Project Firenze

It has been one month since the Case Challenge ended, but I still remember it clearly as it just happened yesterday! The two days I spent in Beijing were wonderful. I worked with great people and experienced great things.

It's my first time to take part in a competition like this. I was honored to represent ZJU with my classmates as Zhe Da Team 2. We did come across difficulties during the 'Compete' phase. Not only the limit of budget in the case, but also the language we use in the competition - none of us are native English speakers, and we are taught in Chinese at school. So it really took us much time to translate some theoretical terms we used in ppt from Chinese into English. I don't think it's a easy job. But anyway we learned something new after we did that.

Hard work with a little luck can lead to something beyond your expectation! Our presentation was selected as the top 3 of school teams in China. It's a good reward to us though it's not that juicy. However, we know we can still improve our presentation a lot to make it better. That's the most important thing to us, I think. You know, people can not make progress if they do not know where to improve.

Then I faced the 'Collaborate' phase. I was lucky to be assigned to Team Red. Not because we won the finals, but because all my teammates are awesome people! They have talents and passion. It seemed 8 people per team did not always lead to conflict and low-efficiency. We were divided into smaller groups and each group was assigned a part of the task. I though it really worked and came out a great job. Maybe next time, you, Mr CRO, should assign more people into one team in order to generate some conflicts.

You hoped the event could be a pivotal moment in our life. I would like to say 'yes'. The experience I gained from the event will be helpful in my life. It's a great chance to meet people from all over the world and build relationships with them through such a fascinating event. People from different countries have their unique culture background. Taking with them always give you some new flash ideas and expand your vision. I enjoy doing it. Besides, I  wanted to see the disparity between my school and these top class business schools in the world. It was my purpose to attend the program, and I was so glad I had learned something from my competitors.

I would like to thank Microsoft and CKGSB for bringing us such a wonderful program! I really enjoyed the competition and the one night at Grand Hyatt!

Zhiwei Xu Zhiwei Xu, a first year MBA student, received his bachelor degree from Zhejiang University in Management & Economics of Agriculture. He had been working in a government department for three years as an assistant of human resource management. He is familiar with recruitment, employee training and salary design. Now he is pursuing his master degree at Zhejiang University in order to perfect his knowledge structure. He plans to pursue a career in a management consulting firm in the future.

 

On the "YouTube Box" application on the Cornell|Johnson Facebook application - Firenze USA has been featured.

Very cool!

From the time our team got selected to represent NUS, I had been very excited about the competition and was looking forward to it every day.  And the two days at the competition was worth the anticipation.  I’d say I am lucky enough to have taken part in the competition.   Our team had worked pretty hard on the ‘Compete’ phase with all the ‘curveballs’ from your side! All four of us were sitting on different locations within and outside India throughout the preparation phase and made full use of teleconferencing via Skype (Netmeeting aint free lah J).

For me the highlight of the competition was the ‘Collaborate’ phase.  It really was great to interact with individuals from different parts of the world and working towards a common project.  Its amazing to see people gel so quickly when they are working towards a common goal with tight deadlines.  Thanks to your curveballs again!

Lots of takeaways.. To be frank, I did not know Microsoft would be so cool!  I had imagined Microsoft execs to be all serious guys, with grey suits and straight faces. But hey, as you said, Microsoft IS FUN!  I was really amazed by the time and effort that had been put in by each and every one of you in this.  It really was fantastic.  The personalized feedback from Friedbert is really very helpful and I have started applying it to my projects in the courses.  This has been a real value add for me and surely has made me quite a lot to ponder over and improve in myself.

All in all, it was a great great experience. Thank you for all the time spent together. Thank you Microsoft.

Kirti Chopra Kirti is a first year MBA student with concentration in Finance and Strategy.  He is a Chartered Accountant and received his undergraduate degree in commerce from University of Delhi, India.  Prior to his MBA, he was working with Ernst & Young in the Assurance & Advisory Business Services division for three years. He has worked on assignments in various industries such as oil & gas, telecom, automotive ancillary manufacturing, etc. He holds the post of Director - Finance & Administration in the MBA Students Council and is actively involved in the Finance Club.

