Student Experience, Action Learning, MBA – Page 7

Return on investment is everything when it comes to an MBA. Given the money you invest and the time you commit, MBA students will look for clear payoffs from their degree. When Varun Singhi decided to do an MBA at Asia School of Business (ASB) in Malaysia, the decision didn’t come lightly.

He had a solid job, and a wife and daughter to factor into the decision. Now, with a breadth of work experience, a book to his name, and new-found status as a blockchain expert, the benefits of his MBA are clear. Here’s five ways his MBA paid off:

1. Broad work experience

Varun came from an engineering background, with several years of experience working at IT companies in Silicon Valley and Bengaluru. It was, he describes, a “hardcore techy” experience—and he was keen for his skills to reflect more of an inclination towards digital leadership. “My goal was to position myself at the intersection of technology and business.”

Despite shopping around top US schools, he couldn’t ignore the Action Learning program at ASB, and what that would mean for his resume. “You travel to five different countries, experience five different cultures, and get an opportunity to understand the working culture of each country.” Varun’s action learning projects included working at energy company Petronas, and at Maxis Communications, both in Malaysia; a startup in Indonesia; and a government commercial bank in Vietnam.

It enabled him to put some of the theory he was learning into practice, while also helping him question some practices from his prior career. “Sometimes our thought processes are so rigid, we aren’t prepared to change,” he says. ”Action learning gives you an opportunity to think about how you change yourself in a dynamic environment.”

2. Education from a world-renowned business school

Varun’s initial interest for an MBA had been drawn towards higher-ranked, Ivy League schools. At ASB, he found he could get access to this same quality of education. ASB is partnered with MIT Sloan School of Management, with a large percentage of the course being taught by world-renowned MIT professors.

But more exciting for Varun was the opportunity to spend six weeks at the MIT campus in Boston. To make the most of it, he researched the program well, and reached out to professors early, to make sure no time was wasted. “I had to really nail down what I wanted to get from this program, because one and a half months can pass by really quickly,” he says.

3. A book on blockchain

During the MBA, Varun set his sights on a career in technology. But technology is a vast space, and he knew had to narrow down his options slightly. “I attended almost ten conferences, to keep a tab on what was happening in the market, what were the emerging technologies, and what was the market requirement.” Blockchain was a subject he’d always been interested in, and he quickly discovered it could be a niche where he could really apply himself and earn solid credentials.

He took a few online certifications, began contributing to white papers about blockchain, and soon found himself carving out a status as a blockchain expert. He built a solid network of mentors during his MBA, one of whom gradually persuaded him that he should apply his expertise to writing a book on blockchain consortiums (blockchain systems which are shared between different organizations).

He seized the opportunity, working for four months over the summer after he graduated, and in July 2020, ‘Blockchain Consortiums: A Comprehensive Handbook’ was published.

4. Digital expertise and a new job

Writing the book proved to be very fruitful for Varun’s jobhunt. He posted about the book on LinkedIn, which prompted one of his network contacts to approach him about a job. He is now the head of technology and operations at Blockchain Stealth Startup, building Malaysia’s first regulated and compliant digital asset exchange platform.

“I’m grateful that with the right mentor support, the right direction, and the right passion, I got to follow my aspirations.” Alongside this, Varun was accepted onto the prestigious Digital Economist apprenticeship program. The program brings together early stage professionals who want practical training in building digital-first businesses, with an emphasis on social entrepreneurship.

For Varun, it’s a great exercise in enhancing his digital leadership while displaying what he learned on his MBA. “This is an entrepreneurial digital training program, and being an entrepreneur means you have to be flexible enough to work with different cultures, rules, time zones. It’s a holistic picture of how you work in a group—here I’ve been able to leverage my action learning skills.”

5. Intangible benefits

While he has several clear tangible takeaways from his MBA, some of the biggest payoffs have been intangible. In the face of COVID-19, his MBA has given him the “ability to face uncertainty with certainty”, he says.

Secondly, inculcating himself with a growth mindset. “We talk about this in terms of companies, but I think the same for individuals. I’m able to step back and change my plans based on the situation. That is what the world currently wants—to see how dynamic and agile you are in terms of thinking.”

Thirdly, replacing his fear of failure with a fear of not trying things. This applies to everything from reorienting his career towards blockchain, to seizing the opportunity to write a book, to applying for the Digital Economist training program. More importantly, though, have been the benefits for his whole family. Throughout his MBA, and his career, Varun remains conscious of putting his family first.

“My MBA wasn’t just for me, it’s for my entire family. ‘The more we hustle, the more we experience, and the wiser we become’. That mantra—I communicated that to my family regarding what I was getting from ASB.”

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.

Taking on an MBA is a daunting enough prospect for most people. But for individuals juggling a full-time job AND an MBA for Working Professionals (MBA-WP) that is just as intensive as a regular MBA), the challenge is doubled.

