For the first time the Cambridge MBA worked together with another business school, as part of its live consulting project – the MBA Global Consulting Project (GCP). The Cambridge MBA team collaborated with a team of MBA students from Zhe Jiang International Business School, in China, to explore the European new energy and electric vehicle (EV) market, as well as the opportunities and challenges of digital technology in carbon neutrality background for the Ant Group – the world’s leading open internet platform and the parent company of global brand, Alipay.
In the project, the team used an in-depth analysis of Ant Group’s business segments, and comprehensive insight into the current situation of the European EV market, especially around green issues to study how digital technology can help the EV industry partners and the public to reduce carbon action.
To do the research thoroughly and make a valuable strategy, the MBA project team visited Geely Group’s manufacturing plant in Changxing, one of China’s leading EV manufacturers. The Changxing County invited the team to have a discussion with Yifu Zhou (Deputy County governor of Changxing County), Guoqiang Qin (Director of the Education Bureau of Changxing County,) and Guoqiang Zhou (Deputy Director of the Government Office of Changxing County), to gain an in-depth understanding of the development and industrial layout of Changxing County. The team delved deeper into the new energy industry with the Tianneng Group, a global leader among renewable energy enterprises, learning about its overseas layout and digital construction.
The project team not only explored how Ant Group can effectively promote the industry to the goal of carbon neutrality by utilising digital technology but the team also figured out the complexity of the organisation as a whole. By promoting collaboration, our MBA team gained hands-on experience on how to work in an environment that promotes EDI, and diversity. The eight members came from two different business schools, four different countries, seven different industries, and there were three different religious beliefs across the team. Moreover, the team showed their leadership skills by making clear how the two MBA teams could cooperate in a limited time period, discovering the advantages of each member, clarifying responsibilities, and putting the right person in the right role across the project timeline.
As a result, the team presented the research results at the headquarters of Ant to show how Ant’s cutting-edge digital technologies can empower the EV industry chain and provide innovative strategies to achieve the “integration of data and reality”. The report won high praise from Zhenhua Li, president of Ant Group Research Institute. The judges of Ant Group Research Institute said that in the tight project period, the project team not only demonstrated a high level of academic research and research capabilities, accurately grasped the pulse of the market and the needs of enterprises, but also demonstrated the profound accumulation and strength of the two business schools in the field of business research.
The Cambridge MBA team is grateful to Zhenhua Li, Piao Shi, Yaling Wu, Ziyi Sun, and the entire Ant Group team, for their guidance throughout this intellectually stimulating and leading trend project.
The Cambridge MBA team is thankful to Shenglin Ben, Yaqiao Yu, Yinyu Song, Fan Yang, Chengqiang Lu, Yao Mi, and the entire ZIBS team, for contributing to this project and your support and caring to Cambridge Judge Business School students.
Thank you to the Cambridge MBA team (from left-to-right) Aleksei Goncharov, Supavich Pannara, Tori Tan, and Rebecca Zhang
