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Webinar: MBA Information Session

Good evening everyone. My name is Sean Ferguson. I'm in the associate Dean here at the age of School of Business and we'd like to welcome you to our virtual info session. We have an exciting agenda for you guys today. I'll give an interview overview presentation of the program, and then we'll have a panel with some of our esteemed students in the working professional and full time MBA program. But before we get started.

We're still working out the virtual portion of this info session, Mozilla. He works on the admissions team, and so as you guys who are going to apply it to the program, you'll get to work extensively with her on managing your application through the process, all right.

And so today represents an opportunity for us to tell you about a SB and give you a sense of the story from multiple perspectives, alright?

Here during an info session, you'll discover why this unquestionably the best place to get your MBA. You'll learn about our program in our curriculum, experience that we think prepares you for the future. Uh, as an aspiring leader and manager, you'll understand the long-term value and benefit of the NBA, and then you'll understand the power of the network and how we make it happen here in Asia.

And so the business Asia is the future commercial center of the world all right? And what's happening in Asia is that you have all these economies emerging. Led by China, India and Southeast Asia. And there's a tremendous amount of opportunity here for MBA graduates who are looking to build a global karere.

Um, the slide on the left gives you is a representation of the schools in the Financial Times Top 100 MBA programs. And if you look at the salary increases three years after graduation, emerging Asia whereas B is at as the highest salary increases. Postgraduation 3 three years after graduation of any of the top 100 Business School.

And a lot of this is driven by the. There's a scarcity of talent in the region.

Fazila Hashim

07:32:42 PM

Welcome to Asia School of Business' Virtual Info Session! We are so glad to have you here with us.

China is moving up the value add chain and this is creating opportunities for Southeast Asia.

G7 will be displaced by the rest of the world by 2020 this year, and there's a huge talent deficit and there's a need for people from across the world to come to this part of the region to help us fulfill this boat, help fulfill its growth of the agenda.

Now for us, our mission statement is pretty clear. We want to become the Premier School of Management education in Asia. Recognized for our ability to develop principled an innovative leaders and with the underlying goal of transforming uh and the advancement of Southeast Asia Alright?

Fazila Hashim

07:33:19 PM

Presenting right now is Dr. Sean Ferguson, Associate Dean at Asia School of Business, with an overview of our school and MBA programs.

So as be for those you guys who don't know as a product of two is a product of two entities, the central Bank of Malaysia, an MIT Sloan.

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Alright, so Asia ASB is a product of 2 great partners, the central Bank of Malaysia, an MIT Sloan from the United States. The goal is to help bring world class talent to the emerging world. One of the things that you'll find is that if you haven't been to Malaysian, it's amazing. It's an amazing place. It's a high middle income country that's on the verge of becoming an advanced economy. But in order to make that gap, one of the things that it needs to do is have more world class talent. And that was the primary charge for starting the Asia School of Business.

For us, what you can guarantee, you'll get out of this experience is the academic rigor of MIT.

And then from bank Negara we have the financial support and resources to invest in this significant undertaking and then we're hoping is that as be can be a talent magnifier magnet and multiplier for the region.

Now MIT is fundamentally embedded in our curriculum and programmatic experience. It's the underlying DNA of who we are as a school. But while we're ASB and we have our own DNA, the MIT element of the curriculum is fundamentally embedded here. We have world class faculty about a third of our classes are taught by MIT faculty. We have a four week emerging where students really get a chance to immerse themselves in the experience on MIT sloan's campus. And then you have access to MIT alones.

Alarms, industry leaders and the broader stakeholders stakeholder community.

Um Russ, who are we looking for, our talent or our approach to NBA talent is built on finding extraordinary an unconventional students.

Fazila Hashim

07:35:56 PM

If you can't see any video, please refresh the screen

Sorry this trying to get all this together here who have high intelligence but also have high EQ and we're looking for people who can work in dynamic settings with our action learning curriculum. We need people who are adaptable problem solvers who can operate in multiple environments and as we go through the admissions process, that's our primary charge of as far as who were looking for from a talent perspective.

As an international MBA whoops, sorry. As an international MBA, uh, we have a super diverse program. Super diverse programs are full-time. Program has about 80 three students in it, 30% or Malaysian 70% or international about 43% of the students in our programs or females, which is one of the best in the interest industry. And we have representation from five continents.

Oh, collectively, we have 20 six countries represented, so you'll find someone who you've never met. From there you'll find someone in your class that you've never met someone before from their country.

And are working professionals program. It's built on a similar kind of notion.

Given that it's a more regional and local program, it's more Malaysian in nature, so 67% of our students are from Malaysia, but 33% or international, and I guess I would say at least the 3rd to maybe 40% fly in for the program to participate. High female percentage again and represented representation from any great company.

Um, what differentiates ASBR curriculum which we colloquially dub is NBA 3.0 we think is our biggest competitive differentiator. When we first came to the to the region are leaders and founders talked to many of the corporate entities across the region and one of the things that they lamented about MBA students was that they couldn't hit the ground running. And So what we wanted to do was build a curriculum that position our students to hit the ground running and be market ready for Barca ready leaders for the region.

And this is done on action learning. So if you look at this schematic Here every semester, our students spin in the full time program. Our students spend about two weeks or four weeks on site with one of our corporate partners doing an action learning project. These are team based projects, they can range from supply chain optimization projects, digital strategy projects, human resource strategy projects. They cover a range of range of different subject areas across a range of different industries.

Um and so the curriculum is fundamentally action, learning and then we support the curriculum with the fundamentals of Management Education. So you'll get the chance to take finance, accounting, strategy, marketing, and all those other class.

So in our curriculum, one of the things that you'll see is that the projects have been done all over the world across 20 two different countries. We have over 100.

This is, uh, uh, there's an error on the slide, but we have 127 different Co hosts and then 200, and we've conducted 237 projects since we've started this program. The school one of the good things about these projects and how they position, they help prepare the students with what's going on in the marketplace is that the projects are effect effectively a proxy of the problems that the corporate community is facing in this part of the world. And So what we? I don't think it was an intentional.

Feature of the design, but we're finding as we go through the placement process for class after class. People are well aligned with what corporate recruiters are looking for. So for us we've had a lot of digital transformation projects and over 50% of our students are winding up working in the technology space or enrolls related towards technology and so our alignment of action learning with what the marketplace need really prepares our students a little bit better than other schools.