On Experiences:  It was interesting to work with 8 people and build consensus among them.  We were fortunate enough to have a good mix of industry and functional backgrounds, which helped provide our project with more concrete ideas and expectations.  If I did not have finals pending, I would have enjoyed the interactions that much more. 

On Learnings: The impossible can happen in 24 hours with talented people and a common goal.  One of the things I believe our team did well was to continually poke holes in the idea and determine how to solve them.  That really helped us during the Q&A session.  Of course, I would also say that perhaps we looked for too many holes and did not spend enough time on the metrics and detailed executables.

Working in a mixed team required a lot more clear communication of specific to-do's.  Cross culturally, I think assumptions each individual team member makes really affects the final outcome.  Therefore, I would aim to have future team members communicate and confirm assumptions in my global career. 

On What it means to me:  I didn't know the meaning of "Expect Great Things" until the competition was over.  Honestly, I came in with no expectations, just curiosity on what this case competition would be about and a yearning to meet more like-minded business school students.  The great things that were most meaningful were the caliber of talent among the Microsoft judges, the overall planning and execution of the competition, and the support and buzz that Microsoft created in China.  I am especially happy that Tsinghua will be positioned better on the map for prospective MBA students.

On How it will make me a better leader:  This event was another reminder that continuous self-improvement is a must in the competitive landscape.  Without this mindset, it would be extremely difficult to influence and lead others, who may also need this extra ounce of motivation to drive forward and make the impossible possible.

Raymond Cheng Raymond Cheng is a first year MBA student at Tsinghua University. Over the past 7 years, he has held various positions in marketing and business development for mid-sized and Fortune 100 companies. Raymond holds a bachelors degree from the University of Michigan. In his free time, he enjoys traveling, snowboarding and golf.

Microsoft is still real to me – looking back on the experience over the holiday break.

I jad joined Microsoft Japan as a new graduate in 2003.  I had worked there for 5 years before coming to Tuck.  I loved the people, and the work was very interesting.  I never thought my relationship with Microsoft would be this close.  But because I enjoyed working at Microsoft Japan, I decided to compete in Firenze|USA - Microsoft Case competition 2008. 

The case was very interesting.  It was in the field I never knew before, so my experience of working at Microsoft didn’t help me much. But it allowed me to see another perspective and another business within the organization.  There is a real customer behind the case, there can be real impact to the partners with our decision, and it had a potential for Microsoft to take action based on our ideas.  I saw a delicate art in the business which connected customers, partners, and Microsoft.  It is a real business problem – like everyone says – and discussion with the Microsoft executives challenged our mind and stretched our expectations, their commitment was amazing.

Was it different than what I had done in Microsoft before?  Of course yes.  I was in finance looking at the numbers, wasn’t able to get a feel about who Microsoft the customer really was.

Was it different from what we are learning in school?  Yes and No.  Theory can be applied and used, but it needs to be feasible, and needs to be executed at the end.

But was the people solving issues different?  Maybe not.

They are friendly, intelligent, smart, but fun.  Nice people to work with, and nice people to spend time with.

So in all, the case competition itself was tough, everything was on top of all the work we had to do in school.  But this opportunity gave me a great chance to get to know my teammates more, meet some great people from different MBAs, and also get to know Microsoft more.  I also got a chance to know myself more in a new working environment with a new people, which I will be facing throughout my career, yet you don’t usually get feedback on. 

Your passion has brought out our potential – Your potential, Our passionJ

Thank you to Hareesh, Prashant, and Eric for the great team!

And, thank you to the Microsoft team for making it happen.

Yoko Warita - Tuck MBA 2010

Jeff Osborn was one of the student leaders who collaborated with the Firenze Team to extend the Firenze|USA experience to the campuses. He did everything from exciting the students, doing all the logistics work, helping our videographer have a super experience at Cornell and working past midnight at Redmond to set it all up the day before the RLE.

With finals, holiday travel, and the rest of 2008 behind us, now is a good time to stop and reflect upon this past year and the decisions that have gotten us to where we are now.  After some deep introspection, I can confidently say the following:

"Attending the Redmond Leadership Experience was the second best decision I made in 2008!" *

I say this because I re-learned a great life lesson, and that is to give everyone and everything the benefit of the doubt.  Not just old friends, classmates, or coworkers, but even that company you once viewed as the "Evil Empire".  Give everything the benefit of the doubt, and allow it to excite and surprise you.

