More than 5 months since the China Lab began, the program has finally reached the finishing line. From 12-22 May, the 4 teams took turns to present their work to the respective client companies. Months of hard work comes to fruition over these last 2-3 hours of the final presentation. This is……the final test.
Project 1 – Giansun Group (Chandler Liu Zelong & Marissa Ma Mimi)
On 12 May, the Giansun team finally ushered in the day of the China Lab final presentation.
It has been half a year since project commencement, going through the phases of member selection, team formation, on-site investigation, and analysis. On this day, Chandler and Marissa, team members from Fudan, would report their final achievements to Giansun management, accompanied by their team mates from MIT Sloan, Nick and Karl.
At Beijing Time 09:30 AM, Boston Time 09:30 PM, Mr. Leo Gu Yongjiu , general manager of Jiangyin Giansun Precision Components Co., Ltd, Fudan faculty mentor Prof. Tzeng Chenghua and the 4 project members got together on a video conference through Skype. The team leader, Chandler Liu, as the host of the online meeting, announced the beginning of the final presentation.
The 4 team members took turns to present, introducing the new conclusion and achievements reached since the mid-term report in March. Compared to the mid-term, they gave a more complete and practical analysis and solution, aiming to solve the problems Giansun is facing. The whole presentation lasted for one hour and a half. During the presentation, Prof. Tzeng raised a lot of constructive suggestions and Mr. Gu expressed his great satisfaction for the final recommendation. He thanked the team for the efforts and endeavors. Mr. Gu also expressed that he would try his best to put the recommendations into practice as much as possible and would give feedback to the project team in the future to maximize the value of the program.
As a follow-up to the final presentation, the team will also provide a bilingual report in Chinese and English to the Giansun management. All information gained over the whole process of this project would be included, for the future reference of Giansun.
The successful ending of the final presentation marked the end of the China Lab project. Over the course of the project, the 4 members from both Fudan and MIT, as well as all the involved members of Giansun, had benefitted much. Mr. Gu expressed that he would recommend the Fudan-MIT China Lab program to Giansun Group and try his best to look for future cooperation opportunities with Fudan.
Over the months of interaction, the 4 members had formed deep friendships with each other. The memory of battling together runs deep in their mind and both times when they had to say “goodbye” were excruciatingly hard. They firmly believe that their paths will cross again in the future, not only as graduates of Fudan or MIT and teammates of China Lab, but also as friends.
(By Giansun Group Team)
Project 2 – Chia Tai Group (Ellie Chen Huizhu & Ng Xin Yao)
On 13 May 2014, the Chia Tai team welcomed the representatives from Chia Tai Group to Fudan University for the final presentation. Attendees from Chia Tai included Mr. Wang Jianhua, President, Mr. Zhang Shuhui, Senior President, and Mr. Cui Junwei, Product Director. From Fudan University were Prof. Tzeng, Ms Yu Qi and the 2 Fudan student participants. The 2 MIT student participants took part in the meeting via video conference.
During the mid-term presentation, we had provided a marketing strategy covering target consumers, brand value and the 4Ps. The final presentation followed from the mid-term presentation, taking deeper dives into the areas of product analysis, prospective partnerships, and social media marketing. The presentation was a success, lasting 3.5 hours, and conjuring much thoughts and discussions among the client representatives, Prof. Tzeng and students.
We had learnt much from the project. Chia Tai Group is a typical and traditional family-controlled conglomerate. Common characteristics of such companies include: hierarchical, top-down communication, multiple and segregated business divisions with little cross-division communication, and lack of touch with modern means of marketing. These were all apparent throughout the time in the project. The last point especially concerned the company, as business warfare has progressively gone online yet the company continued to face difficulty in understanding the possibilities of the web. That led to the requirement for our deep dive into social media marketing for the final presentation; social media was like uncharted water to the company.
What surprised us was the deep and detailed on-the-ground research that they required. On that part, for product analysis, we bought over 60 products from different retail points. For each product, we weighed, cooked and tasted the food. We then recorded all information and comments on a spreadsheet. The purpose was to understand the products offered by competitors and, from there, analysis the product positioning and product values provided by each competitor in Shanghai. It was tedious but meaningful work, as we engaged in an aspect of research that we had never thought of. For a company that aims to serve the whole of China, we wonder how they would replicate that work across different states and provinces, where flavors and products are vastly different.
Following the presentation, we brought the clients to lunch before concluding the day. That did not spell the end of the project. There were still loose ends to tie, such as translation of the presentation slides to English (company required both Chinese and English versions) and other administrative work. Nonetheless, the bulk of the work is behind us. We could finally breathe after 5 tough and tight but massively rewarding months.
(By Chia Tai Group Team)
Project 3 – Ascend Household Paper (Kathy Xie Yulin & Ashley Tao Sha)
On 19 May 2014, China Lab-Ascend Household Paper team comprising Ashley Tao and Kathy Xie gave the final presentation for the project, articulating the final proposals to the client company at Room 602 of Starr Building, Fudan School of Management. Representatives of the company are RGE Recruitment Head Mr. Jason Quek, RGE China Learning & Development Coordinator Ms. Jane Ye, Ascend Marketing Director Mr. Zhang Hao, Ascend Brand Manager Mr. Xu Lei and Marketing Manager Mr. Xu Chen. Fudan faculty mentor Prof. Tzeng and senior officer of international affairs Ms Yu Qi were also present and provided several critical advices.
The team has worked together on this project for more than 3 months since Feb. Through the face-to-face meeting, trainings, brainstorming and interviews, the whole team has enlightened each other in many ways and made great progress on the project. The collaboration among MIT students, Fudan students and Client Company has been highly effective and productive.
The group presentation lasted about 40 minutes. Students delivered their final solutions in three parts: Product concept ideas, E-commerce platform analyses and on-campus strategy. The company was satisfied with the logical flow of the presentation and the project outcomes. “In many ways, the team surprised us and they really did a good job”, said Mr. Zhang. However, in order to make the written report more perfect, Fudan team was open to questions from the company and willing to make adjustments to further refine the proposal.
This experience of doing real consulting project was treasured and valued by both the client company and the students. For the client company, students inspired them by offering a fresh new angle; for students, it was a great opportunity for them to bring theories into practice. Each party benefitted greatly while contributing and interacting with others, and this is the core value of such active learning projects
(By Ascend Household Paper Team)
Project 4 – VIPABC/Tutor Group (Yang Yang & Kathy Pan Li)
Our final report was on 22 May 2014, 1 day after the Cica Summit in Shanghai. We initially arranged to have the meeting on 21 May, but we changed it to 22 May when afterwards we found out that there would be traffic controls.
The CEO of Tutor Group Dr. Yang and marketing director Stellar, who happened to be one of our Fudan-BI MBA alumni, represented Tutor Group for the meeting. The presentation lasted 2 hours, during which we had lots of discussion, stepping into fields of digital marketing, pricing design and purchase process. After the report, we made another appointment for a further session with their marketing department, to discuss about digital marketing.
Time flew by fast when we were working for this project. We deeply appreciate this opportunity to dig deep into a unique and specialized company, cooperating with insiders to solve real business problems. At the end of the final report, Dr. Yang also offered working opportunities to us, a chance to be a part of the bright future of this fast developing company. We feel proud to have left our mark on this company, which in future we could say we were once part of this company. If possible, we also really hope our paths will cross with Tutor Group again, someday.
(By VIPABC Team)