Now our curriculum. We recently just launched the NBA for working professionals program. The working professionals program is a.

An adaptation of our curriculum in our thematic approach to action learning or high potential working professionals all right, and it's a two year format as well. An action learning has been adapted and to be a fundamental part of it similarly. But what's different about the program is that individuals who go through the working professional program have the ability to do these projects for their own company Alright.

And so part of the value proposition for students who come to this company and why in a lot of cases these companies want to sponsor their students as they get some, they get some redeeming value, add from the projects that their students work on an address it that are part of the organization.

It's a similar, you know, 55 semester program. There's a little bit of a difference though, because the projects are individual and company based. We also have these things that we call business practicums and the business practicums for working professional programmer launched offer three times during the course of the program and so they just recently completed operations practicum at Volvo. It was a service operations project. Later on they'll potentially have a marketing project and then they'll have a capstone project.

At the end of the program.

But similar to our full time experience, uh, the action learning is a fundamental portion of the curriculum, and one of the things that we always talk about with action learning is that we believe that in the future we're not going to be able to teach everyone all the technical knowledge in the world right in the age of disruption. One of the things that we're having is that you know if you learn technical knowledge today are very specialized technical knowledge and two to five years that knowledge may be outdated.

But would action learning gives you as a real future proof approach to prepare your karere for the long term? And so because we do action learning in every semester, it's interspersed in the curriculum and it's, uh, and amplifies the effect of learning. So as they go through the iterative and it helps amplify the learning of students, go through each semester in the curriculum and what they do, what happens to our students in the end product is that their learned, they've learned how to learn so that they can do right.

And solve problems and make an impact in the organization. And that's a lifelong skill that won't go away as opposed if we just dumped a bunch of technical knowledge on you and then in the future you outgrow the technical knowledge because technology and how business is done may have changed or evolved and we think this is our differentiating feature in the program.

Now for those of you who are interested in the NBA for professionals, curriculum is very immersive and rigorous. It provides a platform also, though, to build a diverse network and gain global perspective and so about three times a semester, our students will R NBA for working. Professional students will come to campus or nine week block, and in that block they'll take two courses. One of the courses will be taught by an MIT faculty. Another course will be taught by one of our resident faculty who are.

Uh, International Faculty Fellows at MIT? Then they also have a chance to engage with our action learning faculty on their action learning project. So it's an intense nine day period and over the course of your time in the program, you're roughly have to take about 1/5 of your time off from work to engage in the curriculum.

Now.

Nobody just pays for it because you have it is different than the US, and so one of the things that we did is we did a little bit of a study of the Financial Times Global MBA rankings. The Emba rankings and the full time MBA rankings and we looked at a salary growth in different parts of the world, right?

And so, based on the NBA and working professionals market on a year over year basis for the five year period that we looked at, we found that in the developing Asia Southeast Asia's fedora, the average year over year growth in NBA salaries is 5.7 point, 1% last for working professionals. It's pretty strong for full time students as well. It's 5.7%, right? And so this is what drives the, you know, the scarcity of talent.

Fazila Hashim

07:44:58 PM

Thank you for your feedback - we are working on getting the sound quality better.

And the high performers that students from top schools deliver that drives this growth, right? It's funny on, you know, and some of my research company sale we don't pay additional that we don't pay for the NBA, right? But this shows here that whether they know it or not, the productivity that MBAs from top schools have over the long run vastly outperform Outperforms Market Alright. And in typical cases, MBAs are pretty much saying 3% growth.

3% more growth on an annual basis then Non MBA.

So we don't have.

We don't have information for our graduates yet for the working professional program, but we're very confident that they're going to perform well. And if you look at the initial returns from our full time MBA program, they forecast well for what's going to happen in the working professional program.

And so you know, one of the things that we have to do is a school is we convert salaries for purchasing power parity to compare for different markets and the salary for our purchasing power parity are purchasing power parity based salary has been in the $130,000 range for our graduates this past year.

What's your fine is if you go look at the Financial Times NBA rankings.

Our graduates compare well to alarms of other schools.

Three years after graduation, all the salaries in the financial time MBA ranking.

Those salaries were for graduates three years after the program, and if you just take the PPP adjusted salary of our graduates at graduation, it's already in the top pop, 55 rain and so this is a sign that with our students are doing, it's been really receptive in the market.

The other thing is, this goes back to the point that I made earlier about the alignment of the Tech and innovation industry. Having a big role in our program, a lot of our action learning programs are projects are tech based, about 52% of our students went to work in the technology.

Um, then we had about 17% going to the consulting industry, so our preparation for those areas is really opposition. Our students well for success.

About half of our students work in Asia and Southeast Asia and the other half of worked all over the world. So in a class of about 30, we've had about a class of students who weren't bonded who were looking for employment. We had about 30 or 30 two students and they went to work in 15 different countries across the world. All right? Uh, with 40% of them working in Malaysia, another 17% working in Southeast Asia. The roughly half were in this part of the world.

And then the rest were all over the world. We had 17% of students in China and then another 17% of the students in the advanced economies. That's like Europe in the Western Europe in the United States and Canada. And then we had, uh, another 10% who were placed in Africa and Latin America.

So these are some of the stories and pictures and images of individuals who are products of the ECB may experience and so.

We have people from the US who went back to the US or people from Brazil who went to go work in China. We've had people working traditional rotational programs like at Liberty Mutual with thresh.

We've had individuals work and Google here in Malaysia, but we've also had individuals convert projects from their action learning program into roles like Dorio, Atari, Um Anandha in Thailand.

We've had people placed in traditional management consulting roles like Gary and then we've had people go to big tech like Laura.

Uh, these are also some of our students at Microsoft. A cell C Kohlmeyer she is, uh actually in a non traditional role but involved in the entrepreneurial space but not as a founder or on the VC side as a facilitator. So she's working in the for the New Jersey Institute of innovation as director of Commercialization Innovation, Kwang. He was actually our graduation they speaker and he's a great example of our network.

He, uh.