I came into RLE as an outsider, and left as a teammate.  I came barely knowing my classmates, and left with lifetime friends.  I came to Microsoft as a Linux guy, and left knowing someone named Mac who is a PC.  Most importantly, within the course of 24 hours, I saw a culture form, enjoyed a great experience with wonderful people, and saw how important a sense of teamwork and mutual success is to Microsoft.

Through Firenze, and ultimately RLE, my perception of Microsoft changed.  Before Firenze, in my mind, Microsoft was a place I would never consider working, where I thought I could never "fit with the culture".  Now, I see Microsoft as a company I am honored to have been able to work with, and would hope to work with again some day soon.  It is no wonder Microsoft is as successful as it is, given the passion and character possessed by its employees.

I would like to thank everyone at Microsoft who made Firenze possible, especially Pradeep, Dusko and Mac.  Without Firenze and RLE, I would never have had the opportunity to step up, grab the reins, and learn so much.  An extra special thanks to everyone who gave their personal time over the weekend to make RLE possible. I would also like to thank Gerard Edwards for all of his help with Firenze at Cornell.  Through the whole process he has supported me, acting as my sounding board, emergency back up, and great friend.  Thank you Gerard.

Finally, thank you to everyone I met through Firenze and the RLE.  I very much value the time we spent together and the lessons we have learned. Happy New Year everyone!  All the best in 2009

*For everyone still wondering, my best decision of 2008 was proposing to my fiancé Leslie.  HI HONEY! :-)
(Congrats Leslie/Jeff)

Jeang-Won "The Teacher" Chai, from Seoul National University writes about her Firenze|China experience...

On her experiences ...

This was my first case challenge so I had no idea about what lay ahead of me when I sat on the plane that Sunday afternoon. But I experienced new people, cultures, ideas, challages and the consequences of curve balls! All put together and dealt with in two days was an incredible experience and even though I only spend 3 hours at my 5 star hotel - I would definently do it again!

On her learnings...
I have learnt so much, I don't know which end to start!
First thing I learnt is about collaboration, I had no idea who these new people were but I was well aware of that we needed to get our act together and produce a good and doable idea within the next 34 hours. We had different backgrounds and ideas and all of us had different perceptions about what was possible to implement and not. Our group of eight had a total experience of countries like China, USA, Korea, South America, UK, Germany and Sweden.

I also learnt that the saying about executives having an attention span of 5 minutes is true! We started you presentation and after just 2 minutes and 3 slides we were questioned. After 30 minutes we hadn't even finished our 16 slides but questions were still hitting us like a maelstrom. And it's not only true among executives but all people, if you want to convince them something you have to be convincing from the first second you start to talk. The fact that students and audiences are still listening at you after 15 minutes of nonsense is not because they think you will deliver something smart in the next 20 minutes but that they are polite. Too polite in my meaning. The skills in delivering concise messages in ppt's, speech or essays is something I think us MBA students need to practice and consider a continuous area of improvement in the future.

In addition to this lesson given to me during the case challenge I also realized that its not always about finding the best idea or the genius invention, sometimes its about just choosing one of your ideas and develop it into perfection (or as near as possible). That idea might just turn in to a great invention in the future. Being stuck thinking and rejecting ideas you don't consider perfect is just time consuming and inefficient.

On what Firenze|China meant to her (Why was this so unique for her) ....

I got a chance to share experiences and thought with people from totally different backgrounds but in the same situation, we were all MBA students. My network grew and I met people who I honestly would look forward to work with in the future. As a future MBA and former high school teacher I realized that the possibilities for me to utilize my former experience are great. As mentioned above the ability to deliver a convincing message in just a few minutes is very much reality in schools. Also making different minds and opinions cooperate and reach a result is critical in both areas.

On how it will make her a better leader for the next generation ....

