Fudan-Tekes Project-- Planray
Planray team consists of Sabrina, Jessie, Jacky and Jeff. As requested by Customer, the major task of our team was to provide professional market analysis before offering feasible action plans to expand its business in China.
In the final review, the team conducted detailed analysis of macro and Micro environment for heating controllers in China; they also elaborated on marketing communication strategies and action plans in terms of short-term and long-term vision. Planray seemed to be satisfied with what we suggested and thus it spoke highly of the effort made to the project.
In retrospect, this project was imbued with toughness and excitement. From the wrong Visa date and the long journey to Beijing, to the awesome seafood and breath-taking scenery in Kajani, everything and every moment were quite unforgettable. In a nutshell, how to be a good team player, how to market an existed product in a new market and how to make product characteristics versus value proposition were three import lessons they have learned from this project.
Fudan-Tekes Project-- Stereoscape
The final report for Fudan iLab Stereoscape has been a great success from both parties perspective. For Fudan MBA students, based on the primary research and secondary research, they analyzed local Macro and Micro environments in China, and concluded Major obstacle for Stereoscape in Chinese market. As a result, the team explored 3 possible propositions for Stereoscape.
Although it would not be easy for Stereoscape to exploit the booming Chinese market, there will still be chances. Chinese incumbents are not hostile to a new comer; however, they are also eager for a model that may create a win-win solution for both sides. The three propositions are not mutually exclusive, rather, they stand as a guide that could help Stereoscape jockeying for its sustainable and advantageous foothold in China.
For Stereoscape, except valuable propositions offered, they also got chance to talk with leading local Chinese companies during bring alive activities. With face to face communication with Chinese peers, they have a more vivid understanding to each other, thus settled a solid foundation for their future business corporation.
Fudan-Tekes Project-- Cesim
Cesim Company is a leading provider of business simulation which offers an experience of “learning by doing”. It had been very successful in serving education for business school. Now, Cesim taps cooperate training in China’s market and thus eager to learn more about the feasibility and approach potential collaborators.
Lasting for 6 months, Cesim project had collected much information about the industry, client profile, and professional suggestions. The four members all contributed great efforts to fulfill the findings. According to the requirement of the client, the team chose four industries as target to profile the market for Cesim to refer to, namely banking, hospitality, MNCs, and consulting. Eric Gao, the team leader, led the team effectively and fully mobilized his network and interviewed 11 banks to dig the mind of potential clients. Jason Hu, responsible for hospitality industry which was hard to approach yet he still succeed to get enough data. Hersy Zheng, found the trend of emerging corporate universities and succeed to interview 3 MNCs with corporate university to get general profile. What’s more, Echo Han, who responsible for consulting companies which can be the potential collaborator the Cesim product, not only succeed to seize detailed information for cooperation anticipation and requirement from the consulting companies, but also brought business opportunity for Cesim Company.
Now, Cesim team is busy wrapping up data, analysis, and conclusion under the guide of the mentor, trying to present the information in a way that maximizes the value to Cesim Company.
Fudan-Tekes Project—Sintrol
Sintrol, founded in 1993, is one of the world’s largest dust monitor manufacturers with a wide range of particulate matter measurement devices. Expecting the growing market for Sintrol products in Chinese iron & steel industry, Sintrol launched this project with the aim to investigate and penetrate this industry. The iLab team is expected to identify the top user’s purchase channels and quantity, together with the competitive analysis. The team then develops strategic suggestions for Sintrol’s development in iron & steel industry in China.
It is the great value that the sense of achievement and confidence gained from offering something really valuable to your clients and through struggle of extracting massive data. This experience also made the students always put themselves in the shoes of observers, being acute of every possible opportunity for clients’ business. In a word, this experience offered the members a better preparation to be the elite in the future business world.
Fudan-Tekes Project—Confidex
Confidex is a RFID tag and contactless ticket manufacturer located in Tampere, Finland. They also has a plant in Guangzhou, China. With over 100 employees, Confidex wants to strengthen its presence in China’s market, especially in China’s automotive industry. This iLab team has conducted a lot of research, including deskwork, cold calls, interviews and site visits. More than 50 essays and research reports were collected and analyzed. With the help of the MBA office and the Alumni.