Or one of our board members saw him speak and wanted to hire him right on the spot, but the heart they hard belong to lead his companies digital transformation efforts. Uh, in the region. Deepika actually took a traditional path as an intern from Microsoft and then became a business program manager is now based in Singapore and mocks lot. He's from Turkmenistan. He was a data science and engineering kind of person and so he was able to get a role as a data products lead.

Will speak Australia because in Australian firm that runs the Jobstreet platform here in Malaysia, so our students have gone on to do tremendous things.

Now I want to talk quickly about our application process. There's eight elements to it. There's a resume that outlines your professional progression. A cover letter? Uh, then, there's, uh, the academic transcripts. And so this is very important for us. We do a rigorous academic assessment because we don't require the gmat or the GRE.

We also want to get to know you as your most authentic self, so we have a video statement that has to be about 2 minutes and then you need two letters of recommendation and we're looking here or someone who can evaluate you as a professional and you're a long term potential as a graduate and then like most schools, we have essays and if you make it through all these different areas then you get to the interview and that's kind of the final evaluation.

The basic minimum requirements for us is a bachelors degree. We also have a work experience minimum two years of work experience and then proof of language proficiency. So if you went to a school where English was the medium of instruction, that's sufficient. But if you did, you have to do the toll floor Isles.

Uh, we have a a set of deadlines coming up. We have the April deadline for the last round of the full time program is April 2nd and then for the working professionals program. We have two more deadlines around 2:00 is April 7th and then round three is June 16 2020.

Rafhanah Qasrina Ramli

07:51:53 PM

17th March: https://apply.asb.edu.my/register/OnlineChatMarch17 19th March: https://apply.asb.edu.my/register/OnlineChatMarch19

Uh, and then here are some of the events that we have left. Uh, upcoming. So we have a an online online chats to focus on applications and things of that nature. Those will be on March 17th and 19th and then on March 14th 24th. I will have access NBA events and coffee chats in New York, Montreal, Toronto and Grant Vancouver and this will be our first Endeavour in Canada. So we hope to see a lot of Canucks out there are senior director of admissions will be there then in.

Rafhanah Qasrina Ramli

07:52:07 PM

Access MBA NY (14th March): https://www.accessmba.com/registration/city/new-york/1571 Access MBA Montreal (16th March): https://www.accessmba.com/registration/city/montreal/1574 MBA Coffee Chat Toronto (18th March): https://apply.asb.edu.my/register/MBACoffeeChatToronto Access MBA Toronto (19th March): https://www.accessmba.com/registration/city/toronto/1577 MBA Coffee Chat Vancouver (23rd March): https://apply.asb.edu.my/register/MBACoffeeChatVancouver Access MBA Vancouver (24th March): https://www.accessmba.com/registration/city/vancouver/1587 Access MBA Kuala Lumpur (11th April): https://www.accessmba.com/registration/city/kuala-lumpur/1607

April will have another access NBA event on the 11th and koala lumpur, uh come meet us again and then we'll have ongoing schedule. A call to coffee chat, uh, so one of the things as we've as the coronavirus is kind of evolved and it is escalating. What we've done is we've offered more virtual touch points for the safety of our prospects admins in our broader stakeholder community.

At this point in time, we're going to move to the panel before we get. Our panelists will come up and set up, but will answer some of the questions that you guys submit it in advance of the.

In advance of the info session.

All right.

Rafhanah Qasrina Ramli

07:53:08 PM

1. What are the Career prospects after the course?

Alright, so the first question is from Shashwat and Mumbai. Shashwat is an admit admit to our program. We're excited, he's coming and what are the career prospects after the course like? And as I touched base on earlier, the career prospects are strong in this part of the world.

I think as I as articulated earlier, the salaries on a year over year basis increased the median salary increased by 20. Know the average salary increases by 37% in the median increased by 22% annum. One of the things that we did a better job of over the last years. We really focus people on a core set of industries and map to where were the trends in the marketplace. So technology was big, consulting was big and these are industries that.

Well, that value. These are kind of knowledge oriented roles that appreciate the value of the NBA more.

All right?

Rafhanah Qasrina Ramli

07:53:53 PM

2. Is there any scholarship opportunity and how do we go about applying for it?

Then, Uh, Fatimae, she asked, are there any Scott scholarship opportunities? And how do we apply for it? And so, uh, in the full time MBA program we do offer scholarship scholarship is.

The strength of your scholarship is proportional to the strength of your application. Your application for admission.

And serves as your application for scholarship in the working professionals program. We don't offer scholarship for say we are working on a financial aid option that allows students to participate and be a part of the program.

Uh, another question.

From Akshay in India, Uh.

I'm a professional working on in the oil and gas industry on ships carry liquefied natural gas, pursuing an MBA from MBA, MBA from ASB. What would my prospects of getting absorbed into the same industry on the shore?

Rafhanah Qasrina Ramli

07:54:46 PM

3. I am a professional working in the oil and gas industry, on ships carrying LNG's. Pursuing an MBA from ASB, what are the probability of getting absorbed into the same industry, on shore at the same time guaranteeing similar excitement as at SEA.

At the same time, guaranteeing similar excitement for Asia. And so I think one of the things with the working professionals program.

It differs from a full time MBA program in the sense that in the working professionals program you have career accelerator in the full time MBA program. This is generally speaking you have karere you have career changers right and so career accelerator is generally are happy with their either their industry or function and they're looking for a toolkit to help Excel and move further up the ladder within their organization and so individuals who want to stay in their industry or staying there function.

Either or we typically you know good professional MBA from professionals programs are typically designed for this profile of individual so there's not much of a strain of staying in your industry. It's pretty consistent to see people move from you know, maybe they were responsible for procurement in the oil and gas industry before working professional program, then maybe they stay in the oil and gas industry and they moved to the project finance side and one of the things that we offer in our working professional programmers career services so that.

You can figure out how to make this shift and pivot within your organization.

How does a SB this is? Mohammed is at he's from Cal.

Rafhanah Qasrina Ramli

07:56:11 PM

4. How does ASB compare itself against other business schools like Nottingham for example?

How does SB compare itself against other business schools like Nottingham for example and so are our expectations are to be a school of the highest order a Premier Business School in the reason we don't just think lokoli we don't just think reasonably we think globally and so that's how we think about what we want to do and how we want to be perceived as a Business School as a Premier institute of management education aspiration is to be the best Business School in Asia an roughly a Top 25 Business School in the world?