So how do individuals who choose to embark on the MBA-WP juggle the intense pace of the program while managing their day jobs as well? I speak to three working professionals from the inaugural MBA-WP Class of 2021, Merlvyn Kho, SCM Task Force, Category Lead at Sapura Energy Berhad, Andy Chin, Vice President, Marketing at MR.

D.I.Y. Group (M) Berhad, and Pyora Eun, Brand Marketing Executive at AirAsia Korea to find out what their journey has been like so far, and their tips for juggling work, studies, and beyond while adjusting to a global pandemic.

The Journey at ASB So Far

When I asked Merlvyn, Andy, and Pyora to describe their journey on the program so far, the words “rewarding”, “fruitful”, and “transformative” came up. Another word that came up often was “challenging”.

“Midway through the course, my colleagues mentioned they’ve noticed a change in me,” said Merlvyn. “I became a lot more open to different things at work. Instead of just interacting with colleagues in my department, I learned to be a bit more confident talking to more people and getting my points across better.”

For Andy, the program has helped him improve in problem scoping. “Learning in Action provides the tools to help us prioritize and quantify which problems we should focus on solving. It also taught us how to present the problem, in order to get stakeholders to buy into your project.”

A Global Community

One of the biggest benefits all three working professionals felt they gained from the program was the network and community at ASB. Said Pyora, “I didn’t have background knowledge in certain subjects, such as Finance, but my colleagues and friends would not let me give up.

The most impressive part of ASB is the spirit of collaboration. Students speak up with suggestions, and faculty and staff at ASB listen to us. Coming from a more conservative culture, this is what makes ASB unconventional and extraordinary.”

Merlvyn echoed Pyora’s sentiments about the people of ASB. “To be honest, I had this perception of what a professor should be, and ASB and MIT professors just blew all those perceptions away,” said Merlvyn.

“You hear stories of how someone gets super inspired by their professors and you think, oh that’s just a fairytale – until you meet some of these professors. You begin to understand just how big of an impact some professors can have on you and influence you.”

For Andy, one of the things that impressed him about the community at ASB was how quickly everyone pivoted in light of the COVID-19 crisis. “The school responded early, did a lot of scenario and crisis planning, and were quick to implement the hybrid classroom. I think there’s a lot of lessons to learn about running a business just from the way they’ve handled the situation.”

Adapting to Virtual Classes

The highlights of the MBA-WP program at ASB are the on-campus weeks, as well as the eagerly anticipated MIT trek. As the COVID-19 pandemic spread worldwide, however, those plans had to quickly change.

This brought about a whole new set of challenges, as Merlvyn explained. “My classmates and I were already juggling a full-time job when we started the course. Now that things changed drastically due to COVID-19, we’re doing even more work trying to keep things running in our respective companies. It’s a challenge to detach from that role at work and spend time focusing on studying.”

In physical classes, laptops are switched off and phones are on silent. With virtual classes, “when you are in class, on the laptop, notifications are always popping up,” said Merlvyn. For Pyora, who resides in South Korea, expecting to be on campus and then not being allowed to enter Malaysia was challenging initially.

“At the beginning, I felt isolated, since everyone was gathering on campus except for the international students. However, I’m now enjoying the online lectures, as I save the time I would spend flying for more than 6 hours to participate in KL, and can participate from home.”

Finding Balance Amid It All

Beyond the challenges brought about by COVID-19, being part of such an intensive program brings with it many other challenges, such as time management. “The main challenge is juggling work, studies, and family,” said Andy, who recently became a father to a baby boy, while helping his company, Mr DIY Group (M) Bhd, prepare to go public. “We don’t have as much time to dedicate to studying as a full-timer.

This means we wake up earlier and work till later.” Merlvyn also emphasized the long days of a working professional: “I’m not the kind who wakes up at 4 to 5 AM to study, like I know some of my classmates do, in order to get assignments done.

However, as I drive to work, I put on my pre-readings on audio and have it read aloud to me so I can catch up on that while driving.” The other two also take a similar approach – Andy also uses text-to-audio to have case studies and readings read aloud while doing something else, while Pyora does her readings while commuting in the subway.

Key Takeaways

For Andy, this intensity and hectic pace has taught him about the importance of learning to rely on others. “Don’t be afraid of asking for help – whether at home, work, or in class. Feeling dumb in class is normal – ask your classmates and professors to clarify things for you. Work-wise, I’ve learned to ask my colleagues for help and distribute the workload better.

At home, if I need space to study, I’ve been able to communicate this and my family has given me their support.” For Pyora and Merlvyn, one of their biggest learnings was to savor the time on the program. “Time just flew by – I can’t believe I only have two semesters left!” Pyora said.

“When I started, I thought I had a long journey ahead of me,” said Merlvyn. “During residency weeks when we have full days with our professors, it was really tempting to leave class and just rush to get assignments done. But I realized how little time we have with our professors and it made me want to absorb as much from them as I can.”

