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Emerging technology and innovative models for leadership.

Like those in nearly all sectors and industries, higher education leaders have been watching the rise of emerging technology and giving careful consideration as to how it will impact their environment in the years ahead. “In a sense, we’ve been telling our students for the past decade or so that AI is coming,” says Prof. Loredana Padurean, Associate Dean at the Asia School of Business, a collaboration between MIT Sloan School of Management and Malaysia’s Bank Negara. “But now that AI is here, our industry is not really prepared to deal with it. Many of our students have a higher level of expertise than most schools are ready for.”

In October 2018, MIT announced a new school—the Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing, which will address the global opportunities and challenges presented by the ubiquity of computing—across industries and academic disciplines—and by the rise of artificial intelligence. In Malaysia, the Asia School of Business is focusing on building the skills and tools that future leaders will need to navigate in times of volatility and disruption, as well as the moral leadership to answer the ethical questions that lie ahead.

“We’ve created a new concept of defining skills as smart skills and sharp skills, formerly known as soft skills and hard skills,” says Padurean, to recognize that bundling important and highly-sophisticated skills such as managing complex environments, leading people through change, and building diverse teams, into a bucket of ‘soft skills’ does not really do them justice. Another issue is re-setting expectations that hard skills, once learned, will not carry you for life. “The concept of hard is static, versus sharp or sharpening which is dynamic and ongoing,” she says. Continual learning will be vital, because technical skill requirements are changing so fast.

Read the full article here.
This article was originally published on MIT Technology Review

This article is a continuation of a previous article introducing the field of political economy and its role in the energy industry. Read it here. 

Renato Lima de Oliveira, an Assistant Professor of Management at Asia School of Business, studies the connections between political actors and businesses, focusing on the energy sector.  While much of his research centers on the oil and gas industry, he also sees a need for countries to transition to renewable energy sources. He believes both government and traditional energy producers have a part to play in this transition. 

“The good thing is that renewable technology has advanced so much that it’s the cheapest alternative,” he notes, adding that recent bids for large-scale solar have been as low as USD $0.03 per kWh.  But he also notes that economics alone cannot fuel the transition from a fossil-fuel based economy to one focused on alternative energy. The government also has a responsibility to design cost-effective policies that stimulate the new sector. 

He cites Germany as a prime example. The country has a high amount of installed solar capacity despite its relatively low level of sunlight. Political factors are what drove the solar industry to develop the way it has.  Alternative energy companies also have resources at their disposal to influence their position in politics, including advocacy and coalition-building. 

Coalitionbuilding in particular can take interesting forms. For example, the Trump administration in the U.S. has favored the coal industry, leading to a coalition between shale gas and solar producers. Both parties saw the coal industry as a common, and less favorable, enemy, making for an unlikely alliance.  In Malaysia, the government has publicly pledged to increase the share of renewables in the country’s energy mix. Malaysia is home to one of the largest manufacturers of solar panels and receives a high level of sunlight.

Given these factors, it would seem that the solar industry is here to stay.  But Renato cautions that without a political coalition, pledges may go unfulfilled and pro-renewable policies may not endure over time.  Developing these “nonmarket strategies” is at the heart of his research. He answers questions such as, what kind of government support mechanisms can facilitate innovation? Why does Indonesia have a certain business environment? Why can’t Malaysia escape the middle-income trap?  He claims each of these economic questions has a political explanation. 

From MIT to Malaysia 

When Renato first discovered the striking similarities between Malaysia and his native Brazil, he became intrigued.  The two countries had a similar per-capita GDP over time as well as a similar level of oil production. Both had state-owned oil companies that were required to invest in local manufacturing and innovation. These similarities prompted him to include Malaysia in his research on energy policy and economics. 

He visited ASB just after the school was founded. At the time, the first class of students had not yet enrolled, so he spent his time as a visiting researcher talking to industry experts and poring over documents in the archival library.  After receiving his Ph.D., Renato entertained multiple job offers, but came to Malaysia because he loved its people and relished the chance to help build a business school from the ground up.  

