Class gives MBA students global experience

Studying international business is one thing. Experiencing it is another.

Just ask Sara Mamuska.

An MBA student at IU's Kelley School of Business in Indianapolis, she has completed a fair amount of course work already. But she got a chance to put theory into practice during a class trip

"Business is becoming more and more global, and it helps to know how business is done in different cultures," she said. "It was a fantastic learning experience. "

Mamuska was one of 11 MBA students who went to China this year as part of Kelley's "China in Transition" program. A threecredit-hour elective, the summer class gives students international consulting experience.

Professor Marjorie Lyles launched the program four years ago. Working with their peers at City University of Hong Kong, students work with leaders of a company making the transition from state to private control.

They begin meeting six weeks before the trip, learning about the country and its culture-not to mention the company and its industry. This year, the assignment was Homecity Supermarket in Guangzhou.

The arrival of foreign competitors like Wal-Mart is putting pressure on Chinese retailers, Lyles said.

"They're facing a tremendous amount of change," she said. "That's one of the reasons they're so anxious to have us there. They view any new ideas as very, very positive."

Kelly students are split into teams to address specific areas. This year, one team concentrated on service quality, while the other focused on product mix and pricing strategy.

After completing the initial research and industry benchmarking, the student consultants take a 10-day trip to China, where they gather more information and make presentations to company leaders.

That's where the reality of doing business overseas hits home.

Mamuska, a plant engineer at Citizens Thermal Energy, was struck by the difficulty of communicating through an interpreter - especially the student translators the Kelley group was using.

"I was amazed. You really don't get an idea of what they're saying," she said. "We would ask a question and they would talk and talk and talk, and then the translator would say a couple words."

There were cultural differences, too, she said.

"We had to attend certain banquets and social gatherings," Mamuska explained. "The social part is a very, very important part of the business relationship in China."

Working with state-owned enterprises also is a learning experience for the students.

"They're trying to figure out how to be economically sound without government support," Mamuska said. "You don't get a chance to see that anymore."

Still, students were able to make recommendations to help the supermarket make the transition.

One of the service-quality team's suggestions was to increase accountability for managers. No one is responsible for keeping the equipment in working order, for example. So if a cash register malfunctions, store personnel simply call the manufacturer and wait for help.

"It's very bureaucratic, a lot of red tape," said Jim Tanoos, another Kelley student who made the trip. "We suggested ways they could take care of things more efficiently."

The other team focused on what customers found in the storeand what they paid for it. Team member Aaron Kopel said most of the fundamentals were in order, but the students helped with some subtleties, like placing related items near one another.

Store managers also needed some help with pricing, he said.

"They weren't taking into account the full cost of their products," said Kopel, an e-business project manager for Thomson. "It costs more to cool a can of Coke than to just put one on the shelf. But they weren't factoring things like that in, so they were selling a lot for a loss."

After the presentations, students take a side trip to Beijing, where they do some sightseeing and visit U.S. companies that have offices there.

"They get perspective on what it's like for American firms doing business in China," Lyles said. "A lot of growth comes out of this."

Some of the students, like Kopel, already work for companies with international operations.

Others, like Mamuska, are simply interested in global business. Whatever the motivation, the experience is one more educational institutions are trying to give students.

"It's the wave of the future," said Gaston Fernandez, executive director of Indiana State University's International Affairs Center. "We are increasingly aware that we're living in a global economy, and providing students with this type of experience gives them the skills and competencies they need to be successful."

Indiana State just won a state department grant to work on an integrated curriculum and joint research projects with China's Liaoning University. Fernandez said one of the objectives during the threeyear grant period will be to develop an internship program for students studying abroad.

That kind of experience "is just absolutely invaluable for anyone who is looking to be part of the business world in the future," he said. "What an edge."

China is a particularly interesting study because of its ongoing transition to a market economy, but Lyles said the lesson learned is even broader.

"We're trying to help our students become more international in their perspective," she said. "It's something we're going to have to deal with more and more."