As the world rose up to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, Luiza Massari took up arms in her own unique approach. Luiza, Club Officer and full-time MBA student at ASB found herself in the esteemed HSBC bank in Malaysia when the pandemic struck. “Being very honest, I was looking for something in the startup world for my internship. But COVID-19 happened, those plans were canceled.” “And I somehow found myself in HSBC.” Luiza is referencing her Summer Associate Program, of course.

‘Adaptability’ Is The Name of The Game

What makes a survivor in the modern workplace? Is it leadership? Exceptional personal management skills? According to Brazil-born Luiza, she’ll start out her career always prioritizing the ability to be fiercely adaptable. “If this internship has taught me anything it’s how to be adaptable and flexible in a positive way.” “I was looking for something else, but when the virus struck, very few employers were hiring. I couldn’t do much about that but learn how to get through it.”

But call it sheer luck or good decisions on Luiza’s part, her HSBC role was more than just a pleasant surprise. As a Summer Intern, Luiza took her place in a Special Project Internship. This Special Project consisted of a team of talented, innovative and forward-thinking individuals tasked with redefining the face of work during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

There, Luiza and her HSBC teammates were given a duration of about 3 months to redesign how HSBC employees worked. “We had to understand the 3 drivers of new work, such as productivity, physical space and IT resources for HSBC employees in the midst of a pandemic.” “We had to discover what was the best way for the employees to work, in a way that will not affect their own wellbeing or productivity.”

Of course, a good bulk of the work had to be done remotely as it was during the Movement Control Order (MCO) in Malaysia at the time. Luiza’s time at HSBC was divided into 2 weeks in the office, and 2 weeks of remote working. With the challenge of communication during the MCO and the fact that Luiza had no experience in the corporate world, her prowess to adapt made her unstoppable.

When all was said and done, Luiza and her team managed to establish ‘new work’ guidelines for 3 whole departments in HSBC. “I always said I didn’t want to work in a bank at the beginning,” she says with a laugh. “But I honestly found the motivation to do so when I understood why I was there. This was a project that would impact the way that people would work from now on. Not just based on targets, but based on a better quality of life and their own needs being met.”

Unlimited Professional Support, Through Thick and Thin

“No matter what I needed, my advisors were there for me.” That’s what Luiza had to say when asked about ASB’s support during her SAP. “We had to do an exercise where students recorded themselves for 2 minutes as a reflection of each week, and then send that to our advisors.” Its effectiveness was clear from the very beginning.

“There was this one time where I had to record my reflection for a topic called ‘Managing Up’ where we talked about the best ways to deal with upper management, bosses, stakeholders.” “Coincidentally, I was having trouble with one of my supervisor’s micromanagement as it hindered how I could work,” she continued. Immediately after bringing that up in her reflection video, Luiza was contacted by one of her ASB advisors personally who led her through highlighting this to her supervisor.

Staying True To Passions, Adapting To New Ideas of Leadership

Even though she derailed from her original plan of an internship in another part of Southeast Asia, Luiza has no regrets about the SAP that taught her priceless lessons about true adaptability. “I know now the kind of leader I want to be,” Luiza continues. “I want to be someone that’s people-centered. It’s not always about the requirements of the job, but more about whether the people you’re managing are motivated to do the job.”

Luiza told us that she was always a shy person in nature, and once again thanked ASB for the exposure it’s given her so far. “ASB allowed me to understand that I already am able to do a lot of things, I was just afraid to in the past.” When asked about where she wants to go from here, Luiza answered with no hesitation. “I’ve always wanted to work in the accessibility industry,” she says warmly.

She’s talking about workplace-related accessibility, where she wants to solve the problems of people with disabilities to come into the workplace. To take things one step further, Luiza has already started to do a little work with the blind community to tackle the high rates of unemployment among them. Luiza’s ASB journey may not be over yet, but she truly is a bright mind to be reckoned with.

Yizhen Fung is three months into her role as a chief of staff at AirAsia.com, the travel and lifestyle app for the airline giant, reporting directly to the CEO. Even before COVID-19, aviation was rapidly changing and transforming, and in the past few months has seen serious disruption. But Yizhen is no stranger to adverse circumstances, having spent months job hunting in one of the most uncertain job markets for decades.

Resilience and adaptability have proven to be key to her skill set, both of which she grasped and harnessed during her MBA at Asia School of Business (ASB) in Malaysia, and which will stay with her in a post-COVID world.

Transitioning into the private sector via an MBA

Fresh out of high school in Malaysia, Yizhen went to study law at the University of Oxford. Graduating from the prestigious program had set her up for a successful career in legal practise: the only problem being, she didn’t want to become a lawyer. She returned home to Malaysia, where she started working at the Securities Commission, a regulator for Malaysia’s capital markets, working as an advisor and speech writer for the chairman.

“I had a reflection that, while the regulator plays an important role in facilitating innovation, the true driver of innovation really lies in the private sector. I wanted to be a part of that,” Yizhen remembers. She wasn’t clear exactly which industry or role she was destined for, but knew that, to get noticed by any employer in Asia, she had to get some experience under her belt.