“ASB is a transformative project,” he says, because the school focuses on teaching that is not just theoretical but has practical component.  He also resonated with the school’s mission to research and reflect on the challenges of doing business in emerging economies. In particular, he sees the central role of politics as a defining characteristic of emerging economies. 

You cannot do anything in ASEAN without thinking about politics,” he notes. Malaysia is shaped by the presence of GLCs, Myanmar is affected by its new democracy, and Vietnam’s economy is changing under a one-party regime.  He witnessed this firsthand when advising two students completing their Summer Associate Program.

The students worked at a large bank in Myanmar at which there was little bureaucratic structure in place. At the time, the rate of credit growth was high in the country and the central bank’s policies were changing fast.  Renato helped the students put together a report for the company that would allow it to adapt to its changing circumstances. One of the students, Eizaz Azhar, says that he landed his post-MBA job in part because of the report. 

Renato believes that helping students think through these political scenarios, both in and outside of the classroom, is a crucial part of his job. “My students come to understand how political actors affect the business environment,” he notes, “as well as how business organizations can change their political reality.” 

Uber has dominated the taxi market since its inception, delivering 5.2 billion rides globally in 2018. But in China, they do things differently. While Uber’s venture into China in 2013 flopped, losing around $2 billion in three years; its competitor, DiDi, acquired Uber’s China operations and is now considered one of the world’s most valuable startups. As DiDi looks to expand into new markets, as well as developing driverless car technology, it’s eyeing up top-caliber business professionals to bring into the company. But what does it take for MBAs to land a job at a tech giant like DiDi?

A renowned degree based in Asia

Career success in his home country of Brazil, with a top role at Anheuser Busch Inbev, wasn’t enough for Diego Benito, and he knew he wanted an international career. “I always had this feeling that I should work somewhere else,” Diego remembers, “And leverage the impact I can have through working in other communities and societies.” The MBA at Asia School of Business (ASB) in Kuala Lumpur offered exactly this—an international experience in a powerful growing economy, combined with the reputation of MIT Sloan with which the school is affiliated.

The school’s reputation attracted excitement and attention from employers like DiDi, who constantly searched for talent with experience in Asia. This reflects quite a shift, Diego notes, from previously US-centered recruitment. “Historically there has been an exodus to the West—to places such as Silicon Valley. This is changing, with schools like ASB preparing students to work in this [Asian] environment,” Diego says.

Practical, hands-on experience

Pursuing an MBA can mean taking one-to-two years out of work to focus on education, leaving a gap in students’ resumes. For MBA students like Diego, the Action Learning Program at Asia School of Business—five consulting projects over the course of the program—ensures that students have consistent hands-on experience throughout their MBA program. “It’s not like you take two years off your career—you are constantly accelerating and widening your career horizons,” Diego stresses.

Diego’s projects exposed him to the exciting Southeast Asia tech market, which is growing to meet the demands of an increasingly online population. Placements at Traveloka, a travel-booking startup based in Indonesia, and Zarla, an e-commerce platform in Myanmar, found Diego working on-site to create real solutions to the problems that these organizations faced in their expansion.

Part of this experience was dealing with the daily challenges that businesses face in this evolving market, and learning how to make decisions that address these challenges systematically. One course in system dynamics, during the four weeks that all MBA students spend at MIT Sloan, gave Diego an understanding of how to make decisions with a wider goal in mind, rather than tackling problems one-by-one. For an employer like DiDi, viewing the bigger picture in a problem-solving scenario is invaluable.

Understanding the complexities of an Asian market

The rate at which the Asian economy is growing and changing was one of the big draws for Diego to study at Asia School of Business. “Asia has the biggest opportunities right now, [with] millions of people emerging from poverty into the middle classes. These people want to consume, they want access to things they didn’t have before,” Diego points out. DiDi’s mass appeal comes from its multiple platforms, offering bike sharing and bus services, alongside ride hailing, all through one app.