The demands on leaders of the future are different from the demand put on leaders so far. In a world constantly changing and globalizing we must not only understand the market in our closest vicinity and be charismatic towards our own employees and customers. A charismatic and appealing leader in one culture may stand out as dull and rude in another, we must meet the challenge of understanding and adjusting to different cultures both as global citizens but also as progressive future executives. I think that the background that many of us shared, being born in one place, educated in another and working in a third results in such fundamental abilities needed for the next generation.

How can we make things better? By understanding that we are parts of a global community, that we always have been but that we didn't have to tools to communicate before. Actions taken in New York may have huge impact in Oslo. Even though environmental damage caused by humans have been a fact during the last century we didn't have the tools to inform eachother and measure them until recently. Now, being able to do that we need to build the society of the future. I believe that contests like Imagine Cup can align the struggle for a better future with the capabilities to create the inventions to make it happen.

Jeang-Won Chai Jeang-Won Chai is 27 years old and one of four members of the team from Seoul National University, Global MBA. Born in Sweden with Korean parents Jeang-Won is a mix of European and Korean culture. Before enrolling the Global MBA program, Jeang-Won used to be an upper secondary school teacher, teaching political and social science, religion and accounting. At the same school she also had the role of second vice principal serving as one of the supporting and planning persons in the organization. Jeang-Won holds a bachelors degree in Religion and Applied Ethics and a Masters degree in Education.

There were over 900 fotos taken at Firenze China - which Jonathan Tang had forced a poor intern to pic the top fotos. The intern's choice made it to 2 album collections on Skydrive available in these 2 links - First installment here and second installment here.

Feel free to tag and self identify yourself and make comments. It makes for great story telling and insights :)

In the "Collaborate" phase, participants from the sixteen teams were shuffled to form eight mixed teams. These new global teams were then given 24 hours to create a new solution that addressed the same case scenario and present a compelling proposition to the judges. Not only did participants have to adapt to and collaborate with new team members from around the world, but they also had to design solutions that would be scalable to reach up to five million students globally. In addition, they also had to face a new budget reduction to US$10,000.

Despite working under intense time pressures, participants were able to impress the judges with their well thought-out campaigns and compelling presentations. Eventually, the "Yes I will" campaign was chosen as the overall winner because of their strategic vision, comprehensive presentation and ability to skillfully tackle the judges questions.

The winning team RED presented their campaign titled "Yes, I Will" to highlight how young people worldwide can make a difference by voting and committing their support for global issues such as women's rights, education for all, and environmental sustainability via mobile applications created on popular social networking sites. This is also a cost effective and quick way to reach out to their extended group of family and friends to help them achieve the case study target of 5 million mobile users.

The Red Team is has students from 8 universities, 4 countries and 2 genders .... :

Fred Xu Fred Xu is a current student at China Europe International Business School where he is pursuing his Master degree of business Administration. Fred graduated in Mechanical and Automation from Shanghai JiaoTong University. His experience spans from product engineering management in medical industry to product business development in China including company brand management and product marketing and sales management. Outside school, Fred likes playing badminton and listening music.

Philip Larson Philip Larson is a first-year MBA student at The University of Chicago Booth School of Business concentrating in marketing and entrepreneurship. Prior to his MBA, Philip worked with two successful high-tech start-ups that each grew to over $10M in revenue in under three years. As VP of Professional Services at IronBrick, a data storage solutions provider, Philip managed the P&L for IronBrick Consulting and formalized partnerships with tech giants NetApp and VMware. As Director of Product Management at Appian, a leading provider of business process management software, Philip guided the strategic vision of Appian Enterprise, the company’s flagship product with over 4M licensed seats sold. Philip received his bachelor’s degree in systems engineering and economics from the University of Virginia and his Juris Doctor in technology law from George Mason University. He is a member of the Virginia Bar Association.

Khan Yow Khan is a first-year MBA student focusing on technology entrepreneurship in Asia. He earned two undergraduate degrees in Computer Science and in Economics at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Starting his career in the Singapore government, Khan pursued business opportunities for technology start-ups in Middle East and South-east Asia. Prior to Haas, he consulted at Accenture for China government clients and managed the sales operations of its Greater China Public Service practice. Khan is currently the co-chair for the sponsorship and judging team of the Berkeley Business Plan Competition, and is actively involved in the Entrepreneurship Association and the Digital Media and Entertainment Club. He also enjoys triathlons, outdoor sports and salsa dancing.