She spoke to a close friend who had graduated in the inaugural class at Asia School of Business’ MBA, who raved about the Action Learning experience he had got from the program. “I was so impressed with the pan-Asian exposure he got, and how the experience transformed him from a self made entrepreneur to a well rounded corporate leader.” It was clear that the ASB MBA could give her a wide-spanning experience across sectors that could set her up for the commercial career she desired.

Gaining experience through action learning

ASB’s MBA is designed around an iterative, experience-based curriculum which gives candidates exposure to different industries and companies across Asia. Central to this are the five Action Learning projects which each participant takes over the course of the MBA. Yizhen describes these as the “jewel in the crown” of her time at ASB, encapsulating what makes the ASB program so unique for professionals like herself looking to launch a career in Asia.

First, she was able to harness and strengthen her leadership skills. Action Learning projects give students the responsibility of working on real life consulting projects with major companies looking to address certain challenges. It pushed her to take initiative and adopt a leadership role which she may not have had experience doing previously. In many cases, working at the client site involved advising clients who were 10 years her senior.

It taught her to be collaborative, particularly with groups from multiple backgrounds. “Given the diversity of the program, it’s often about learning how to work in a team with any number of personalities that you can get matched up with.” It also prepared Yizhen to be, as she describes, “ASEAN ready”.

Given cultural diversity across the Asian continent, Yizhen notes how important it was to get on-the-ground experience working in different countries as part of her Action Learning. This included working at the world’s largest glove manufacturer in Malaysia, a major family owned bank in Thailand, a Thai-owned beverage company based in Hanoi, and a beauty manufacturing company in Hong Kong.

While the companies and industries were diverse, they all shared a common goal—”All the companies were relatively established businesses, but were all trying to explore new ways of growth.” At the beverage company, for instance, she was involved in devising a market penetration plan for the beer industry in Hanoi.

“We were able to deeply dive into the consumer mindset and map out the customer journey and what would be the best strategy to penetrate.” As well as helping to give her a good understanding of how business was done across Asia, it also helped her narrow down her career pathways to areas that she knew she was more interested in.

Job hunting during COVID-19 and finding a role at AirAsia

Yizhen graduated in April 2020, just at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Job hunting became a full-time job in itself. Many employers had frozen hiring amidst the economic uncertainty: she even had a job offer which was deferred indefinitely. She was lucky to be able to draw upon several valuable takeaways from her MBA.

An entrepreneurial mindset, instilled in her from her first day at ASB, taught her to treat every day like it was the first day. This gave her the discipline to formulate a daily job hunting routine.

Secondly, a healthy dose of optimism. “It was about how to see a silver lining in every cloud, even with a very bleak outlook.” She quickly saw the value of having an MBA under her belt. Employers were impressed with her ability to apply specific examples—many from the Action Learning projects—for certain skills or leadership traits. So when AirAsia called, regarding a chief of staff role, she swiftly landed the job.

Given that AirAsia is one of ASB’s corporate partners, and continues to hire ASB MBA graduates, she acknowledges her alma mater played an important part in getting the role. AirAsia, as a global leader in aviation, is at the forefront of addressing the challenges that the tourism industry is facing at present.

But her MBA has prepared her perfectly for the fast changing culture at AirAsia. “If you dissect the skills I needed to thrive in a volatile environment, it’s the ability to learn and unlearn quickly, to adapt to what a new environment needs.”

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.

In 2020, Asia’s GDP is forecasted to take over the rest of the world, with the emerging markets of China, India, and Southeast Asia driving the majority of the growth. Yet in much of the emerging world, students don’t have enough access to high-quality education domestically.

Also, talented candidates from emerging market countries don’t have access to the best schools in advanced economies because they lack the access and resources to apply or attend. Outdated Approaches to Admissions Evaluation Test-centric admissions policies create barriers for those from lower socioeconomic and disadvantaged backgrounds.

For example, standardized exams required for leading universities are exceptionally expensive. Beyond the price to take the exam, in the emerging world, lack of testing availability is common. Quality preparation for these high-stakes exams is even more scarce and only available to the highest socioeconomic status groups.

Read the full article here.
This article was originally published on Wise Qatar Foundation

Last week I finished my Summer Associate Program at Johnson & Johnson Chile, in the context of my full-time MBA at Asia School of Business, one of the Global Programs of MIT Sloan. I cannot start writing this article before highlighting my deepest gratitude to the extraordinary people at Johnson & Johnson Chile, especially Tulio Oliveira (Regional VP), Asise Fernandez (Country Manger) and Marko Musiate (Commercial Manager) who sponsored the program and assigned 2 beautiful projects to me.

I am also thankful for all the kind attention and considerations of Alessia Garibaldi, Natalia Tellez and Claudia Hass from HR team who did a flawless job during the interviews, hiring process, and project closure. The satisfactory results of the outcomes would not be possible without the support received by Sales Managers Denisse Zarhi, Juan Luis Gellona, Ignacio Bielsa and Steven Sevilla Tapia and Operations Managers Álvaro Ponce de León, Germán Lamprea and Christian Acevedo, who have all guided and integrated me from the very beginning.

