Learning state-of-the-art social collaboration in the fast-paced global business environment
The Virtual Business Professional (VBP) Project offered by the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California (USC) is a six-week project that offers students an opportunity to collaborate and work in a virtual setting with students from all over the world to develop virtual and cross-cultural collaboration skills using state-of-the-art collaboration tools.
15 students from HKU Business School joined the VBP Project in March. They were placed among 57 teams of five to six students with over 300 students from 11 different universities worldwide to work on a consulting project for companies including Amazon, Samsung and SpaceX. Throughout the Project, students have learnt essential skills for remote working, intercultural communication and comprehending different business models and marketing strategies, as well as how modern virtual collaboration can be powered by artificial intelligence technology.
Miss Sun Ruohan, BSc(QFin) Year 2 student, who belongs to the winning team, worked on the consulting project for Samsung. She said, “I really enjoyed the VBP project and learnt a lot in this experience. Not only did I make lots of new friends from different countries, I also developed the skills required for better teamwork, communications and problem-solving, as well as strengthening my leadership skills.”
Representatives from Samsung commented in their report that the winning team proposed great suggestions that addressed the company’s pain points, especially the brand marketing strategy for social media.
Two other teams, with our students being team members, were selected by SpaceX as 3rd and 4th place among the top teams.
“My two biggest takeaways are the advancement of my cultural intelligence and effectiveness in virtual collaboration. All in all, participating in VBP is a valuable experience of mine which motivates me to work with people with diversity and explore possibilities that a virtual global team can bring.”
Miss Chan Hoi Ching Ella, BBA, Year 2
“Communication is not that easy because we are in different countries with different time zones, and each member has her own study and work arrangement and some personal issues. Luckily, we did it and completed a relatively perfect final report in the end, and it was chosen as one of the best reports by SpaceX.”
Miss Wu Linman, BBA(Acc&Fin), Year 3