Rafhanah Qasrina Ramli

07:56:53 PM

5. How do we apply for scholarship for the MBA program? How’s the requirements like?

And how does someone Jasmine Chan from Kuala Lumpur? She asked about how do we apply for scholarship for the MBA program? What are the requirements like? Again, the strength of your application dictates the strength of your scholarship, right? And so if you're off the charts with your academic profile, your job experience, the thoughtfulness of your essays, the continuity between Witcher. Referees, say with your essays and how, how they harmonize together. That really tells us how strong your scholarship is going to be.

And then of course, the quality of the interview. Alright, so these are a few questions I think we might get more questions that we can address later on and will throw them maybe out to the panelists. So at this point in time, we'd like to bring up Alex Snedeker. She's our manager of marketing and emissions. If she's going to, she's also an alarm of the program, and she's going to facilitate this panel of students. So what our students please come up?

Sure, I'll give it up.

Hey, good evening everyone I Sean mentioned I'm Alex. I was in the 2018 full time class here at ASB and now I'm really excited to work on the admissions team and hopefully connect with all of you soon. So I want to start this panel by having everyone give a brief intro of themself your name, what country you're coming from? Uh, what your job either currently is or was before you took the MBA program.

Um, an yeah? I think that's that's pretty much it.

OK, so I'll start first. My name is all. I'm Malaysian. An prior to this NBA I was in a variety of industries. I was in the semi conductor industry as an R&D engineer. I was in the renewable energy industry's are also as an R&D Engineer. An currently I'm actually in medical devices in business development and since I am a working professional.

That is still my industry, so I still have a job.

My name is in ham. I'm from Morocco and I'm a full time student. Uh, before joining ASPI worked for almost Seven years in different finance roles in Morocco, New Zealand and UK.

Hey.

Yeah, hello, my name is Kisha. I'm from Cal. I'm from the 2021 full-time program. I'm currently a full-time sponsored student, so I'm bonded after I leave MBA program. So before I came here I was working in the oil and gas industry in my capacity as a manager for commercial.

And last but not least, hopefully my name is Rafael and I'm born German and I work and live in Japan.

And at the moment, yeah, I'm doing this, uh, MBA WP. So the NBA for working professionals program.

And, uh, since uh lost.

You are. It was September, so September, Yeah.

And Yeah, it's been exciting time, so I've been working in Japan for the past or five years now, and I'm glad that I had the chance to get this opportunity. Great, thanks everyone, so a note to everyone who is watching this. Feel free to submit your questions before the panel is over. I will be receiving them here and will continue to ask the panelists questions after I'm done so I wanted to start.

Essentially, where I always start with student panels, because Asby has this mantra of being a transformative program. And So what I wanted to hear from each of you is in the time that you've been here thus far. What do you think has been the most transformative aspect of the program, and how has it transformed you?

Anyone can start.

I can sorry so.

Uh.

Fazila Hashim

08:01:30 PM

We have our student panel, moderated by Alex Snedeker, Alumna from the MBA Class of 2018, and currently Marketing Manager in the ASB Admissions Team.

I remember the time when I applied actually for my company in Japan when I had the interview and basically what I was telling my. Now my now is my boss. Well at that time I was telling my interview.

Proof that I know nothing about business.

Because I come from the background that is more focused on the theological studies so.

I think that was probably part of the reason why he might have sent me here in the 1st place, so I figured I could probably gain most or.

From an MBA program and.

Yeah, it turns out it's quite the transformative experience in total. So I.

Fazila Hashim

08:02:18 PM

Speaking now is Rafael Bohm, MBA-WP 2021.

As long as you stay curious you can absorb a lot of things and this is especially true foreign was especially true for myself. A lot of the things that I've learned in just half a year here, I have been.

Quite quite transformative, and the way that I look different at procedures that we have at the company.

Which I didn't know.

How they would would be working a lot of processes are like Blackhawks in the Clock that work together, but you don't really understand just by working in that company. You can work. Therefore I don't know like 5, six, 1010 ten years and you still do not understand the define mechanics that are behind processes that make a company work. So That being said, for one example this is one thing that I.

I thought it was quite amazing that on the ability to analyze a lot of these processes and look at things from the business from managerial standpoint, what's really?

Yeah, I'm I would say it was it was I, uh, changing the way you look at things and then that was a very good experience. Once you look good to know that, yeah.

And I will also add to that it has been transforming becausr, not just.

Fazila Hashim

08:04:02 PM

This is Ilham Bazi, MBA-FT 2021.

Out of the program it out, but the environment we are in. So like the program, uh enables us to be interaction with so many people like faculty either like from a SP or.

And also host camping or actually learning programs for like you speed things in a very different way. You can see how, um, like we had. Personally I had lots of ice. I started a recognizing that and the other parts from the environments we are living in is that I work in teams either for our projects or like working in teams for our study groups. And just like thing because it's a very diverse community. You learn a lot.

You are. It's a work in progress.

It's it's really a SB. They provide you with the right tools on the right platform to be a leader. So think about action learning. Think about the the summer internships. Think about all the assignments that we have to do for each class, so this is really a platform for you to show your skills as a leader. They provide the right platform to show that you're in principle, then transformative leader. So it's really all the program is defined an you're within that framework, so you can be a transformative leader. And it shapes you to be a principled leader as well.

Fazila Hashim

08:05:10 PM

This is Hisyam Hassim, MBA-FT 2021.

Fazila Hashim

08:05:29 PM

And last but not least, Paul Dylan Lim, MBA-WP 2021.

So for me, it's transformative in the sense that it pushes you to your limit, so I'm no stranger to actually moving from industry to industry and being forced to adapt to new things. I was in a very technical industry, are indeed before, and I shifted right into a business development. So that was really challenging. But yet, being here, it still pushes me over, even over my limit. And whoever joins the program, I am sure.

That it would push you, and when that happens you have no choice but to actually develop yourselves to the next level. It could be. It could come in the form of managing expectations of your host company, your home company, and also managing the workload of the NBA, right? And having a family or additional responsibility. But no matter what, you will have to dig deep deep an like. Never before, you must transform yourself. In fact, to be able to handle that amount of stress.

And that amount of the workload. So I think, Yeah, an it's far from over. We're only in the second semester, but I think that each and everyone of us would definitely be a different person once we come out the program.