A sophisticated understanding of the complexities of Asian economies is crucial to gaining market share. The American model, as Uber will attest to, doesn’t work. Working and consulting with regional businesses during the Action Learning Program gave Diego a practical understanding of how problems differ from country to country. “You have to learn how to adapt and localize the product,” Diego underlines.

Read the full article here.
This article was originally published on BusinessBecause, a network helping MBA students make connections before, during and after their MBA.

ALOR SETAR: Sixty students and 20 teachers from 10 schools in Kedah participated in the first Zero2Maker (Z2M) program, aimed at creating future innovators and entrepreneurs in the state and the country. Organised by the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Centre (IEC) of Asia School of Business (ASB) and Green Growth Asia Foundation (GGAF) together with Menteri Besar Kedah Incorporated (MBI Kedah) and the Kedah Education Department, the Z2M program is aimed to catalyse entrepreneurship development by building 21st century skills and enhancing exposure to innovation and technology.

The Z2M program is designed to take the students through experiential learning to stimulate creativity, technical skills, communication abilities, and self-confidence. In the pilot, 60 students and 20 teachers from 10 secondary schools in Kedah took part in a three-day workshop from May 14 and went through interactive activities covering the basics of creativity, design and product fabrication. Kedah Menteri Besar Dato’ Seri Haji Mukhriz Tun Mahathir, who is patron to the program, said he was delighted that the state was chosen to pilot such meaningful program that also sync with state agenda in improving the education system in the state

“We hope to see changes in our youth. We want them to be a thinker and a doer and this program can teach them to be more creative and innovative. I see the potential in the Z2M program and hoped that it will be expanded to more schools in Kedah in future, so that more students can gain benefits from it,” said Dato’ Seri Haji Mukhriz. Following the successful workshop, a state-wide competition will be held in November to bring together all 10 schools and their students as they showcase their commitment to creativity and innovation. The program is planned to be expanded nationwide as well as to Indonesia and Thailand if the pilot is successful.

Designed, developed and delivered by ASB’s Professor Rajesh Nair, the Z2M program is also part of a research initiative by ASB to determine how the exposure to these types of training and early interventions of “making” and “tinkering” programs develop the innovation and entrepreneurship skills, as well as shape the attitude of youths. “The idea behind this program is to expose students at an early age to things like applied science, technology and design to try to change their life trajectory. We want to help build self-confidence through the program, ultimately hoping that the program had helped to realize their hidden (full) potential as they become young adults,” said Professor Nair.

“We will use this pilot as a model to scale the initiative to other schools in the state and neighbouring countries through the Indonesia-Malaysia-Thailand Growth Triangle (IMT-GT). The target is to scale the program to 25 public universities, 250 schools and 25,000 young people by mid-2020,” said Dato’ Dr. Dionysius S.K. Sharma, Executive Director of GGAF. Asian Development Bank (ADB) is a key supporter of the research reflecting their commitment in assisting countries in Asia and the Pacific to achieve the goal of quality education for all.

“Changing communities from the grassroots level requires interventions like this that transforms children to become innovators and entrepreneurs in the future. This in turn enables them to solve problems, start-up companies and create more jobs,” said Christopher Morris, Head of NGO and Civil Society Center at ADB. MaGIC plays a vital role as a program partner and intends to continue working with the Kedah schools through its MaGIC Ecosystem Builder initiative to further build an innovation-driven entrepreneurship ecosystem in these schools. This will further aid to sustain and scale the entrepreneurship movement in Malaysian Schools and Universities.

Dzuleira Abu Bakar, CEO of MaGIC shared, “We must inculcate a problem solving mindset at a grassroots level which is why we are thrilled to be a partner for Z2M. We have provided 10 units of Z2M ‘Makerlab In A Box’ starter kits that contains tools like 3D printers, electronic supplies and other materials for these students to kickstart a maker lab in their respective schools.”

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For more information, please contact:

Pek Ee Siew
Director, Marketing
Asia School of Business
E: eesiew.pek@asb.edu.my
M: +6012-4353095

About Asia School of Business
Asia School of Business (ASB) was established in 2015 by Bank Negara Malaysia in collaboration with MIT Sloan Management to be a premier global business school, a knowledge and learning hub infused with regional expertise, insights and perspectives of Asia and the emerging economies. ASB is committed to develop transformative and principled leaders who will contribute towards advancing the emerging world.

