Master Class at NAA [23/07]

Ngee Ann Adelaide organizes forums and workshops several times throughout the year, with speakers and experts coming in from the University of Adelaide and other professional bodies. I have not taken part in any of these events before as my schedule just wasn't right. For the master class that was held on the 23rd July on "Managing Cultural Diversity and Multicultural Teams", I have been persuaded by Lionel to go for it just 2 days before the event. I guess it is also nice to know of familiar faces joining in the forum (e.g. Chris, Lionel, etc).

I made a call to Ngee Ann Adelaide office to sign up and drop them an email on it. For Adelaide students and alumni, there are rebates. This is one of the advantages of being a student or alumni of Adelaide. I attached the brochure in my website below. 



The other reason why I signed up for it is I am particularly fascinated by the topic of cultural diversity. This is something which I face on a day to day basis in my workplace. A large part of cultural insensitivity stems from ignorance. And if we have the tendency of being judgmental all the time, it will be difficult to succeed across culture. The best way of approaching new and different culture is to have a 'fun' and open mindset towards it.

Being positive is also very important as results have shown that positive people achieve much better results in cultural diversity. Though very often, we may fall into homophily or group-thinking. We delve into concepts by Richard Lewis of "linear", "multiactive" and "reactive" worlds in his book "when cultures collide".

From this course we acquire the knowledge and the skills. So how do we translate directly into behaviour? It is through motivation and attitude.

There are 16 participants in the workshop and we are split into 4 groups. We had several group discussions and one of which is on how our company manage cultural diversity. The modern organisation of virtual teams was also discussed and from this topic, I learnt about the importance of frequent and more direct communication.



The workshop finished at 5.30pm (30mins later than the original designated time). We are all alright with it as there were lots of discussions going on. We took a group photo and we have Dr Olga sitting second from right. The participants come from diverse background such as Microsoft, Mariott, Cisco, Panasonic, Johnson, Nippon Express, OnlineCitizen and so on with headhunters, magazine editors amongst them. It has been a great workshop and I look forward to joining more of such.

Global Business [18/05 - 30/06]

The Global Business module is considered to be a core subject for my batch of MBA intake. Since 2011/2012, it has become an elective. This course is being taught by Dr F D Robins as can be seen from the photo below.

 

The course is assessed base on 2 x Group Assignments (of 15% each) and a Final Exam (70%). There are 6 questions in the Final Exam, where the questions are equally divided into 2 sections. The student has to choose 3 questions. Of which, there must be at least 1 question from each section.

The Global Business course is split into two weekend intensive. The first intensive covers mainly the macro approach towards business with topics on Globalisation, Global Trade and Investment Environment. The second intensive zoom into business specific considerations such as Strategy and Global Business Operations.

Our study guide is filled with many case studies and each topic always start with theory explanations and conclude by case studies discussion. Dr Robins stimulate our learning by constantly asking us questions.

The group allocation is according to the table which we were sitting in class. In my group from left we have Vincent Chiew, Sofian, Clarence and Adelene. I have another photo below of Clarence, Adelene and me in it. We had discussion during the intensive weekends and once each over the weekend and weekday evenings. During the second discussion, Vincent Chiew invited us to his office and we had discussion in the meeting room (with projector, drinks, etc). It was totally awesome!

 

After exams, Clarence invited us for a ramen lunch at Ippudo Dao, which is at Mhd Sultan Road. Edwin has completed his final subject - Global Business, and has a bit of time to spend on the Saturday afternoon, so we went for lunch together. From left in the photo below we have Edwin, Clarence, Adelene and me.

 

Gayle has created a facebook page called the 'Ngee Ann Adelaide MBA Class 2010-2012'. At the end of this session of class, she invited us for a class photoshoot below. Thanks Gayle!

 

Let's move back to the lesson proper. It is time for me to share on the learning from Global Business.

1st Intensive

Anyway, we started on the Friday intensive with the topic on Globalisation. The main drivers of Globalisation are technology and liberalisation of trade and investment. There is always this challenge in balancing between Localisation with Globalisation. Globalisation encourages standardization and efficiency, but Localisation focus more towards catering to each market needs. A video of an interview with Thomas Friedman is shown to us. You can find many videos of Thomas Friedman on YouTube and he is notable for the book 'The World is Flat'.

On the Saturday of the 1st Intensive, we delve into the Political Economy and how the legal system is applied differently in different countries. The issues of protectionism is discussed and the type of government involvement in promoting (via state aids) or restricting investment in each country. Between countries, different trade policies were enacted. It is important to note that different interests were at play when trade policies in each country were enforced. The transition to non-tariff barriers are gaining prominence compared to the traditional tariff barriers. Different trade theories such as comparative advantage, competitive advantage were explored and discussed. The important organisations of GATT / WTO with their respective history and case studies were mentioned.

The next day, we moved on into Foreign Direct Investment and Economic Integration between countries, regions or globally. The European Union is especially discussed but for our 1st assignment, we actually study on the Asean Free Trade Agreement (AFTA). We researched and studied on the impact of AFTA on Singapore companies.

The final topic in the first intensive is on the Monetary System. This chapter is especially interesting as it talks about crisises, forex exchange and so on. Do you know that 39 out of 40 forex trades are speculative in nature? After this lesson, I come to realize that modern wealth is essentially an intangible concept. Our wealth is measured by paper money. In the past it was bench-marked against gold, but now it is against the US dollars, which is just printed paper.

2nd Intensive

In our second weekend, we started off with global business strategy. The 4 main thinkers of modern strategy are Bruce Henderson of BCG, Bill Bain of Bain & Co, Fred Gluck of McKinsey and Michael Porter. I will not discuss so much about strategy here but Dr Robin highlighted the part of Electronic Manufacturing Services (EMS) to us. I heard my colleagues mentioning about EMS several times recently and it is only through this lesson that I finally realized what it is about.

On our Saturday class, we discussed about cultural implications, high vs low context, ethics, etc. There is this interesting phrase which was shared to us, and it is by Alan Yeo, Chairman of Singapore Trade Development Board, 'I doubt if any businessman in Asia would turn away a deal because of differences in culture.' Many different case studies of neglecting cultural considerations were explained in there.

The topic of Global Manufacturing - Make or Buy, EMS was discussed next. Global Marketing which transcends the 4P of traditional boundaries to a global context is also touched on. The 2nd assignment actually is about Global Marketing and its impact on a firm. It is especially important to note that other than the 4P, Parallel (Gray) markets must also be properly managed. Global HR management is also delved into briefly.

Finally, the most unforgettable final topic is on Global Financial Management. The GAAP, IFRS were brought before us for us to consider. For Multinational Corporations, transfer pricing and corporate taxes are actually managed to maximize profits. Tax havens around the world were identified and tax related issues were explained.

The Global Business module is quite an interesting subject. It is a definite must for global managers who wish to manage efficiently in this cross-boundary, cross-cultural, cross-political context.