Some amazing answers guys in from a lot of different angles, which is great, so I'm going to dive into one of the points that William actually touched on in her answer, which is the curriculum in the instruction. So one of our biggest selling points is our top tier faculty, both from MIT that are visiting as well as residential faculty. So I wanted to ask anyone or everyone that is inspired to do So what has been your favorite course or professor or kind of learning experience?

Thus far and what is it like to take these intensified versions? Of course, is from visiting MIT professors.

So for me personally my best course so far is probably data models and decisions. Let's talk by Professor David morning.

The thing about DMD, for short, is it gives you the right tools to apply in real life. So for example, in my action learning we had to use the empty tools to actually come up with the. We call that regression model to predict what the company would look like in the future. So it's really real world application of your theories, really, so it's professor go. Mark himself is a wonderful teacher, so I'd say quantitative skills. It's probably not one of my best tools, but professor David.

Mark made structured the course in such a way that I extremely enjoyed it and.

The way he teaches in the the things it teaches us. It's so real world, you know, so it's it's. It's a perfect combination of both.

So I would say this is a very difficult question be cause for someone like me who wants to be fair. It's difficult to choose one like one class or one processor, but I will use my short memory so I will talk about the class we had last week, which was operations practicum and we had it with professor James Womack. So that was a very like interesting class an like by the end of it, it was just one week and by the end of it I.

Felt very proud. Like um, the amount of learnings I had in one week in a company I've never like worked for before, or visited or industry that I've never experienced. It was amazing, so it was with Volvo um cars in Malaysia and it was interesting to go and like understand their sales process is how they deal with dealers. It's not like it was fantastic.

OK, I think you guys took two of my favorite professors. But anyhow, the Gist of it is actually how the MIT faculty make a huge difference. And why do they make a huge difference? It's be cause you can go to like any any place an learn this on Google or whatnot operations, or even DMD, but.

Um, this MIT faculty. They have loads of experience in actually presenting the cost work and the costs in a way that's really understandable to people who have no background whatsoever. So personally, as someone with a background engineering we, I've gone through marketing already have gone through operations an each of those they have. Actually professors from MIT, and the way that the cost is presented was so easy to understand that I could just.

Master whatever the syllabus was pretty quickly.

Yeah.

Tell the schools some.

Highly repeated slogan, Zorro, unconventional and extraordinary.

And, uhm, the MIT faculty is definitely part of that. So by the time now, there's no. Really. There's not many people left I can choose right now, but.

I think come like you probably have include could guess from the answer previously. I like operations quite alot operations here was sold at least to us for from professor find himself.

And, uh, this is some.

Yeah, um I would. How would I explain this is for example you have a complex Inter workings between distributors.

Wholesale retail and then the manufacturers and I from myself. I come from manufacturing company.

So I have that that eyesight come from the manufacturer's point of view, but do I really know what it's going down the line an? This is a very interesting subject to teach, but it can be very boring if you're not. If you're not careful, right?

So what how we got into the first part of that game already set it? We got into that one. So by playing a game right? I mean, that might be standard for for Sloan.

But, uh, it was so. It was pretty good. So even I think even if you're not a quant guy like me.

I'm not a kuangchi. Definitely, UM, then getting operations that way is definitely I'm going to work, and that is, yeah, really nice feeling that even if you don't feel comfortable about being very good at something faculty enables.

Everybody, I think uh, to actually get on get on the boat and just sail with it and it's really good.

Great answers everyone. So my next question is going to mostly be directed toward are full time students. Eleven Heysham about your action learning projects, right? So we're in our second semester, so that means we've done 1 1/2 action learning projects thus far, and I know both of you have fewer restrictions on what you can talk about, though the working professionals can jump in if you have any kind of more general learnings that you have from your projects. So what what have you done thus far? What kind of impact?

Have you made an companies an? Do you have any interesting action, learning stories or learnings that you've gotten out of these projects for yourself?

So my first actual learning project was the about digital marketing for a five Star Hotel Group, which is a Malaysian Group.

Uhm, I picked that projects because as I said Before, I came from finance. I want to just try other.

Like it's a marketing.

So, uhm, the impact we had is that, uh, we implemented the digital marketing framework that will enable them to achieve their target in terms of like, uh, how many bookings they can get through their online website?

Um Watt was interesting. Really, apart from achieving that, the outcome of the project is that from that project I will never see the hotel industry the same. Now when I go and visit the hotel I don't see it the same way, because once you understand the challenges of like the hotels, internal and like how they are fighting with OTS like online travel agents etc like it changed your mind.

My second AL is for a government agency, UM, which is green taken. It's about um, um green product label, so it's ongoing and it has been very interesting so.

Alright, so my first L project is with PNB for model and National Broad. It's the Malaysian investment company so our project was primarily dealing with raising occupancy rates at PMS hotels. So PM be has a problem that most of the hotels have low occupancy so we managed to show via financial modeling and through various initiatives that they can take. They can increase revenue by close to 1,000,000 ringgit per year. An increase occupant occupancy rates from 20% to.

Get the 60%, but I think more than anything else above the the technical learnings that we did that we had in my project in L1 was the personal interactions that I had with my teammates. So I think it's more about learning to working with your newfound friends and your teammates. It was our first action learning project as a team together, so it's really about managing people's expectations and managing stakeholders. It's more about managing people more than about managing the project.

Project you can learn. That's the easy part. As Professor Professor Laura Donna would say, managing managing people is the hardest part in any project.

My second ale that I'm currently doing right now is with Volvo Cars Malaysia, so Volvo has another problem in which their customer satisfaction scores are low. So we're introducing initiatives, an processes that can increase customer satisfaction. It's currently an ongoing project, but we're looking to increase satisfaction scores from 40% to around 70% customer satisfaction and it's going.

OK, I'm I cannot tell too much about my. I'll actually, uhm. It's mostly because it's highly classified information, but let's just say we're doing this technology thing.

And, uh, it's kind of my job, uh, to commercialize.

This whole new thing that we're developing.

And this is really exciting. Be cause, uh, nobody quite knows how to do it.

Um, the comma. The commercialization in itself and at my company, so there's only so many people that can help me out. So it's yeah, it's basically a joint effort of the faculty that's helping me out here.