About Green Growth Asia Foundation
Green Growth Asia Foundation is a nonprofit organisation that provides a platform for leadership, thought and action in responding to sustainability challenges in Asia. It is achieving this through cutting edge ‘green growth’ programs that drive economic prosperity within a socially inclusive context, underpinned by a strong sense of responsibility towards the environment and advanced through education for sustainable development initiatives.

Our work is undertaken strategically and this is guided by our Green Growth Strategic Framework (GGSF), which sets out our vision and goals together with our method of working. We have a special focus on Education for Sustainable Development and our Eco-Schools Programme and Young Reporters for the Environment are good examples of our programs under this pathway.

To learn more about GGAF, please visit greengrowthasia.org

About Menteri Besar Kedah Incorporated
Menteri Besar Kedah Incorporated (MBI Kedah) tasked with driving progressive changes in the state’s core and ancillary sectors, expending state income through high impact businesses and promoting partnership in strategic areas as well as ensuring the sustainable growth and the development of Kedah Darul Aman.

To learn more about MBI Kedah, please visit mbikedah.com.my

About Asian Development Bank
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is committed to achieving a prosperous, inclusive, resilient, and sustainable Asia and the Pacific, while sustaining its efforts to eradicate extreme poverty. It assists its members and partners by providing loans, technical assistance, grants, and equity investments to promote social and economic development. Established in 1966, it is owned by 68 members—49 from the region.

To learn more about ADB, please visit adb.org

About Malaysian Global Innovation and Creativity Centre
MaGIC bridges together start-ups, corporates, investors, academics, and the government to create a vibrant and collaborative entrepreneurship ecosystem that will build sustainable industries, able to navigate challenges of tomorrow and stay competitive in economies of the future. MaGIC propels the nation’s economic transformation by moulding Malaysia’s next generation of entrepreneurs to generate future-ready solutions.

As one of the building blocks, MaGIC works to create and equip these exponential entrepreneurs with the necessary tools, skills and capabilities to succeed; creating an open and collaborative environment with key ecosystem players to build sustainable future industries; and connecting new ideas to capital and markets more effectively. MaGIC is also committed to propel the aspiration of Malaysia’s Social Enterprise Blueprint, drive the need for systemic change, create an enabling ecosystem as well as cultivate and champion impact driven entrepreneurship regionally.

Renato Lima de Oliveira, an Assistant Professor of Management at Asia School of Business, thinks more businesspeople should be thinking about politics.   “My course prepares students to become CEOs,” he says. “When you’re in a position to allocate investments, both over time and among different countries, you need to consider more sources of risk, including political risk.” 

Renato teaches two courses at ASB. One is focused more broadly on political economy and its applications in business. The other focuses specifically on the energy industry. In his political economy course, he teaches students how to understand and articulate the rules, both written and unwritten, under which businesses operate in different jurisdictions. He claims it is essential to understand political processes and develop a “nonmarket strategy” to ensure success. 

He looks at firms as political actors that have to deal with multiple stakeholders when managing their environmental, health, and other impacts.  Business leaders must also understand how regulations are developed and passed in order to make informed decisions. When they fail to consider the political environment, there are often huge consequences. 

For example, there are cases of US companies investing in China that misread the rules of the game of Chinese capitalism,” Renato notes. “They complain about the government stealing trade secrets, being forced into joint ventures, or expropriated. This could have been avoided with a knowledge of political economy.” 

A new outlook on energy 

Renato began his unconventional career as a business reporter, covering many industries including the energy sector. From his reportinghe saw firsthand the massive influence the industry had on other parts of the economy, as well as on people’s lives.  In particular, he saw how policies designed to promote the energy supply chain changed the lives of workers who had moved to the sector from other industries such as agriculture. 

