Global Business Practicum, Kuala Lumpur and Beijing, July 2009
In July 2009, 40 Melbourne GSM students representing a range of programs and nationalities, successfully completed the second Global Business Practicum subject. Following two days of intensive preparatory seminars in Melbourne, 20 students departed for Beijing and 20 students to Kuala Lumpur accompanied by academic group leaders from the Department of Management & Marketing, Dr Helen Hu to Beijing and Dr Adam Barsky to KL. The students then spent an intensive 14 days completing a challenging real-life project presented to them by their host company. The students, in teams of four, worked hard, often well into the night to complete their project. The program included a welcome break at the weekend with organised sightseeing tours. The two weeks culminated in the students presenting their project results together with a draft report to senior company executives on the final day. With feedback from the companies as well as the academics, the students then returned to Melbourne and had one month to produce their final report, which constituted a major element of the subject's assessment. The companies with whom we partnered for the Winter 2009 GBP were:
Beijing: Cadbury, Mercer, Yatsen Consulting, GHD
Kuala Lumpur: Talent 2, Ernst & Young, Impiana Hotel & Spa, GHD, DDB Communications.
Read about the personal experiences of the students and companies through their words and pictures:
Student Testimonials
Cecilia Chan, Master of Management, Mercer, Beijing
Amber Jain, MBIT, Ernst & Young, KL
Ganesh Gopalakrishnan, GHD, KL
Cecilia Chan, Master of Management Accounting student, Mercer, Beijing
"The GBP brought GSM offerings to me from another valuable perspective. The varied management degrees and subjects (e.g. strategy, HR, accounting, finance, marketing...) became a resourceful toolkit from which our project team could tap into as part of offering the end product to our client (host company). Moreover, throughout the intensive two week window, we learned to manage team dynamics, time, scope, stakeholder expectations and workload distribution in successfully delivering on our project. I would recommend the GBP to any student who is truly looking to apply and test out their textbook theory in a professional and international context."
Check out Cecilia's video of a typical GBP day on YouTube as well as her presentation about the benefits of the GBP and her daily timetable at Mercer.
Amber Jain , MBIT student, Ernst & Young , Kuala Lumpur
"There is a popular saying “Reading thousands of books is not as good as travelling thousand of miles”. After participating in Global Business Practicum and travelling 4,000 miles to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, I can’t agree more to the above statement.
Right from the pre-departure seminar to final project report submission, every new day came with a new experience and new set of learning. GBP gave me an opportunity to apply my theoretical knowledge to real world business problems while learning international work practices. It also helped me to enhance my several skills such as communication, networking, cross-cultural skills, team, time and stress management, just to name a few.
The University also organized a one-day trip to Malacca which was quite interesting and gave us a peek into history and culture of Malaysia. The trip also came as a stress buster, during which we could forget our project work for a day and enjoy the scenic beauty of Malaysia. GBP also gave me an opportunity to make several new friends and learn about their culture, way of living and their home country. With the help of complete guidance and support from faculty and professors, we all had a great experience and successful trip. Personally, I would highly recommend this subject to all the students who are willing to work hard, like to work in teams and enjoy ‘real-world’ business challenges. GBP is just not another subject; it’s an ‘experience’!"
Check out AJ's photo montage of his experience.
Ganesh Gopalakrishnan, MBIT student, GHD, Kuala Lumpur
“The Global Business Practicum (GBP) subject gave me the right platform to gain hands on experience and a remarkable opportunity to assess the knowledge and professional skills I have acquired so far and helped me to handle more complex real life situations.
The subject also helped me to get a better understanding of what international business is all about and provided me with vast networking opportunities. It was indeed a rich and interesting experience to meet and work with new people from diverse background and know more about their professional and social culture. With a strong orientation towards personal development, I confidently say that the subject is perfectly designed to bring the best out of every student who enjoys working in a challenging environment.”
Company Testimonials
“We were very impressed with the calibre of students. They were proactive and ambitious.” Leigh Howard, Director South Asia, Talent 2
“As management students, they were able to grasp and understand the engineering industry very well and offer an independent ideas and suggestions for improvement in our business practices.” GHD Engineering, Kuala Lumpur
“The students were willing to practice and eager to learn. They had good business insight and were result oriented”
Jason Qui, Learning & Development Manager, Cadbury China.