Jooha Kim Jooha has worked in Korean Standards Association (KSA) as an international cooperation coordinator for 3 years. His works were establishing the cooperative relationships with overseas organization and planning new business opportunities. After finishing MBA, he is pursuing a career in strategic management and overseas business strategy.

Fazio Brian Gene A first year student at Tsinghua SEM IMBA program, Brian Fazio received his bachelor degree from the University of Phoenix, where he majored in E-Business. After graduation he continued his work in the banking industry and later went on to open a wine bar. Brian is a global citizen who has lived in 4 different countries and traveled to nearly 40.

Helen Han Helen is an MBA student of Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business. Helen accumulated 7 years working experience on marketing communications for high technology industry. She was in charge of Marcom for HuaHong IC, one of the biggest stated owned micro-electronics companies. After that, she joined an Asia-Pacific Public Relations Agency, and played key role in establishing and managing its Shanghai branch. Helen graduated from Fudan University, majored in Mass Communications and Advertising. In her leisure time, Helen likes traveling, enjoying the beautiful scenes and diversified cultures.

Zhiwei Xu Zhiwei Xu, a first year MBA student, received his bachelor degree from Zhejiang University in Management & Economics of Agriculture. He had been working in a government department for three years as an assistant of human resource management. He is familiar with recruitment, employee training and salary design. Now he is pursuing his master degree at Zhejiang University in order to perfect his knowledge structure. He plans to pursue a career in a management consulting firm in the future.

Viviena Zhao A first year MBA student from GSM at Peking University, Viviena earned her BA in International Finance from Hua Zhong University of Science and Technology and dual BA in Business Law from Wuhan University. She is working for Standard Chartered Bank, a famous international institution. She would like to develop further in finance field after graduation from GSM.

Beijing, China 1/04/09 – 1/07/09

Jesse Abraham, Joo-Ha Kim, Hi-Young Shin, Yun-Jeong Seo

Yonsei University Graduate School of Business

First off we would like to thank Yonsei and Microsoft for the unique opportunity to participate in the Beijing competition.  It exceeded our expectations, and gave us an unforgettable experience that was not only fun, but also a valuable educational experience to finish our MBA program with.

            Before the competition, we spent several hours in the weeks prior to the deadline preparing our school entry.  After our initial preparation, we were thrown a “curveball” that made us rethink our preliminary ideas and research.  Subsequently, our work in this case entailed preparing a survey to give to 200 students, compiling a statistical analysis of this data and drawing conclusions from it, and finally using our conclusions to develop the correct implementation.  Our marketing plan was a viral message sent by students to promote their friends to visit the website that our team designed, where all that registered would be eligible to win a number of prizes, some which were a significant part of our $20,000 budget, and some which were free from partnerships with restaurants, coffee shops, and movie theatres.  Students were encouraged to contact friends, since they would receive more “entry tickets” into the grand prize sweepstakes for each friend they convinced to register.  All who wished to take part in this contest were required to first click on a link to Microsoft’s Imagine Cup website, and from the responses on our survey, we felt that we could easily reach the required one million students, and expect at least 200,000 to respond.  When we arrived in Beijing, we were honored to find out that we had finished in the top three out of the non-Chinese schools who participated in the contest.

            After the “competition” phase of the contest was over, which was a mere 3 hours after registration, we were separated.  We were each put into one eight teams, none of which had two members from the same university.  We were given a new goal, similar to our initial case preparation, but with a larger target, and a smaller budget, and were given 24 hours to finish.  It would be a stretch to claim that things went smooth from the start.  There was some initial friction as most members wanted to keep (at least a fraction of) their own idea intact; it was difficult to come to a consensus.  However, it was very surprising how quickly things started to mesh together.  Though we had been complete strangers just hours before, by the end it felt like we had been teammates for months.  Besides sharing exhaustion, stress, and maybe a little cabin fever, we all shared the same urgency, the same sense of commitment, and the same sense of pride of accomplishment in completing a new presentation in just one day, whereas the first one had taken weeks.  The judging was very intense.  They asked some extremely difficult questions, some pointing out flaws in our design, and some just to throw us off.  However, this too was a valuable experience in simulating a realistic presentation to executives.  As we were able to view the teams following our presentations, we were all extremely impressed by the hard work that each team put into their proposal.  We were very happy to find out that one of Yonsei University’s team members, Joo-Ha Kim, was part of the winning team of the entire case challenge.