This shift happened because oil and gas companies were required to invest in local manufacturers.  After talking to these workers and their families, Renato knew this was an industry in which he wanted to work. He earned his Master’s degree at the University of Illinois and his Ph.D. at MIT before joining ASB. 

His research focuseon which factors helped maximize the benefits of energy production, especially the “spillover” effects the industry had on research and development, manufacturing, and the supply chain. Until now, these effects had been left out of the literature. 

Not all oil is created equal 

To Renato, the way the oil and gas industry is currently studied assumes the same difficulty of extraction in every country. But he has found that differences in accessibility shape the way that energy policy is written, as well as the economic outcomes.  To demonstrate this, he studies three countries and their differing approaches to energy policy: Mexico, Brazil, and Malaysia. 

“I chose these three countries because they have a similar per-capita GDP over time,” he explains. “However, Mexico’s oil production spiked in the late seventies and has been much higher over the past four decades.”  Despite higher production, Mexico’s economy grew no faster than Brazil’s or Malaysia’s. The ease of extracting oil in Mexico meant there was little need to innovate or further develop the economy. 

On the other hand, oil companies in both Malaysia and Brazil expanded abroad and developed new technologies. Both countries also required the use of local firms to provide equipment and services, stimulating local economies.  Renato found that it was harder for countries with easy access to resources to have an alignment of interests that could lead to investments in technology development and cost efficiency, one potential outcome of a phenomenon called the “resource curse.” 

“When you’re under constraints, you have to overcome them, and that’s where ingenuity comes from,” he says. “There are extra benefits from putting the right incentives and policies in place.” 

The role of the government 

“The energy industry invests 1.8 trillion dollars annually, three-fourths of which is influenced by government or made directly by state companies,” Renato says. “This huge industry is also one of the most political industries in the world.” According to him, the government has three main responsibilities when it comes to energy: accessibility, affordability, and reliability.

In other words, citizens must have access to electricity with few to no outages at a reasonable priceideally without relying too much on subsidies. It is also important for energy production to be sustainable over time, both environmentally and financially. Governments should invest in the future of energy and help prepare their countries for transition to lower-carbon energy sources. 

Stimulating technology development is also an important part of this responsibility, accomplished by providing both the environment and incentives for innovation. In particular, the business environment must invest in both human resources and research, rewarding not just the incumbents but disruptive firms as well. 

The second installment of this article will focus on how renewable energy providers can benefit from the use of political economy, as well as how Renato came to teach at ASB.

WHEN THE FOUNDERS of the Asia School of Business met with business leaders in Kuala Lumpur to discuss how corporate partners could support the planned new business school, they faced great skepticism from one potential sponsor. “He said, ‘Do we really need another business school to turn out more overconfident, overpaid graduates?’” relates Loredana Padurean, associate dean and faculty director for action learning at ASB, which was established in 2015 by the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge and Bank Negara Malaysia.

“He told us that it takes up to two years for an MBA graduate to truly create value in a company, and that in a global context, cultural adaptation and integration can be a long-term process. He said, ‘I’m not interested in supporting this program unless you find a way to narrow down the two-year gap.’” ASB’s founders took that criticism to heart. They focused on designing a curriculum that would create graduates who were transformative, principled, and market-ready—and to do that, they made action learning a central part of the MBA experience.

“To develop transformative leaders, we have to create a transformative experience, so every semester has to include an experience students haven’t had before,” says Padurean. “To create market-ready leaders, we have to expose students to those experiences as early as possible. To teach principles, we have to allow them to observe principled leaders in action.”

ASB launched a 20-month, five-semester MBA program in which students spend about a third of their time in action learning projects that are based all over the world. Projects are proposed by companies that range from local nonprofits to global brands. “Since the school opened two-and-a-half years ago, we’ve had 176 projects in 18 countries for 90 companies,” says Padurean. “By the end of the program, a graduate could have been on five different projects with five different companies in five different industries in five different countries.”

