What was the Cambridge MBA Global Consulting Project experience like overall?
The Global Consulting Project with Siemens Advanta was an exciting opportunity to use our past experiences and MBA theory to tackle a real-world live project that created both short-term and long-term impacts on Siemens in the UAE market. With the guidance of our mentor and a constant dialogue with the Siemens team, we delivered actionable insights targeted to Siemens for harnessing the UAE government’s operation 300 Billion potential. Furthermore, during our regular weekly calls, we constantly updated the Advanta’s team of our weekly progress to provide updates from our primary research interviews and our suggestions, a process that kept the project dynamic helping our client to apply our recommendations immediately.
What MBA learnings did your team apply during the project period?
Cambridge Judge Business School offers a plethora of courses that weave together, helping us understand client problems, conduct qualitative and quantitative research, and finally deliver a comprehensive solution to the client. We have subjects in strategy, management science, marketing, and many more that we were able to apply during the GCP. In addition, CJBS offers a Digital Transformation Concentration that focuses on technology and management, which is essential in understanding and delivering solutions to businesses in an environment in which technology is disrupting the old business models and challenging incumbent business strategies. These learnings helped us tackle the entire project in a better way, as our project was about disrupting industrial manufacturing processes through implementing Industry 4.0 technologies.
What were the takeaways and Cambridge MBA learnings after the project?
We had a deep understanding of the UAE market dynamics, Industry 4.0 in UAE and global context, and business challenges in implementing and augmenting strategies and technologies on a global scale. By interviewing CXOs and business unit heads, we were able to appreciate the business priorities of business leaders and the role of consulting firms in helping leaders navigate the nuanced implementation. Our Cambridge MBA Global Consulting Project helped us bridge the gap between a theoretical understanding of business and real-life issues when implementing those theories.
What was the dynamic like across the team on this project?
The Cambridge MBA GCP is designed to be an intense and rewarding four-week project with the client that brings together a diverse group of people from different industries, countries, and hence perspectives, allowing the group to challenge each other’s assumptions and create multi-dimensional solutions for our client. We were very focused on the diversity of ideas, collaboration and mutual respect while being open to critics, and our GCP team dynamics reflected the same values.
What was the highlight of the Cambridge MBA Global Consulting Project?
We had an opportunity to discuss our ideas about the future of work with Aymeric Sarrazin, Global CEO of Siemens Advanta Consulting, in a fireside chat at TRANSFORMENA, which is a two day event that explores how technology is shaping the vision of the Middle East, from government strategy to the sustainable challenges of the next generation. The fireside chat we were involved with offered us a global stage, allowing us to represent the MBA student community take on how businesses need to use technology to attract the workforce of tomorrow.
Link here to the You Tube recording of our Fireside Chat.
What client outcomes were delivered successfully?
We delivered the market trends for UAE, identified which technologies within the Industry 4.0 will be critical for businesses to harvest short to medium-term gains, and recommended the top six customers across three industries that clients can contact for consulting on developing strategy and implementing Industry 4.0 technologies. Furthermore, we proposed a list of services and function area expertise Siemens Advanta should offer to compete with other consulting firms in the UAE market.
How do you think the team will take this GCP project experience forward into a future career?
The Cambridge MBA GCP taught us to view client problems as unique opportunities to deliver impactful, tailor-made solutions. We deep-dived into technology, strategy, operations, and business models for our GCP, which required us to acquire new subject area expertise as we navigated through the project. The project sparked our interest in working at the intersection of Technology-Consulting-Business. We are moving ahead in pursuing a summer role that meets this intersection criteria in different companies and aim to continue in a similar profile in a full-time position.
More Cambridge MBA GCP and Practical Project insights and experience >