Smith CIBER Sponsors Thirteen MBA Students for the Global Business Project

CIBER also sponsored thirteen Smith MBA students to participate in the Global Business Project (GBP), which is organized jointly by a group of CIBERs across the United States. After initial training in the TEAM Focus consulting model, they worked virtually until they traveled to perform and finalize their consulting project in-country. This year’s projects were in Brazil, China, Japan and Thailand. The Smith School CIBER leveraged its Thai Study Program, funded by the Royal Thai Embassy, to launch a GBP consulting program in Thailand. Two of the three GBP projects in Thailand were organized in collaboration with our partner Burapha University. They involved: 1) advising a radio communications company on developing a corporate social responsibility strategy that would also help increase sales; and 2) making recommendations to an island municipality near one of Thailand’s largest ports on ways to implement user fees or other revenue-generating strategies to mitigate the environmental damage caused by the current heavy barge traffic around the island. The third project involved working with the country’s largest family-owned retail and business development company on building a succession plan.

GBP projects in China included: Westinghouse, Lord (an adhesives manufacturing company), Syngenta (a world-leading agri-business committed to sustainable agriculture) and Google in China; and in Japan, a Sake brewing company.

Smith MBA 2012 candidate Ananda Kirana, who participated on the Westinghouse project, says that his GPB experience “…was fabulous! I worked with Westinghouse electric in China and to be honest, I think it was the best thing I participated in all year last year. Not only did I get the opportunity to discover what it is like working in another geographical market and immersing myself in another culture, but I also developed my skills as a professional, whether that be knowing how to work virtually with a team or knowing how to prepare a power point presentation for top level executives. I got a little taste of what it was like to be a consultant.”

Furthermore, Ananda reports that “the client was extremely pleased with our work and they are currently finding ways to implement our recommendations into their China strategy as we speak. I am actually going to be flying with my team to Tokyo in late October to present our recommendations to the CEO and the other top leaders of Westinghouse Asia, which is fantastic! I am definitely looking forward to that!”