PUTTING TOGETHER A PLAN

The ASB program is patterned after the Action Learning Labs run by founding partner MIT. The two schools maintain close ties: ASB founding president and dean Charles Fine was a faculty member at MIT Sloan for more than 30 years, and Sloan faculty teach numerous courses in Kuala Lumpur. In addition, all ASB resident faculty have MIT Sloan appointments as International Faculty Fellows, and ASB students spend one month each year taking courses on the MIT campus in Cambridge. ASB’s version of action learning is explicitly envisioned as a four-part process in which students “see, plan, act, and reflect” over multiple visits and in reflective time afterward.

Each semester begins with students spending a few weeks in the classroom participating in discipline-specific modules such as accounting or organizational behavior. In the action learning course, Padurean teaches them a variety of soft skills—which she has termed “smart skills”—such as communication, team management, and conflict resolution. “This gives students a baseline for understanding how to manage projects, processes, and people,” she says. A few weeks in, they depart for the first of three on-site visits, each of which lasts one or two weeks.

ASB students and faculty hike in the rainforest of Belum. (Photo courtesy of the Asia School of Business)

By this point, students have been sorted into four-person project teams. The MBA classes at ASB so far have averaged about 40 students, but even with such a relatively small group, creating the teams is a complex process. At the beginning of each semester, students receive a list of the available projects, and they are given points they can use to bid on the ones they want. The school tries to create teams based on student preferences, particularly if a student is already planning to follow a specific career path, but other factors are also in play.

“Diversity is equally important,” Padurean explains. “We might want a team to have an engineer, a marketing student, a data processor, and someone who has quantitative skills, and we want a balance of men and women. It’s also good if each team can include someone who’s from the country where the project will take place, but that’s not always necessary.” To make sure all these criteria are met, many administrators are in the room while the matching is done. “We have the action learning staff, the career development staff, and the MBA office,” says Padurean. “And in the first semester, because we don’t know the students that well yet, we bring in the admissions team. We take data points from as many angles as possible.”

ASB students get ready to work at Carsem, a semiconductor packaging factory in Malaysia. (Photo courtesy of the Asia School of Business)

After teams are created, each one is also assigned both a business coach, who is usually a senior business executive, and a faculty advisor. At that point, the students are ready to make their first visits on-site.

PRESENTING AND ASSESSING

On those initial trips, students focus on refining the project scope, defining methodology, determining the data they need, building relationships with stakeholders, and coming up with an action plan. They return to campus for more coursework, but then they’re back in the field a few weeks later to collect and process data and begin the problem-solving process. Their third on-site visit comes toward the end of the semester, and that’s when they implement solutions.

Every time students return from their on-site visits, they present their findings and their proposed actions to a panel of faculty and business coaches, and these presentations are part of their final grades. “We grade presentations because we can’t fix problems at the end,” says Padurean. “We have to address them early on.” Once students return from their final visits, they have about four days to prepare for the Action Learning Symposium, where they present their findings to students, faculty, and corporate sponsors. Students who are working on projects that involve proprietary information make private presentations.

Students also spend significant time boiling their projects down to posters that are displayed at the symposium. Student grades are based on their presentations, end-of-semester reflection papers, anonymous peer reviews from team members, and feedback from executives at host companies. While the action learning takes place as part of its own course, it is deeply integrated with the theoretical subjects being taught in other classes. Padurean describes ASB’s approach to action learning as the horizontal line that crosses the program, while the discipline-based modules are the vertical lines that intersect it.

More practically, if she realizes that students in her course need knowledge in a specific discipline, she can ask the faculty member teaching that subject to come in and give a quick tutorial. At the same time, other professors can draw on the students’ real-world experiences to illustrate the theoretical concepts they’re teaching in class. Says Padurean, “They have so many examples coming from the action learning projects that they can always anchor what they’re teaching in what the students are doing.”

LINING UP PROJECTS

To accommodate four-person teams for the school’s current population, Padurean and her staff must arrange between ten and 12 company projects per class, for a total of about 25 per semester. They look for projects that are complex enough to challenge MBA students but not so complicated they can’t be completed in a few months. Currently, corporate partners are not charged fees to participate, but they cover the cost of students’ expenses while they’re on-site.