I was treated like an ‘old colleague’ as soon as got on board, marking a before and after in my heart as well as professional experience during this Summer Term. I would like to share three main points that enabled me to execute an 8-week project in such a complex industry in medical devices, allowing me to manage 2 projects at the same time:

1. Knowing When to Ask for Help

In such an ever-changing, interdependent, and interconnected world, ‘asking for help’ is not a feebleness, but a strength. Especially during the current COVID-19 pandemic, where environment conditions are constantly moving, we should collaborate as organizations, asking for internal and external support to achieve goals.

Having a humble attitude and active listening skills make a huge difference too. For this summer program, I am grateful to Alok Mishra (former VP at #JnJ Asia) and PhD Candidate Franco Novara (Founder of Impacto Soluciones de Gestion) who guided me through marketing and consulting frameworks.

2. Keep a Track Record

I decided to keep a complete record of all the activities, meetings, ideas, and conversations since the Day 1. I bought a journal and wrote down more than 100 pages of notes during my meetings. I used to do a daily review on my notebook and compliment with reflections after the workday was finished. During the last 2 weeks, wrapping up the project, I started connecting dots on my notes that I did not think they were connected at the beginning.

3. Followership

We currently hear much about Leadership, but there is no Leadership without Followership. We must learn to really follow before we are followed by others. During this summer I strived to identify what were the organization’s priorities and needs, and answer to them with diligence and integrity. Millennials are known as a generation that just looks for their own individual goals and easily get frustrated when they are not achieved, but I challenge the readers to understand the importance of Followership.

Conclusion

As a hard-core engineer, my MBA is challenging myself to learn and apply more about soft skills (or “Smart Skills” as we like to call them at ASB, because there is nothing of soft about communications, humility, active listening, creativity, networking, integrity, collaboration, continuous learning, respect, etc.). I discover and re-discover more about these ‘smart skills,’ and continuously confirm the importance of them in each project I do.

Before I close, I would like to express my gratitude to all ASB staff and especially the Career Development Office for all the support during the 1st year of MBA and the Action Learning Team, that does an incredible work in our university. I am sure there is more to come in my MBA Career Development Journey at ASB!

More About “Sharp Skills” and “Smart Skills”

“Sharp and Smart Skills” video by our Dean Charles Fine
Enough with ‘Soft’ and ‘Hard’ Skills—Let’s Get Smart and Sharp Instead by our Professor Loredana Padurean

For more information, reach out to Franco Bravard.

Read the full article here.
This article was originally published on LinkedIn.

I came with a lot of hope, full of life and excitement but the reality was a hard take on what it is really out there. I was fortunate to get a chance to work in Khazanah Nasional’s (the sovereign wealth fund of Malaysia) headquarters despite the implementation of the Movement Control Order (MCO) during the summer of 2020. I always told myself that I am one of the lucky ones to be given the opportunity and be immersed in a new workplace environment where the #newnormal was to be working from home.

I am a person who is a half-glass empty but for some reason, I made a conscious effort to put myself out there and be more open to things and take on what is given to me with much enthusiasm and rigor. The harsh reality is that even in your best days, there is something that is going to go wrong. But that’s what I love about being placed in a real-life scenario because with that, I was able to think on my feet, pivot, and shift my strategies in order to make things work despite the roadblocks being thrown at me.

There was one day that I just felt I was about to give up. I was expecting an important internal document that I needed for my project, and it turned out that the information inside the report is too sensitive to be shared. I was feeling absolutely lost and becoming extremely nervous.

I had to think quickly and make adjustments so I can make my project work. With the #SharpXSmart skills that have been instilled in us at #ASB, I was able to work out with the team to get more data points without breaching their stringent confidentiality protocols, and in the end, I was able to pull through.

Overall, these are the three things that I have gained from my SAP experience:

1. When the going gets tough, don’t be held back; rather, conquer it.

At the end of the day, what is important is the journey and not the destination. If you have poured yourself into a difficult situation and solved it, you have already won. Even the results you wanted are not the ones who expected, at least you were able to make do of whatever has landed in your lap. Sometimes, you would be surprised that the results are even better than what you initially thought they would be.

2. Never take no for an answer.

I had a difficult time doing this, but it was the only way I could complete my project. I was able to conquer my inner saboteur and just powered through it, and I made sure I get what I needed. And guess what, I was able to collaborate with my project stakeholders to provide me the tools to finish my project.

3. Be vulnerable – it is not a sign of weakness.

We always paint a person of strong stature as someone who never folds and never shows a sign of vulnerability, but I beg to differ. There is so much you learn about yourself when you let it feel the emotions and muster them to be a better and bigger person. It is never a sign of weakness to show your flaws, for I believe there is strength in being vulnerable.