Center, the iLab team got the chance to interview a lot of key persons in the industry. After the mid-term review which took place in Finland, the team focuses more on analyzing the competitive advantages of Confidex and finalizing a business plan recommendation.
China Lab Project -- CTG Agro
The team members include: Meifang Lv (Fudan), Yanping Su (Fudan), Sam Nadler (MIT Sloan) and Tony Qiu (MIT Sloan). The project was to provide strategic recommendations for a corporate training initiative pursued by the CPG China. The company requested specific recommendations regarding operational mechanisms of the facility, such as organizational structures, governance, curriculum, teaching and funding resources, internal marketing and performance metrics.
A real project requires an in-depth investigation. During the project, the team put quite a lot of time and efforts in conducting self-study, doing benchmark research, building models and talking with professionals. That was a great project-based learning experience.
China Lab Project -- Bosch
“What an exciting and memorable last few months this has been!”, said Jeek Yuan to teammate Mitch Krstovski. The two have just finished their MIT Fudan iLab project. The two Fudan IMBA students accompanied by two MIT MBA students tackled a real world consulting case in just less than four months. Their client company Bosch asked them to devise four suggestions to help them meet their Co2 reduction targets.
The team had many on site visits at the Bosch factory at Suzhou as well as an unforgettable trip to Cambridge to work at MIT. The whole process fostered a growth both in intellectual capacity and also as friends. “As we worked across two very different time zones, and had endless conference calls, we quickly bonded with each other with the goal of find the best solutions for Bosch.”, said teammate Mitch Krstovski.
The team throughout the process applied many of the skills and frameworks they learned from their courses into their problem-solving repertoire. Initially the team drafted thirteen potential ideas for Bosch to reduce Co2 emissions and through the guidance of our company contact Stefan Gaebele we were able to reduce the number to four areas of specific focus. “Working with an industry guru like Stefan, was such an honor and helped to open my eyes to complexity and sheer size of doing business in China”, said teammate and MIT MBA student Andrew Olson.
As team Bosch wraps up their adventure today, who knows what tomorrow may bring?
China Lab Project -- Origin
Shanghai Origin Logistics is a professional logistics company specializing in sea transportation, international import and export agency business and multimodal transportation. The purpose of this project is to map out and analyze the different directions for growth that could be undertaken by Origin in the e-commerce area, and provide a recommendation for a new Business structure, organization, and Go-to-Market Strategy.
The team members have gained valuable insight by working with an innovative entrepreneur. Meanwhile, they have learned how to run a specific project, through scoping the project, overcoming difficulties to collect sensible data, adjusting objectives and methodologies, and keep active and effective communication with host Company.
China Lab Project—Keteng
Changzhou Keteng Textile Co., Ltd. is a private company supplies both domestic and imported raw cotton to yarn manufactures in China as well as oversea. In the beginning of the project, due to the small number of employees of 30 staff and there was no standard HR practice, the employee evaluation was based on subjective. Thus, there was no guideline for the employee to improve their performances.
The team was tasked to establish business department employee performance evaluation system that would then create transparency and link the employee performance to the reward system, so as to motivate the employee to continuous self-improvement.
CP Food Project
Beginning from January, the team defined the topics of this project and conduct the pre-survey. The students also visited the client company and interviewed with Mr. Fang to get the information such as product lines, sales, marketing, logistics, R&D, etc. Meanwhile, according to Professor Zhang’s guide, the team designed a consumer survey with questionnaire. Based on the information from company and data from consumer, they conducted the mid-term presentation. During the second half of stage, the team organized a consumer focus group to deeply know the consumer preference and complete practical marketing strategies.
From the project, the team members experienced a real marketing and consulting project. They learned to think and solve the problem by themselves based on the marketing project, which will be benefit to the future career.
Guosheng iLab Project
After nearly five months efforts, Guosheng evaluation system reached the end successfully. On Jun 21st, all of our team members of team 9 and team 10 arrived the office of Guosheng Group to present the final report to their Director Zhang and Manager Yangye, the mentor associate professor Xu attended the meeting as well on behalf of the school.