Even though technically Padurean is supported by only two directors of action learning who help source project sponsors, “pretty much everyone at ASB is part of a sales team,” she says. If anyone at the school meets with a potential sponsor for any reason, the topic of action learning comes up. “It doesn’t matter if you’re the president, the dean, the secretary. You go, you sell.” This intense focus on finding partners has resulted in a wide range of projects. One, for instance, was proposed by a large local nonprofit that wanted students to develop a sustainable economic development plan for a community of indigenous people who live in the Malaysian rainforest.

“WHEN YOU’RE KNOCKING ON THE DOORS OF THE POOREST PEOPLE IN THE WORLD, YOU GET A REALITY CHECK.”—LOREDANA PADUREAN, ASIA SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

To reach one of the villages of the reclusive community, students embarked on a five-hour drive, a one-hour boat ride, and an hourlong hike. “The villagers have their own generators, so they have electricity, but they have no phones, TVs, radios, or internet,” says Padurean. “They had never had Westerners or foreigners in their community before, and none of the students spoke their language.”

The student team consisted of a Kenyan, an American, an Indian, and a Malaysian. They ultimately proposed that the community launch an ecotourism package that would allow them to host visitors a couple of times a month. Over the weeks of the on-site visits, the students and the villagers grew close. “They ate from the same bowls and washed their dishes in the same river. It was transformative for both parties,” says Padurean, who accompanied them on one visit. “The villagers were crying when the students left.”

ASB faculty receive gifts from the people of Orang Asli, Malaysia. (Photo courtesy of the Asia School of Business)

At the other end of the spectrum was a project for a multinational company that was trying to develop a market penetration strategy for Southeast Asia, but found that it wasn’t getting the same results in Myanmar that it had seen in Thailand. “Company officials didn’t seem to think that different countries in the region had different market profiles,” Padurean observes. Students on this project headed to Myanmar to do on-the-ground market research, visiting households to find out what products people were using, how they perceived the brand, and what they were willing to pay for similar items.

Such experiences keep students from becoming the overconfident MBA graduates described by that early corporate sponsor. “What deters someone from becoming arrogant are constant reality checks,” says Padurean. “When you’re visiting indigenous people in the jungle or knocking on the doors of the poorest people in the world, you get a reality check.”

GROWING THE PROGRAM

While the current action learning model works well now, Padurean knows a big challenge is on the horizon when the school scales up. Currently, ASB is constrained by capacity, as classes are held in Bank Negara’s center of excellence in knowledge and learning. But the school is nearing completion on its new campus, which will have a capacity of 700 students, including about 75 in the MBA class. When the new facility opens, the school will offer executive education, specialized master’s degree programs, and a part-time MBA, in addition to the full-time MBA program.

Padurean hopes the MBA program will be established well enough by that time that she won’t have difficulty finding project sponsors, many of whom will be repeating hosts. She expects the real challenge to be hiring staff and faculty who are enthusiastic about the time and energy they must invest in the action learning cycle. Her action learning directors go on-site every time the students do, and faculty and coaches also make on-site visits every semester.

The key to easing the burden on the staff will be to make the action learning program more automated and process-driven.  “Once we have more experience, we’ll have a better idea of how to deal with students, hosts, and partners,” Padurean points out. And the key to lining up the right faculty, she adds, will be “hiring recent PhDs who are excited about this intense applied learning model and who like having access to industry.” As the school grows bigger, Padurean foresees more adjustments and opportunities, such as the possibility of collaborating with other universities.

She knows that ASB’s unique format will make such partnerships difficult, but she’s not daunted about the changes and challenges ahead. “You know that expression, if it’s not broke, don’t fix it?” she jokes. “One of my directors says, ‘Loredana doesn’t know that expression.’ I say, if it’s not broke, let’s make it better. To be honest, I think that’s the baseline for innovation.”

Please send questions, comments, or letters to the editor to bized.editors@aacsb.edu.
This article was originally published on BizEd AACSB International website.

