From 6 - 10 March and from 5-8 April Mathilda Gabrilot, Lauriane Haon, Shaheen Hullemuth and Marie Prévot had the opportunity to visit Xi'an, the ancient Chinese city famous for its Terra Cotta army and an important staging post on the Silk Road.
The Multicultural Consultation Project is a course that gives SKEMA students the possibility to practise what they have been learning by working on a consulting project in a Chinese company. Guided by Laubie Li, academic director of the Suzhou campus, the SKEMA students gained concrete experience of collaborating with Chinese students in a Chinese context.
The 10 students were divided in to two mixed groups (SKEMA and MBA of Xian Jiaatong University) under the guidance of April Yang, professional consultant on the campus. Each group worked in a Chinese company in Xi'an during the semester. Their task was to identify important problems in the company and recommend appropriate solutions.
This project enabled the students to identify assess Chinese companies’ business strategies today, through understanding their internal and external environments. The experience enabled them to understand how these strategies influence the consumption of resources and internal and external relations with stakeholders. They learned to use appropriate strategic tools and methods and to analyse and evaluate the implication of resource management and the potential value to be created through strategic initiatives.