This article was originally posted by Rex Ericson Bamba’s on LinkedIn.
View his LinkedIn profile here.

The investment industry is constantly undergoing transformation as a result of changes in the global economy, consumer preferences, technology, shocks and regulations. Major trends and events in the past, such as the launch of the first hedge fund in 1949, the 1980’s junk bond craze, the 2008 financial crisis, the rise of algorithmic trading, and in recent years, the shift from active to passive management and focus on smart beta, have all nudged the industry in new directions.

A recently released survey from CFA institute found that 43% of investment professionals think the role they perform today will be substantially different in 5–10 years’ time, which begs the question, what will the industry look like then? Below, I aim to provide insight into this question by exploring six major trends which are shaping the investment industry in 2020 and beyond.

1. AI+HI as the norm

“AI+HI” denotes the interaction of artificial intelligence (AI) and human intelligence (HI). For certain interactions, the combined model adds more value than either component alone because it leverages the benefits of both. From a CFA institute survey of 3800 members across the globe, the growth of machine learning and AI methods was voted the highest source of potential disruption to the industry.

Despite this, relatively few investment professionals are currently using AI/ML techniques in their investment processes. Only 10% of portfolio managers and 25% of analysts that responded to the survey used AI/ML techniques in 2019. These results suggest that the investment industry is in the very early stages of adopting AI techniques and related technologies.

CFA institute cites high costs, lack of talent, rapid continuous changes in technology, a lack of vision, and significant investments of time as major barriers to implementation. Looking forward, CFA institute states that these technologies have the potential to bring about the most significant change to the investment management industry that current professionals will experience in their careers.

Additionally, successful investment firms of the future will start to strategically plan their integration of these technologies into their investment processes now, to be able to exploit the opportunities brought about as the technology matures.

2. Increased use of alternate data sources

Alternate data includes the use of data sourced from web-scraping, social media posts, credit-card data, geo-location data, and satellite data. The interest in alternate data sets may have been triggered by the now legendary tale of a UBS analyst using satellite data off 100 Walmart parking lots to accurately predict that the company’s stock was undervalued. That was way back in 2010.

According to a recent survey conducted by Refinitiv on AI & Big Data in financial institutions, 70% of survey respondents report to be using alternate data sets in their institutions, primarily for trading and investment idea generation, risk management, and performance analysis. (It should be noted that this survey included the broader financial industry, including investment banks and security brokerage firms, but had strong representation from the buy side.)

Many investment professionals are combining alternate data sources with traditional market data and internal company data to gain insights that would be hard to uncover using traditional analysis alone. Historically, it has been more difficult to use alternate data, as much of it is unstructured.

Fortunately, however, new capabilities are making this possible, allowing managers to find patterns and relationships amongst seemingly unconnected phenomena and use these to drive investment decision-making. Linked closely to trend #1, the use of alternate data should only rise as AI / ML is further implemented in the industry.

3. The growth of sustainability factors in investing and stewardship roles

The Principals for Responsible Investing (PRI) is the world’s leading proponent of responsible investment that aims to drive environmental, social, and governance considerations amongst its international network of investor signatories. The number of signatories has grown year on year to over 3,000, representing over $100 trillion in assets under management. This includes some of the world’s largest fund managers, sovereign wealth funds, pension funds, and other asset owners.

Additionally, according to a recent CFA institute survey on investment firms of the future, over 72% of respondents expect their firm’s commitment to ESG and sustainability issues to increase in the next 5 to 10 years. ESG related products such as green, social, and sustainable bonds have also grown from strength to strength, with green bonds reaching a record USD257.7bn total issuance in 2019, up 51% from 2018 figures. Social and sustainable bonds have also grown traction, albeit at a slower pace.

One of the challenges in the past was the lack of data and generally fragmented information on ESG factors. This has been tackled by a barrage of corporate reporting standards, taxonomies, ESG bond standards, ESG indices, and other tools at an investor’s disposal. This is making it easier than ever to integrate ESG considerations into the investing processes.

4. The growth of private market investing

As mentioned in the introduction, one of the trends shaping the industry in prior years has been the move away from active investment management to passive management. This has largely been driven by customer preferences for low-cost investment funds. As a result, active managers have applied their skills to less liquid parts of the market, which conveniently also supply higher returns.

According to EY, private equity as an asset class has outperformed public equity over the past 8 years, resulting in a record amount of capital flowing into the industry. Additionally, 2019 saw record amounts of dry powder in the private equity industry, which is essentially committed but uninvested capital. This will need to be allocated in the coming years alongside the fresh capital that continues to flow in.

Interestingly, from 1996 to 2012, the number of US listed firms dropped by half, with 2012 seeing 14% fewer exchange listed firms than there were in 1975. This indicates that corporates may also have a preference for remaining in private markets.

5. Changing expectations of the user experience

Investment professionals may never have imagined that they would need to provide the same user experience to their customers as retailers or consumer electronics companies. However, user experiences in one area of consumers’ lives are shifting user expectations in others, and businesses must respond.