The Korean tech giant Samsung has a lot of meaning behind its name. The two syllables, sam meaning “three” and sung meaning “stars,” were chosen to inspire a vision of a company that would become as powerful and eternal as the stars in the sky. In my second Action Learning project, I got to experience this meaning for myself. I had experience with Samsung products before the project as a result of my sales background.

My family’s retail business sold Samsung electronics, which were often fast-moving products with high inventory turnover regardless of the salesperson’s expertise. It all comes down to the brand image. There are some brands to which the question of how you learn about them doesn’t apply, because you have always known about them. Samsung is one of these brands, and I have been impressed by the company for this reason.

I was glad to have the opportunity to complete an Action Learning project with Samsung. Because I was familiar with the brand, especially its Samsung Electronics business segment, I gave the project a high rating on my list of preferences.

I have always found it important to learn about a wide range of different industries and business areas. I enjoy gaining in-depth knowledge about new and vibrant industries and developing solutions that make a significant impact. For this reason, the growing smartphone industry in Malaysia seemed more than appealing to me. Furthermore, the Samsung project itself was even more attractive because it focused on high-level marketing strategy, one of my areas of interest.

I hoped that the diverse perceptions, skills and experiences within my group would help Samsung better plan and implement its marketing strategy. The smartphone industry in Malaysia is saturated and competitive. It is a constant challenge to remain a top player in the market. My team observed the fierce competition and continuous sophisticated upgrades in Samsung models, as well as those of its rivals, during our Action Learning project.

I learned that Samsung Malaysia Electronics was the leading player in Malaysia’s smartphone industry in 2018. It didn’t come as a surprise to me. The company owes its success to its well-established brand and comprehensive portfolio of products in different pricing categories. But success comes with other challenges. As the dominant industry player, the company has a greater need to meet customers’ expectations and even outperform them.

In particular, consumer preference is important for marketers to understand to ensure a brand’s continued dominance. This issue became the focus of our Action Learning project, which I enjoy for its challenging yet compelling nature. There were many directions in which my team and I could have taken the project. We had to think of creative and unconventional ways to find out consumers’ preferences in Malaysia. From there, we determined the consumer buying path and identified the reasons that trigger the decision to upgrade to a new phone.

We had to think of the most efficient ways to collect data to conserve time and resources. We went outside the office to different locations around Kuala Lumpur, talking with people and “stalking” them to find out which have Samsung phones. I learned the design, look and size of a Samsung phone to the extent that I became able to recognize it from a distance. 

I was even able to identify Samsung users themselves, regardless of whether they were holding their phones. Yes, that person in a suit drinking his afternoon Americano must be a Note user! We approached people in cafes, restaurants (some girlfriends weren’t happy), in the street, in train stations, you name it. We conducted interviews in taxis and in the queue of a pretzel shop. 

I broke the record for the number of times a team member was approached by security guards in shopping malls because of the impermissible interviews I conducted. We had fun along the way, managing to gather a lot of important information for our analysis and observations regarding which factors influence consumers’ buying decisions. I am excited to see the final outcome of our project based on the unconventional approach and findings we derived from it. 

I am also grateful that I had the opportunity to work on a project with a prominent brand that has always been at the forefront of technological advancement and innovation. Through this project, I learned not to turn a blind eye to marketing. In today’s globalized world, everyone is competing for the same market, and each company must place great emphasis on its brand, reputation, communication, competition and values to stand out. The market leaders are those who understand what consumers value most, and often all they need to do is ask.

Dato’ Ariff is a former Chief Information Officer at Standard Chartered Bank Malaysia. There, he oversaw the full spectrum of Technology and Operations and was responsible for systems development, technology support and banking operations for the Bank’s retail and wholesale banking businesses in Malaysia. His 28+ years of experience in the banking industry spanned across multiple countries and geographies.

He is a thought leader and is skilled in innovation, digital transformation, banking operations, digital banking, credit cards, financial technology (fintech) and Open Banking. In March 2019, Standard Chartered was among the first three organizations that received a virtual banking license from the Hong Kong Monetary Authority.