The project provided a very good opportunity for the students to transfer what they learned in class, especially in the course of Financial Accounting into realities. Meanwhile, profound friendship was cultivated within the two teams through effective communication and cooperation.
IBM Market Expansion Project
The primary goal of the project is to enhance the growth of IBM’s market in China by finding industry insights through research of key clients and benchmark analysis of local companies’ performance in comparison to their international competitors.
During the course of our project, our team learned different strategies that IBM uses to analyze their customer needs in order to develop new, innovative business opportunities. Through further research on key customer profiles and their industry trends, we were able to predict customers’ core competencies, future development strategies, and competitive advantages. A vital portion of our research was based on finding key industry key dynamics as they relate to future development.
NBTY Project ---Baby Product Campaign
After the positive mid-term review, the team members finalized the survey at around a total of nearly 300 people. Many of the initial thoughts and theories about the market were confirmed, but of course, there were a few surprises. With this newfound knowledge, the students brainstormed possible marketing strategies to help NBTY gain more brand recognition with their target consumer.
Professor Zhang, after the practice presentation, gave the students some great suggestions .When the day came for the final presentation, students well-prepared, confident, and ready.
Said by the team member “As a team, we feel incredibly lucky to have one another for support, friendship, and many, many shared fond memories. After a whole semester of togetherness, “trust & respect,” and laughs, there is a bond that now exists between the four of us that we all know will last a lifetime wherever we are – and we have the Fudan iLab program to thank for that.”
Case Writing Project– Lifecare
The project is a case writing about Lifecare, a company that provides caring service for senior people as well as management service for rest homes. To prepare the case writing, students have interviewed the senior management of the company in order to get primary information about the company’s development and its current situation. We’ve also done some researches on the Internet to know about the industry background, including government policies, senior people market, rest homes’ situation in China and foreign experiences.
After two intense months of information gathering and three times of review and modification under the guidance of faculty mentors ZHANG Zhe and XU Zhihong, students finished the final version by the end of May. This case then was used for teaching purpose in MBA class after getting the authorization of the company.
Zhongyou Marriage Service Platform
The iLab final report of Zhongyou group for marriage website was smoothly finished on July 4, 2013.The team member experience several times of discussion and brain storm, market research, modification for business plan basing on different professors’ and experts’ proposals and suggestions, and preparing for PPT till to midnight, finally they successful accomplish this project and gain partner company’s confirm.
The attendants included project advisor professor Xu Yunjie, project team members Jin Xu, Liu Juan, Feng Yinping and Han Dong, meanwhile included customer company’s colleagues Vice President Fu, Director Ge and so on.
Zhongyou Mobile App project
In Zhongyou mobile app project, there are four team members including Tony(team leader), Katharine, Neus and Wesley. On the afternoon of July 3rd,the team did the final report to Zhongyou company.
The final presentation delivered a set of feasible solution based on a lot of first-hand market survey data analysis and competitors performance analysis, as well as market promotion strategy and examples.
The feasible and prospective solution has fully met the company's requirements. Mr. Bian, the GM of Zhongyou company highly appraised our work. He said our ability were in EMBA level and our delivery was worthy more than the money paid for this project. He also highly appraised our admirable attitude and hard work in satisfying many new ideas from Zhongyou in the project.
Ten-thousand Desk Plan Project
There was once a news reported that some kids in a very underdeveloped village have to carry their desks all the way for schooling every day. When Fudan MBA Alumni read about this, their hearts went broken. Immediately they initiated the Ten-thousand Desk Plan which aims to provide 10,000 convenient and functional desks for those kids who have to carry their desks to school every day.
Ten thousand desk Plan Project was created to help students who are in poor area of China with school desks. It is a philanthropic project and it is an entrepreneuring project as well. These 2 features make it unique among the ilab projects in this term of IMBA.
During the project, the group kept focusing on the project practice. They walked out of the campus to have interview with the students in poor schools selected carefully by them. They distributed the questionnaires and collected enough information to make the desk design. Finally they got a very nice table sample and a reasonable plan for practice. The group had got an excellent achievement and experience in this project and they had and they are going to have more and more students benefit from their great work.