My trials and getting.

New information at work and it's a back and forth in between the residencies. When I'm here and when I'm back in Japan. And, um, it's, uh, yeah, it has a very exciting aspects, but let's just say it's a lot of apps and downs because you're going to hit walls.

With any L that is, I think.

Because there's only so much that the theory applies in the real world, right? So yeah, but I'm having a very good time with the L, even though it's very challenging, yes.

Is primarily actually uhm, for Rafael and Paul in the working professionals program. So like you said, you're completing projects within your company. Bringing an external resources in the form of business coaches in the form of faculty members. And you know in some ways you kind of get to make a difference and then also work outside of the function of your day-to-day job and see the company in kind of a different light. So what I was.

Wondering whether you could kind of elaborate on is in a very general sense. In what way do you approach your job differently or in what way have you kind of seen um yourself being able to make a difference at your workplace, but you wouldn't have been able to do without the program.

So I would say that it stems from one of the tenants of ESB, which is the mine in the hand, so we also have action learning backup companies, and I've seen personally how the theory actually is verified by the real world. So like Raphael said, we played a game when it came to operations, an part of that showed us that at every stage from the manufacturer to, let's say, the retailers.

There is some kind of oscillation going around, right Anne? I personally saw that because well, my project is not classified so I could. I can share a bit. It's a inventory management, so I work with the medical distributor so we have to manage our inventory's like very carefully and we see that.

When retail pushes its orders to us, there is huge oscillations. Sometimes you could, you know, even say if you're familiar with standard deviations from one stage to the next stage, there could be a factor of 200% difference in standard deviations. So in a way that really verified what we learned and I was able to understand what the problem was. In my company an actually show.

Present to the management in a way that showed that, like this is a problem that happening an we could use certain forecasting techniques which are more effective, right? So I think that really could help the company and this is directly impacting the bottom line, right? So if you don't manage inventory properly then you have impairment losses.

So once you can prove that, you can decrease that Los, I think that that creates value to the company straight away.

So yeah, I like balls that is mostly about how to create value for a company. I think that most of the companies care about for any employee that is actually.

Here.

Thing that I realized was I had the experience of.

Getting in touch, or at least experiencing action learning students before because I was managing summer program interns from ASB or the past two years.

And looking back at their projects, I was not really understanding where all of that coming or was coming from at that time.

Uh, but now I do. Um, it's a lot of interesting frameworks that you can actually try to apply to. Very simple to very complex problems that you have. And my job is as a project manager is to solve problems all day long and we have so many problems.

So.

I will I. I would say that, um, the experience that I'm getting from the action learning.

Experiences that we've had in the past, and programs that we're doing right now.

A kind of.

Enabling me myself at the moment as well to give advice on several smaller factors that people are doing around me but not consider maybe some other things that are not considering maybe right so you have people trying to figure out on material flows and and trying to shorten shortening down lead times for materials coming in on the outflow. It's all a very complex structure and process.

Buttom

Are there actually looking at the right things right? Are they actually taking some things into consideration that are not, let's say, intuitive? So these other things that.

You get to learn a very, very specifically and maybe learn to ask more questions as well. Why is that? Why? Why why the five whys, right? So once you apply very, very simple even you can, you can make an impact. When I was trying to say you can make an impact even with very simple measures that you learn here and trying to apply those of the company if they're not doing it already be cause it's.

It always is bringing a change to the company in a way that you can make a.

Make make new information that most likely has value for them.

OK, great so um. My next question is primarily going to be like us entirely going to be directed toward the two Malaysians in the group because this question actually had come in and was partially answered by Shawn before, but I want to hear from your perspectives, right? Because I think a lot of potential Malaysian applicants are comparing the school against others.

I'm in the country and so I wanted to hear from you guys being in kind of this globally diverse program, does it feel like you're in Malaysia? How you know? How is it kind of different than what you would see a traditional Malaysian NBA experience to be like?

Therefore, I can't really speak for other schools, 'cause I've never really been in there, but so you know, 70% of our students and my classmates are not Malaysian, so you really press it into that world where you're just just doesn't feel like you're in Malaysia anymore. So even even back at the residency, you're constantly surrounded by Non Malaysians. So I think it's a brilliant thing. You know, I personally grew up.

Not in Malaysia, so I was kind of used to living with non Malaysians as well so there's a little bit of a personal story in the background, but it's to be in a culture where it's non majority Malaysian. It's a wonderful thing for me and it's an absolute privilege to be outta school, like ASV surrounded by non relations.

I'm so I grew up in Malaysia. I'm actually from Sarah, so born and bred here well.

Like he sham said, I can't really compare with other MBA schools because I've not experienced that. But then I do have friends who actually have undertaken programs elsewhere. It's a bit different. It would tell me.

One difference would be in the immersion, so the intensity of the this program would certainly be off the charts.

It's just nonstop learning, so you know even for a working professional, well, it's really just emerging into the whole experience of meeting people from 25 different countries. We mix with the full timers as well.

Being exposed to so many different viewpoints right and my classmates are.

Probably, uh, from most of them are from senior management, so that's also that and from different industries, so you would have, like perspectives of experts who are already matured in their own industries, right? and I think that really brings a lot of value in into the table, as you can see. Just just now Sean presented that it's quite there is a bar for you to come into this cost, so the difference probably I would say with other programs would be that.

You you're not going to end up with people who have no clue or who just are thinking like you know I have nothing to do right now, I'm. I'm not sure what to do, so I'm going to do an MBA, right? And that's really important because so far, how about half of what I learned would be from my peers?

OK, so the the value is really in that really high intensity intensity learning environment and you learn from everyone right? Not just your professors. So that has been really one of the key points for me.

So I'm guessing some of you have a guess where I'm going from this uhm. So I'm going to address this to the internationals now because both of you, um, you know deliberately came to work in Asia to study in Southeast Asia. So I want to hear a little bit about kind of the rationale behind that decision and what your experience has been like in Malaysia, thus far. Yeah, an what some of the learnings have been from coming to this region.

OK, so to answer the first question, why Asia? So it's a personal goal. Like I want to live in every continent. So so far I lived in three continents and I want to see the remaining. So that was. This is why I chose Asia. However, coming to Malaysia is not because it's in Asia. I choose the school for. So if the school was in another country, I think I would go on to that other country.

