken financial assessments of possible in-sourcing arrangements
• process-mapped a host?s key accounting procedure and identified appropriate software solutions, and
• surveyed local university students about their attitudes to prospective employers and made recommendations to the host regarding more effective graduate recruitment strategies.

This year teams were placed in five host organisations ? Aziam Burson Marsteller, Grant Thornton, KPMG, Kraft Foods and Meinhardt Thailand.? Each team negotiated clear deliverables and timelines. The students? final day in their respective workplaces sees a flurry of presentations, typically to very senior management.? The teams then work remotely on completing and delivering their final report and recommendations to the client.

The projects involve extensive engagement with industry-, firm-, and country- specific issues, and students are in a mad dash to get ?up to speed?.? None of this year?s group, for example, had any prior experience of the public relations or the engineering world. Projects typically go well beyond ?data collection? and ??desk-top? number-crunching. The teams are required to conduct interviews with employees and key stakeholders, thus navigating the challenges of unfamiliar language, culture and jargon. The students are pushed well beyond their typical comfort zone!

The student teams are intentionally culturally and functionally diverse. This year, there were ?nine different countries of birth, as many languages, and students from a mix of ?majors? (from accounting and finance, to marketing and actuarial studies). Encountering such unfamiliarity forces considerable introspection upon these students, who are very high-performers in their subjects back in Melbourne.

The University has always believed that these experiences serve as a real ?eye-opener? for students, as they translate their classroom understandings to a new and exciting context.? After completing their projects, students consistently report much higher confidence in their abilities to explain various aspects of the host country (e.g. ?its role in the global economy?, ?the role of local culture in business practices?) and their capacity to operate internationally (e.g. ?ability to identify/evaluate business opportunities? and ?to solve business problems in global context ?).

The students are appreciative of the opportunity to interact with experienced locals and expats.? As Rasa Seng put it ?the GCP allowed me to actively interact with many international industry professionals working in Bangkok, absorbing their worldly experience and different perspectives.?

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Fellow student Amanda Wong declared ??From being so warmly welcomed by my Thai colleagues to putting my university studies to practice in a global context, the GCP has been an incredibly grounding experience. Kap khun ka, Thailand!?

The program is not just a one-way learning experience.? Host firms gain valuable additional human resources for the period. Often the projects are those on an organisation?s ?wishlist?, but which have been set aside due to the inability to dedicate a team of redeployed in-house employees for an adequate time period. A team of high achieving students offers focus and commitment, as well as a fresh, energetic and analytical approach to the project. The hosts also have an ideal opportunity to identify talented potential employees, while also sharing their own experiences of working life in Bangkok.

Meinhardt Thailand took on their first Global Consulting Project team this year. Company director, John Anderson reported ?I was a bit apprehensive at first letting a bunch of young business students into the office ? particularly having to explain to my fellow colleagues what I was thinking. However, as we had a real life project on our hands (BIM Implementation), I felt that there was an opportunity that the student?s presence in our office would force us (Meinhardt) to tackle the issues that we had to date been maybe afraid to face or were at least too busy to consolidate our thoughts on. This decision was vindicated, as at the end of the project, we were all very pleased with what the students had achieved and the recommendations that they made. We feel that we are now well on the way to formulating a real implementation strategy that we can roll out in our office in the near future. ?

The Global Consulting Project provides Melbourne students a step up in the lifelong journey of building the skills to operate in complex, intercultural, international business roles. The intention is to continue and to expand the University?s capacity to offer such experiences, in conjunction with the host firms, the University?s extensive alumni network and organisations such as AustCham. The University of Melbourne aims to back in Bangkok again in January 2013 with a new group of students.

Dr Andr? Sammartino is a Senior Lecturer in International Business & Strategic Management, and Director of the Master of International Business at the University of Melbourne.

If you are interested in finding out more about the program and have a project in mind for a student team, please contact Dr Andr? Sammartino?via?samma@unimelb.edu.au.

Source: http://benews.unimelb.edu.au/2012/bcom-students-immersed-in-a-world-of-business-consulting/

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