On April 12, 2015, MBA Tenured Professor & Dr. Fang Er from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign came to Beijing Jiaotong University with his EMBA students and discussed some cases with nearly a hundred MBA students. This workshop was co-organized by Prof. Fang Er, Vice Administrative President of University of Illinois Ron Watkins and Associate Prof. Zuo Li, Director of MBA Education Center of Beijing Jiaotong University. 35 EMBA students participated in this workshop, including senior managers from famous enterprises such as Vice Marketing President of North American Branch of Chevrolet, Vice Financial President of Morgan Stanley, Channel Development Manager of Caterpillar, etc. Room 306 of Siyuan East Building was crowded by participants that day.
Prof. Fang Er hosted the case workshop and gave his inspiration and comments. Such issues like pWhy Google withdrew from China marketq, pWhy Google did not succeed in China marketq and pHow can Google come back to Chinaq were discussed on the workshop. Participants also compared different understanding of brands between China and the United States, and discussed different global brand strategies, taking the car brands of Buick and BMW as examples.
Case discussions were hot that day. From their own angles, students from China and the United States gave their objective and comprehensive comments on the case of pGoogle withdrew from China marketq. EMBA students from the United States analyzed from the angles of data security and business model and expressed regret for Googleos no breakthrough in China and withdrawal of part of its core business from China. As for the reason for Googleos failure in China and the way Google coming back to China, US students showed their expectation and gave Chinese MBA students a positive answer. Mainly from the angles of the friendship, function and practicability of Google engines, Chinese students raised questions of usage of Google, compared the different orientation, function, concept and culture between Google and Baidu. They put forward that it was the cultural difference between China and the United States that gave the local searching engine of Baidu some advantages. They also gave some advice on how Google could come back to China, how to strengthen its localization and how to cooperate with local governments and enterprises. Finally, students from both sides compared brand images of consumers of Buick and BMW, and together analyzed the global differentiated brand strategies. Guided by Prof. Fang Er, students from both sides made some analysis and summary on the reason of such differences. As for some issues, they agreed without prior consultation
As Wang Xu, a MBA student of Grade 2014, said, there were undoubtedly huge cultural difference between China and the United States. The leading position of the United States in the world is also out of question. However, China is catching up. What China lacks of is time accumulation. China needs to go outward to develop, it also needs a window. Meanwhile, the development of the whole world also needs China. In the future, more and more enterprises will come to China, and more and more Chinese enterprises will go out. We believe that tomorrow for China is much better. MBA communication between China and the United States provided more exchange for enterprise managers of both sides. We hope it will be continued for deeper understanding and for constructing bases of cooperation among enterprises. EMBA students from the United States also took this case workshop as a very good form of communication. They thought it was helpful to think from different angles, which gave more understanding of enterprise and culture. They also enjoyed the learning atmosphere.
In the 3 hourso communication, MBA students from China and the United States cooperated, communicated and discussed. They showed their excellence comprehensively through collision of minds and communication of opinions. In future, the MBA Education Center will organized more of such activities to promote international communication for MBA students of our university.
Brief introduction to University of Illinois:
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) is a public research university located in State of Illinois of the United States. For a long time, it has been one of the most famous science and engineering universities in the United States. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign ranked the second place in the Big Ten of Mid-West famous universities association. It is one of the Three Giant Public Universities of the United States, with the other two are University of California at Berkeley and University of Michigan. According to the latest rank of year 2014 of U.S.News & World Report, UIUC ranked the 11th place among public universities in the United States, with the integrated rank of 41. In the 2014 USNews rank of business schools, UIUC Business School ranked 39. UIUCos EMBA programme is one of the longest and best in the United States, with its current rank of 14.
MBA Education Center
April 13, 2015