Additionally, as customers become more used to digital banking and other fintech platforms, they will begin to expect the same experience from their investment manager of choice. Looking to China as an example of the future, the largest money market fund is Ant Financial’s Yu’e Bao, a spare change investing platform directly linked to consumers’ Alipay mobile payment account.

Technology like this can completely change many aspects of the professional– client relationship. Platforms for investment products and services can now deliver better customer engagement and provide better insights (by harnessing data) into customer preferences and needs.

Accenture consulting’s’ recently released report on the ten trends shaping the future of asset management states that asset managers should develop deeper, more meaningful customer relationships to deliver the right offering to the right client at the right time. The report goes on to state that it is critical that leaders of asset management firms recognise that they are no longer just competing with industry peers. They need to learn from other industries and match or provide better types of personalised experiences than those companies.

6. China’s investment industry opening for business

In January 2019, a group of senior leaders from across the Chinese financial system came together at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos to explore ways to more closely connect the Chinese financial system to the global one. They saw a status quo that was unusual and concerning: a major global financial system developing somewhat in isolation.

Soon after, plans to open up the markets began to form, including the accelerated relaxation of financial-sector foreign ownership limits as well as the launch of the Shanghai-London stock connect, a mechanism which connects the Shanghai stock exchange (SSE) and the London Stock Exchange (LSE). As of February 2020, 15 foreign-owned securities firms were established in China and 18 joint-venture securities firms are queuing up for approval.

In addition, China’s stocks and bonds have been included in main global indexes, such as the MSCI, FTSE Russell, S&P Dow Jones and Bloomberg Barclays index, and their weights are steadily increasing. RMB 200 trillion (~USD 28 trillion) of Chinese wealth is locked away in domestic bank accounts that is beginning to get unlocked as the country’s investment industry matures.

This is supported by regulatory reforms that are moving the markets away from the highly retail-driven, volatile markets that exist today, toward a more institutionally driven industry. China is already the second largest economy globally and is now expected to become the second largest investment management market globally. For many fund managers, the question is no longer “Should we invest in China?” but rather “How much should we invest in China?”

These six trends that are driving the industry in 2020, and provide some insight into what the investment management industry of the future may look like. As finance and investment professionals, it is our responsibility to stay up-to-date with these trends and help move this industry forward.

There are few places where demand forecasting is more important than in hospitals. Hospitals must have an adequate supply of medical devices for those that need them while not overstocking inventory that quickly becomes obsolete. Maintaining this delicate balance was the focus of our recent MBA project. Through an elective in data science, we learned exploratory data analysis as well as descriptive, predictive, and prescriptive analytics using the R language.

On top of that, we exercised our MBA Smart skills in working, coordinating, and communicating in a diverse team across multiple time zones, each of us hailing from a different background:

Paul: Business Development Lead, MBA for Working Professionals 2021
Hisyam: Former Engineering Proposal Manager, MBA 2021
Chan: Former Senior Lawyer, MBA 2021
Joe: Airline Operations Manager, MBA for Working Professionals 2021

We chose to analyze the demand from Paul’s company, a distributor of medical consumables. Many medical machines are like printers – their ink cartridges, as the consumables, need to be replaced from time to time. The problem with these consumables is that they are perishable. Thus it is pertinent to manage inventory well or face wastage.

To do this, the company wants to forecast monthly demand. It frequently uses data obtained from past invoices as a baseline for forecasting. While invoices indicate the real amount that customers have ordered, they do not reflect real-time demand. For example, a customer might order 100 boxes but only use 50 boxes in a month.

Choosing demand predictors

For this reason, we looked for other ways to forecast demand. First, we retrieved an “off the top of your head” forecast from customers’ datasets. We then mined data directly from machine records as a measure of “real demand.” Finally, we compared invoices and owner estimates and ran a regression analysis.

Astonishingly, the prediction of customers was more accurate than that of the invoices! Invoice estimates could explain almost none of the demand (for every 1 piece of consumable, invoices predicted 0.008 pieces). By contrast, customers’ estimates were almost in lockstep, predicting 0.963 pieces of demand for every 1 piece of actual demand.

However, customers only used a single number to predict the demand based on their experience. This means that any fluctuations in the actual hospital demand are averaged out throughout the year. Hence, if compared monthly, there are discrepancies between the customers’ estimated demand and the actual demand, as illustrated below:

Since we had the actual demand data, we turned to time-series modeling, a way of forecasting future demand via historical data. However, which model should we choose and how should we evaluate how good a model was? We chose to use MAPE (Mean Absolute Percent Error), a statistical measure of the accuracy of a forecast. It is the percentage difference between the forecast value and the actual value.

Determining the “next top model”

We picked 5 models from R’s forecast package:

Naïve
Simple Exponential Smoothing
Holt’s Trend Method
ARIMA
TBATS – The only model that includes seasonality – or not.

