Preparing for the real world of business

As well marking the end of the core programme, this year’s trip to Poland represents a significant piece of work for students. Dr Sionade Robinson, Course Director for the Full Time MBA Programme, speaks about the annual trip to Warsaw and the opportunities it provides students.

To provide a little background to the trip - it’s an exchange trip for full-time students, hosted by WUTBS, Poland’s leading business school. We’ve developed close ties with them in the last few years. Like us, they have a strong reputation for developing the business leaders of tomorrow. The exchange also represents the end of our core training and gives students the chance apply some of what they’ve learnt to a real business consultancy challenge.

Students are therefore offering real consultancy to real organisations. We get students from both business schools working together in teams of five or six to consult on some very specific business challenges. This year, we worked with 15 different Polish companies ranging in size and sector. Among them, we had an airline looking to optimise its routes, and a chain of bakeries evaluating growth strategies. Other companies included a retail bank and Poland’s National Chamber of Commerce. Each organisation has a unique problem to solve and they’re looking to these teams to help.

Before this particular cohort arrived in Warsaw, students were briefed by a specialist from the IMF and by an expert in Eastern European economies to prepare them. We also ran a consulting skills workshop covering both technical and soft skills. And to help break the ice, we gave students from both schools the contact details of their team members and clients so they could introduce themselves ‘virtually’ before the programme started. Students also have Faculty support and an experienced interpreter shadowing them to make sure nothing gets lost in translation!

Each team spends a working week on-site, getting to grips with the issues and challenges their client faces. During that time, they’ll make two formal progress reports, before presenting their findings and recommendations to the client and Faculty on the last day. We combine this with client feedback to grade them as part of their core MBA.

It may seem quite intense, but it’s an acid test of how far students have come. That’s why it works so well. We want students to dovetail seamlessly into any team in any company and gain the insight they need to provide valuable commercial advice.

Overall, the experience usually helps develop students’ leadership skills. By encouraging students to work together as a team tends to bring out people’s individual leadership potential. People often feel differently after the programme. In fact, one of my students remarked that on her first day, she was asking one set of questions. On her last day, she was having a conversation on a totally different level and felt that was the leader coming out.