Um, so in terms of experience here, I'm really enjoying Malaysian, specifically Kuala Lumpur. I think it's really amazing city because it some. I find it's very nice but also the cultural diversity is amazing. Like having the three cultures between Chinese, Indian, Malay and also all the internationals leaving here. It makes it very unique experience.

Yeah, you kind of took it all from me, right?

Yeah, it's alright so well.

I was already used to, um, doing a little bit the things out of the box. I mean, I come from Germany. I work in Japan. That is a rare combination you have usually.

Um?

So.

The initial trigger was I was being offered this something and I looked it up and it was something I could not just refuse.

Now I have to be fair, I did not really know what to expect before coming here.

I did not do my homework. I wouldn't. I wouldn't say I wouldn't sell it as a as that I did know, but uhm, it was a very very positive experience and very very positive impressions.

So.

Do I have to say Malaysia is a beautiful country? Thank you very much and sorry nice.

And, uh.

Uh, that it actually triggered a little bit of the travel instinct in me. I want to see like more of Asia now and I haven't since. I'm not from around here. Um, I cannot say I have seen much.

So, uhm, it's uh.

You have to. I mean, for most of the Southeast Asian countries, it's probably the normal, but for me it's not. It's it's. It's hard all year round here, so this is something. Yeah, some people have to get used to 1st, right?

I mean, even Japan is different, but.

Yeah.

I would say the experience you get in Kuala Lumpur especially is quite is quite good because you have so many different things in very, very bundled up and it's a lot of it's a boiling pot of business and culture and I yeah I enjoy it quite a lot, yeah?

Great so um we are going a little bit short on time. We have about 15 minutes longer in this session, so just to kind of round out the panel I wanted to hear from each of you. You're kind of pithy. One sentence piece of advice that you would give for the people who are considering applying or considering making a decision for the program. What's the one thing that they should consider? Make sure they do, you know? Keep in mind throughout the process.

Don't be shy. I think I would say just go for it. I mean if you combine MIT faculty and the environment of the friends who get around here, the idea international environment, I'd say it's it's. It's an experience of a lifetime.

Right? Because like I'm sure you wouldn't regret taking this kind of decision making this kind of decision and like coming from my personal experience, I knew I wanted to do an MBA. But a certain point I keep like spending more time thinking where I should do it. It's it's right there with which keep delaying the process. But then once I was really I made my mind. I just applied and it was, I think one of the best decisions I made in my life.

So.

I'm not sure if this counts. It's a one as a one liner. When I said I would say it's worth it.

Um justum going back to. Not sure if I can say this here, but let's watch on said about the salaries. So we had like I don't know what was it for developed countries in Asia, the Seven point one medium.

Yeah I had like I don't know 40% in the first year.

So yeah, sorry it's it's 40% or one year.

So yeah, it's worth it, probably yeah.

OK, um some practical advice for the working professionals.

Start getting buy in from your management right? Manage their expectations of you being you know 18 weeks away from work right now. So even before you apply Tryon proposed Lisa Management and see what they think.

Yep.

All right, so we're going to give our panelists a break for a second. You can stay up here at the front, but we're going to get Sean actually to come and take some of the questions from the audience that have come in during the session. And then after that, I'm going to take two or three additional questions that have come in from the audience as well, but I'll just give you guys a break for a few minutes.

Mittra Mittra

08:33:40 PM

How challenging is it after the program to work in SEA, considering the immigration policies?

Thank you.

Ghost.

Right, so the first question is how challenging is it after the MBA program to work in Southeast Asia considering the immigration policies and?

So uh you can check this out for yourself but uh the graduate management admissions council has a corporate recruiter survey and in the corporate recruiters survey it asks with it ask recruiters in the various different markets how likely are they to hire international students they asked people in the United States Europe and Asia by far was the most willing to hire international candidates in this market and Why is that as I talked about earlier there's just a huge talent deficit.

In the forecast at GDP growth in this part of the world is in the five to 6% range, and so there's just not enough talent here in this part of the world. If you, if you compare that to the United States which has been growing at about 2 to 3% for the last three years, and that employment market in a highly advanced and developed labor market with talent everywhere, there's nobody available to work in that market, right? So you can compare and contrast that to Southeast Asia. The talent deficit is.

Even greater for high skill talent, right? And so there's plenty of opportunity in this part of the world. Another thing that we do as part of our career management process is we have a framework to help you succeed in Asia. There are three degrees to a career change industry function in geography. One of the things that were really good about is really helping students find their voice in this employment mark, right? And so one of the things we tell people.

You're already coming over here. Changing geography for 70% of the class. So what our students have to do is either pick industry or function to work with right. And so if you like your industry, you need to build your career search around that. Or if you like your function, you need to build your career search around that and then that makes the market much more efficient for individuals in early to find jobs. And if you're a match for the role in the opportunity, then the Visa has generally not been the issue. All right. The other thing is.

You know we're very bespoken hands-on akarere office. Um, our team. I think we have the probably the best career team in Asia. We have people, I'm I'm very hands-on and involved in the clear process. Our career direct or you work for kenzie into top US. We have career resource coaches, work with us and help us in Hong Kong and Singapore. We do multiple events and not only help students find opportunities in Southeast Asia but all throughout Asia Pacific. And then.

Talk about the alignment of the action learning with the marketplace skills, what the skills that are needed in the marketplace it so our students, because they do five different projects right and which what happens with these five different projects. And then also if you include the practicums is that there's a versatility to the resume that really enhances the value of our students in the marketplace. So I was working with this one of our students from Brazil worked in operations management industry for consumer goods company.

Since she's come to SB, what she's done is she's worked in the retail space aviation, the airline industry? Uh annum, the apparel industry. So now she's been exposed to five different industry.

An HR projects go to market growth strategy projects, supply chain optimization strategy projects. So that's just given her resume. A lot of talion versatility to make sperm are.

This is a very very common thing amongst ourselves. Here how the action learning process really transforms their career prospects.

So I hope I answered answered that question well, so I'm not really concerned about your ability to get jobs in this region. And now I used to work in Hong Kong at a top Business School there, and I actually feel like Southeast Asia because gravity of China is not as strong here and there's no one dominant language here. It lends better for expats and out of region individuals to pursue a career in this part of the world.