TBATS is a model of models. While we chose between these models, TBATS also compared a few models internally, choosing them based on the Akaike Information Criterian (AIC) instead of MAPE.

Twelve months of demand data from 2019 were obtained and divided into training and testing data, the first nine months for the former, and the last quarter for the latter. We considered potential weaknesses from allocating data this way – the last three months of any year could be vastly different from the rest of the year due to seasonality.

Announcing the winning model

Among all of the models, Holt’s Trend had the lowest MAPE, or “error.” Surprisingly, it was just a bit more complex than simple exponential smoothing, and yet it outdid the sophisticated TBATS model. This brings us back to how the data was selected – the last three months were taken as test data, and forecasts were compared against these months.

Seasonality, (the main thing that differentiated TBATS from the other models) could have caused TBATS to fail. Perhaps, if we had a few years’ worth of data, TBATS would not have done so badly. Model selection is not a one size fits all process. One way to improve the accuracy further is to obtain the average predictive figure of all the models that we have made.

While we may not become professional data analysts, we can appreciate what it takes to slice and dice the data we have at hand and put the pieces together to see the big picture. With the new skillset provided by our data science course, we have developed data literacy. This is indeed a powerful tool to have in our MBA toolbox that will help us make better informed decisions throughout our careers.

It’s no secret—earning an MBA costs money. Since everyone’s spending habits and lifestyles are different, it’s hard to predict exactly how much money you will need. Coming from a country where student debt totaled USD 1.4 trillion in 2019, I knew I had to plan my finances carefully. Three months before starting at ASB, I was aggressively saving. I even started renting out the extra room I had in my apartment to save up as much as possible.

The ASB website said that I needed USD 17,000 for personal expenses for the duration of the program. After starting at ASB, I budgeted my savings for the next 20 months. I used an app to keep track of all my expenses. Now that my first year at ASB has passed, I will be re-budgeting and trying to come up with ways to cut down on expenses.

At the beginning of the program, I took a closer look at my savings and investments. I set aside USD 4,000 as a rainy-day fund and another USD 2,000 for a flight home. I created a spreadsheet and divided out the rest of my savings by the number of months I had left at ASB.

I converted this amount to Malaysian ringgit (RM) and downloaded an app called Money Manager to keep track of all my spending. The app allows me to track sources of income and expenses with the option to include a detailed description for every transaction. I have a monthly budget of USD 700 and have only been spending half of that. The Money Manager app gives me a breakdown of my expenses as a pie chart.

Every month, my biggest expense is food, comprising more than half of the total. Although eating out and food delivery in Kuala Lumpur is inexpensive, it still remains the largest portion of my expenses. See below for the expenses I tracked over three months of living in Kuala Lumpur.

Food

Monthly Spend: USD 235
Daily Average: USD 7

This total includes breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, groceries and non-alcoholic beverages. Food prices in Malaysia vary. On campus, we have access to discounted food, but options outside of campus can be pricy depending on your preferences. The most I have spent for on-campus food is around USD 2.50, which covers an entrée with two different sides and a drink.

In the evenings, I usually order from Grab or Food Panda, which are similar to Uber Eats. These apps let you order from a wide variety of restaurants and deliver the food to your doorstep for roughly USD 6, including the delivery fee. On the weekends, I usually dine out and spend USD 6-8 per meal.

Transportation

Monthly Spend: $45
Daily Average: $1.50

On the weekdays, I walk between the residential and academic campuses and rarely spend money on transportation. Most of my transportation expenses are incurred over the weekend. My usual form of transportation is Grab, which is similar to Uber and an inexpensive and convenient option. You can always save extra by taking public transportation, which will cost you around USD 0.30.

Travel

Travel expenses vary the most and will not be consistent on monthly basis. Depending on travel and spending habits, this expense will be different for everyone. The first three months that I lived in Kuala Lumpur, I only travelled within Malaysia, spending an average of USD 92 per month. This amount only includes roundtrip airfare and accommodation.

Other Activities

For activities and entertainment, taking into account that I seldom drink alcoholic beverages or go out, it is no surprise that I usually spend around USD 30 per month. For shopping, which includes beauty products, toiletries, and clothing, I spend around USD 23 per month. Other expenses such as phone bills and other miscellaneous items average around USD 10 per month.

Next year, I will readjust my monthly budget. My ultimate goal is to cut my expenses by 30%. This is possible in the new residential facilities, which provide us with access to our own kitchens. I look forward to cooking more often instead of ordering food, which alone will help me cut down on my biggest expense. Additionally, the new residential campus is closer to public transportation, which will help me reduce my expenses further.

Living as an MBA in Kuala Lumpur is relatively inexpensive compared with many other cities around the world, but it’s still important to keep track of your finances. So before embarking on your MBA journey, make sure to start saving, define your budget and put in place a system for tracking and optimizing your expenses. Planning ahead will save you time, stress, and ultimately money.

Category: Student Experience, Action Learning, MBA