Handstands and hamburgers

Like Kristin I am also attending the class on India and China this week. The class is taught by Professors Anand Narasimhan and Winter Nie, who are from India and China respectively. Today Professor Nie (pictured above) taught a case about how the relatively small Chinese company Alibaba successfully kicked global giant Ebay out of the Chinese business-to-business e-commerce market in a couple of years.

Alibaba was forced to use new and unproven methods to overcome the massive financial advantage Ebay possessed. One of the things Alibaba did was to teach their employees how to do handstands. The idea was that to get them to see things from a different angle. Chuks Onunkwo is not Chinese, but was happy to show how they do handstands in Nigeria. Eric Vergara [Thailand] (and the rest of the class) is watching.

The beautiful autumn colors and the winter coats have come out, but that cannot keep an MBA class off the ping-pong tables. Here it is Henry Low [Singapore] and Juan Benitez [Colombia] on the left playing Eric Vergare [Thailand] and Ilya Syshchikov [Russia].

Yury Vasilkov [Russia], Carsten Bremer [Germany] and Fill Niu [China] had their birthdays Sunday and Monday. That was celebrated yesterday at the White Horse pub with cold beer and dart games. Since birthday cake does not go very well with beer, Valeria Pavlyukovskaya arranged for birthday hamburgers. Here the three gentlement are joined Chia Chia Lim [Singapore].
Carsten is from the old East Germany and has his birthday on 9 November, the same day as the Berlin wall came down in 1989. That was his 13th birthday. He has both memories and very interesting stories from that time. We tend to forget that these events are not very far away. In fact, they are part of the people that are around us every day.

Was it just a simulation?

The integrative exercise continued today. Third and last day. As Kristin mentioned yesterday we are competing in a virtual universe, where each group represents a company that is competing in the same market. Each company must set and execute a strategy for their product. This means deciding how to position the product in terms of price, quality, advertising and distribution? We need to plan the production, establish new production lines, invest in new technology as well as pay interest, taxes and dividends. All of it is managed on a piece of software that simulates consumer behavior and calculates your profit and loss statement, your balance sheets and not least your CASH! Although the different groups went very different ways in the market we all experienced the lack of cash in the early rounds. In the words of Accounting Professor Stewart Hamilton 'Profit is an opinion, cash is an opinion!'.

The game was very realistic and we had plenty of discussion on the many, many trade-offs that a company faces. In the words of Alex Rubio [Brazil]: 'I used to do this and this is exactly what it is like. The CFO is fighting to keep the company liquid while the marketing manager insists on investing in the brand'. Alex used to be a CFO and he quickly took on the same role in the group, constantly reminding us of our cash restrictions when we wanted to invest in advertising, production, innovation and so forth. A great and intense learning experience!

I am one of seven people hosting a party tonight to celebrate the May birthdays in the class. The party is coordinated by Ruslana Zbagerska [Canada/Ukrain] and will be held a Jodie Roussel's [American] apartment as she has a balcony big enough for all of us. The weather is perfect so I am sure we will have a great night. I have two friends from Denmark visiting at the moment and Jodie's sister is staying with her. The three of them have 'volunteered' to go shopping for us and to prepare for the party in general. So let this be a warning for you if you plan to visit an MBA student in the near future: Expect to be put to work!



It is midnight last night and group 10 is discussing the last details of the industry analysis that were presented this morning.



The case for Wednesday's marketing class was about the Japanese beer industry. The case was an example of how a so-called mature industry suddrenly can start changing dramatically. The class was the last marketing class and after the class Marketing Professor Dominique Turpin had arranged for refreshments, which of course was ........ Japanese beer!

Live from the White Horse

This is your diary writer reporting live from the White Horse Pub. I don’t know whether it is a first in diary history, but it is a least a first for me. We are good part of the class gathered here today to celebrate the birthday of Liesbeth Bakker [Dutch]. This morning our study group surprised Liesbeth with cake and champagne in our study room, so it is a natural extension to end the day with another bottle of champagne here.

It has been snowing all day today, but as Benoit mentioned sunday the snow never stays for very long. It did stay long enough, though, for it to fuel a major snowball fight in the afternoon break. In the usual innovative style a few people immediately invented more advanced weapons such as umbrellas that could be used as shields. It did make much of a difference, though, and quite a number of people continued the class with wet clothes. Nevertheless, it was great for the energy level in the class. And it was great fun to watch.

The music is hammering through the loud speakers, the beers are flowing and everybody is talking and enjoying them selves here at the White Horse. It is so great to see that we still have the ability to kick back for a few hours in the middle of Economics projects, cash flow statements, start-up projects, CV writing, grades on Leadership papers and the growing anxiety over the upcoming integrative exercise. In the end, what really matters is what is happening here.



Here is one of the two teams during todays snowball fight. Left-to-right it is Nicolas Denef [Belgian], Ajay Lakhwani [Indian], Adrian Smaranda [Romanian], Shibu James [Indian] and Paul de Hek [Dutch].