Raf Mohd Aznam

08:38:06 PM

The ongoing Covid-19 issue and oil & gas price drop has really impacted the global economy at the moment and i'm sure a lot of companies are preparing for recession. What are the measures ASB have planned to make sure that graduates are able to secure a career in order to maintain the ASB graduates employment rate as per mentioned in the MBA brochure?

So the next question is basically, how can we guarantee the brochure that we achieve the salaries that were in our brochures? Uh, with the Cove at crisis, the crashing oil markets, the stock market going down an you know what I would say is if I could predict the market, I wouldn't be selling MBAs right now. Alright? And but what I will guarantee is that we're going to work our hardest to position. You offer success in the job market and we're a very hands-on organization.

As a school or ratio of students to staff, not student to faculty students, the staff is one to one. So we're very hands-on with you. This afternoon I had a student who.

Maybe at around lunch time she got a call from a recruiter who liked elements of a resume. Ask her to tweak her resume.

Sent me a WhatsApp at 1:30 say Hey we need to work on your resume to tweak it for e-commerce resume. She used to work in brand management.

She comes over in 30 minutes. We work on it, dance it sends it to him, then they send her a text back saying why were really impressed with your resume? That's the kind of responsiveness and engagement that we have individual level here because we're all in this group program. Also, you know, I talked about like the US market earlier.

Again, that's an economy that is growing at 2 to 3%. Were Asians growing at five to 6%? So even if our Lowdown Asian were growing at No 4 1/2 to 3 1/2 percent, the opportunity for high-end talent that can innovate, manage, apply lead is very, very scarce in this part of the world. And so this is the place for individuals to come. and I don't think this is going to pose the same risk. This part of the world as it may in other parts of the world then Lastly.

You know there's a lot of capital invested in Asia, and so for people who have invested this capital in cultivating growth opportunities of tech industry and such, they're not going to retreat. They're going to be even more committed to realizing other growth and gains from that invested capital. And so you know, we're very bullish about the future of ASB. We also think you know Southeast Asia. Malaysia is a hotbed for opportunity an you know I don't want to say where were invincible to like market.

Albert, but I think we're actually best position to handle a downturn in the market due to the growth, prospects, reason and the relative scarcity of talent. This part of the world is.

Other example I like to stay in the.

If.

Times business.

Uh.

300

Live in the US, well in Asia. There's maybe 1500.

There's four points.

Number game.

Work Asia favor and I think you have to have this kind of visionary in front your mindset to kind of appreciate that and we think this is the best place for you to build your career not just for today before.

So those are my 2 questions.

I'm going to bring the panelist back just for one final question. I think we only have time to answer one of the questions that I was given, but I'm going to actually try to combine the three that we received from the audience into one question.

Coming up, what was your original motivation to do an MBA program and how did you end up choosing the format of the program that you wanted to do? Weather full time? Are working professionals?

Reaching through passing by OK.

So for me.

Fatimah Idris

08:42:03 PM

I am currently tied to a Full Time job in a very promising FMCG company. If I may gain insight from current students’ past experience with similar situation, how did you decide whether to go for FT or WP MBA and what are the challenges?

Azza Azizan

08:42:07 PM

what were the reason or what motivates you to pursue in MBA program?

Wan Xin Low

08:42:09 PM

Is it possible to ask additional questions?

This was an offer that or yeah, I'll say an offer that I stumbled on and I was told I was being offered this.

Basically by my employer.

Who stumbled on this? And it was never for me. Um consideration to quit my job at that point of time. Definitely not I will, was relatively new to the company just three years in.

So it was. I was quite surprised on that.

Yeah, I was three years of experience. I would be able to do something like this wild while actually keeping my job and getting the MBA on the go.

So.

The motivation behind that is.

Fazila Hashim

08:43:05 PM

We may be short of time, but do submit your questions to admissions@asb.edu.my and we'll do our best to get back to you.

What you say, uhm? I guess its expectations. In my case, expectations that I would be able to do bigger things. Greater things have more impact and become the next generation of leaders for the company.

And uh, with with these expectations on your shoulders, you feel you don't want to step on the you don't want to step on the scale anymore, but.

Anyway, it's a. It's a good push in the back that I gladly took and I would take it again any day, yeah?

So my main motivation was primarily because I wanted to raise through my company so a little bit of background. My background is primarily in the technical field, so when I was pushed to lead the commercial team within my company, I didn't really have that solid foundation of, for example, finance and corporate finance and strategy.

Um, an opportunity came along boom, your model wanted to sponsor a student to pursue an MBA.

I grabbed that opportunity and here I am.

And so I was actually offered both programs the full time and the WP, but it was a no brainer for me to do the full time for me. I don't think I could do what these two people are doing, it's it's. It's a crazy idea for me to do work and study at the same time, so it was a no brainer for me to do full time.

So for me, the main motivation was to just take a step back and see what's happening out there. So like I worked for Seven years in finance and the best way to know what's happening in operations in other industries is to do in NBA.

Program, uhm. The other thing was also be cause I'm planning to do a switch so from finance to either sales or business development. So I was sure that an MBA program with a SP would be the best way to do it. Like to achieve this target in term of format is working professional full time are I think as international students the best option was like full time. But even if I had the choice.

Um, as he sham said, all that I'm impressed how my 2 cloud like.

Like for me, in order to capture more value I need to do it full time.

So for me, my career has already been on the great trajectory, so I did not want to lose any of that momentum, so that's why I chose to do it part time I mean, it's not really part time per say, but my main motivation of actually doing an MBA is cause for years ago I was at this juncture as well, but I chose to try and do business real business before I got into the theory part before I got any formal education. So I jumped into a business and now I'm.

Oh yes, in and. So last year I decided that it's time to actually learn from my mistakes and all that and actually allow those experiences to synergise with the syllabus that's being taught. Yeah, yeah.

Well, that's all the time that we have for today, but thank you to everyone who tuned in and participated. You can send additional questions to admissions at ASP dot MY. You can also visit our website or our admissions portal. Start your application, download our brochures attendant event, reach out to us and of course catch the next webinar so will see you guys next time.

Jennifer.

Great.

Rafhanah Qasrina Ramli

08:47:09 PM

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Rafhanah Qasrina Ramli

08:47:11 PM

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