Pamela Chin Foo presents her consultation proposals at the China Lab (2010-2011) gathering. 

 

Business circles have long held input from outside consultants in high regard.

 

This is why several Chinese companies recently invited a group of young minds from the world's top business schools to provide mini-consulting services at the end of their two-week internships.

 

A program called China Lab, jointly run by Tsinghua University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United States, has helped four startup companies in Beijing to enjoy the benefits of having interns from the two universities.

 

The China Lab project sends MBA students from MIT and its cooperating Chinese counterparts, including Tsinghua University, to a number of Chinese companies to work on problems the host enterprises want fixed during a two-week-long internship.

 

This year, the host companies are AE&E, CreditEase, Beijing Hehang and MCC Overseas. All four of these Beijing-based startups are small, fasting-growing enterprises.

 

"MBA education is mostly about theories, business models or business case analysis," said Pearl Mao, Director of the Tsinghua IMBA Program. "The students don't have many opportunities to work on real business projects. We developed the China Lab model so students can get out of classroom and work on real business projects for two weeks."

 

AE&E Co Ltd., a Chinese firm that develops cutting-edge oil technology, runs a pilot program in which it works closely with China's three major oil companies-China National Petroleum Corporation, China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation and China National Offshore Oil Corporation.

 

AE&E, which plans to double its business this year, wants ideas about how to build a strong team and collaborate with the capital markets to attract investment.

 

Vivian Xiong, CEO of AE&E, said in an interview with CRI that the China Lab program provided new perspectives on her company's development plan.

 

"China Lab stepped in at the right time," Xiong said. "The (MBA students) walked out of the classroom and came to our office. Their work allowed us to view things differently and challenged us with various questions that we might not put too much thought into and gave us out-of-the box perspectives."

 

Pamela Chin Foo, a French MBA student who has nine years of experience working in the consulting business, and three other students provided consultation services to Beijing Hehang, a broker on the China Equity Exchange, on how to attract and retain employees.

 

The three-year-old company with 16 employees has maintained rapid growth over the past two years. It helps state-owned enterprises transfer their assets to private equity markets.

 

"It was very interesting because we all came from different backgrounds," Foo said. "I had a consulting background; others had a small company background. So it was interesting to confront ideas."

 

She added that the internship proved to be a vital experience for her, because she planned to work in China after she graduated.

 

"Working at a company like Beijing Hehang is interesting because I had a very specific Chinese business," Foo said. "Also it is a small company. We know many a company in China is actually quite small. It is interesting to see how they work at the company. It is very revealing to see how a Chinese company works."

 

CreditEase, which provides small loans to micro-entrepreneurs in large Chinese cities and poor women in rural areas so they can start businesses, also got help from the MBA students. Established in 2006, the company joined the China Lab program in 2009. Since then, it has seen rapid expansion with its headcount growing to 4,000 this year from 100 two years ago. 

 

Tang Ning, CEO of CreditEase, said four interns from Tsinghua and MIT worked closely with his company employees and saw some real action in how his firm operates.

 

"So the participants have the opportunity to understand the big picture, the strategy, the industry and where the company is heading," Tang said. "At the same time, they must be very detail-oriented, get their hands dirty, and really learn real things."

 

The two-week-long consultation resulted in suggestions to expand CreditEase's product line. Tang said the company would "take that insight and would work on it."

 

Since the China Lab Project started four years ago, a total of 60 students-30 from Tsinghua University and 30 from MIT-have participated in the program and obtained hands-on experience working on real-world projects.

 

The Tsinghua School of Economics and Management has duplicated the successful China Lab experience in the school's other MBA programs, Mao said.

 

http://english.cri.cn/6826/2011/03/30/168s629584.htm