            This was one of the most exciting experiences we took part in during our pursuit of our MBA degrees.  We strongly recommend that the Yonsei GSB, and all other business schools, take part in any similar future competitions open to their MBA candidates.  It is a once in a lifetime opportunity, and should not be missed.

	Hiyoung Shin A full time Global MBA student at the Yonsei Graduate School of Business, Hiyoung is majoring in Finance & Business management. She has worked with Reckitt Benckiser this summer , where she worked as internee in Trade marketing department-providing the enhanced Fast Listing Fast Distribution strategies and tactics using 4P (presence/placement/promotion/price) from customer’s view point of view. Prior to her MBA, Hiyoung worked for two years in the exporting industry as Business Administrator and Finance Analyst. Post MBA, she aims to work for a multi-national firm that offers an international career in the area of Finance& Marketing.
	Yunjeong Seo Yunjeong Seo is a Global MBA student at the University of Yonsei Graduate School of Business where she is pursuing concentrations in management. Prior to her MBA, Yunjeong worked for AMOREPACIFIC Ltd and transferred to Hyundai Card. She has 7 years in the manufacturing and finance services as a HR practitioner. She was responsible for building Human Resources Development strategies and developing educational programs. Post MBA, she intends to pursue a career of global HR in global companies or multinational companies.
	Jesse Abraham A full time student from the U.S., Jesse is pursuing a dual degree, with an MA in International Trade and Finance from the Yonsei Graduate School of International Studies, and an MBA from the Yonsei Graduate School of Business. He recently completed an internship with SK where he created a supplier evaluation system for the purchasing division. Post MBA, he is aiming for a career in corporate finance at a top global firm.
	Jooha Kim Jooha has worked in Korean Standards Association (KSA) as an international cooperation coordinator for 3 years. His works were establishing the cooperative relationships with overseas organization and planning new business opportunities. After finishing MBA, he is pursuing a career in strategic management and overseas business strategy.

Tsinghua's Team 1 ousted the other teams in china to emerge as the champs in the "Compete" portion of Firenze|china. They won US$2000 for their efforts for this portion of the competition.

This team was represented by:

	Rory Quirk Rory Quirk is 2nd year student at the Tsinghua University SEM IMBA. Previous to joining the program, Rory Quirk has worked in the IT industry for 5 years as a business development manager. Prior to being stationed in China, Mr. Quirk worked in the C-SAM HQ office in Chicago for several years focusing on managing accounts with different banks, financial institutions and telecom service providers. Rory Quirk, a Chicago native, holds a B.S. from Indiana University in Management and East Asian Studies. His hobbies are playing baseball and golf.
	Raymond Cheng Raymond Cheng is a first year MBA student at Tsinghua University. Over the past 7 years, he has held various positions in marketing and business development for mid-sized and Fortune 100 companies. Raymond holds a bachelors degree from the University of Michigan. In his free time, he enjoys traveling, snowboarding and golf.
	Zhou Huipeng Michael Zhou Huipeng is a first year student of the Tsinghua SEM IMBA program. Before joining the MBA program, Michael worked as a sales director in a mobile phone company, mainly in different overseas market, such as Russia, CIS, India and South-eastern Asia. Previous to this experience he was a software engineer in a telecom company. Michael was born in Hubei province located in central China. He attended Wuhan University where he earned a bachelors degree in Computer Science.
	Jarunee Sinchairojkul Jarunee Sinchairojkul is a first-year Tsinghua SEM IMBA student. Before joining the MBA program, she worked as a Public Relations Consultant with APPR Media for three years. Prior to joining APPR Media, she worked at APL, a global container transportation services as Network Analyst. Jarunee graduated from Thammasat University in Thailand in 2002 with a degree in Business Administration.