NANYANG MBA

Work hard, play hard @ Overseas BSM, Tokyo

Written by Cassandra Lee and Fu Sing Tan

Research has shown that those who work hard, play hard too, and that’s the lifestyle of the current MBA cohort at NBS.

Let’s talk about the “work” part first. Nanyang MBA 2016-17 programme includes a “Business Study Mission”, where we could opt to join an overseas trip (for our cohort, it is to Japan), where we visited 8 companies in Tokyo in 4 days. The companies were from different industries, such as manufacturing, financial services, media, pharmaceutical, F&B as well as technology. And these were no small firms! They were Sumitomo Corporation (see picture), Takeda Pharmaceutical, Suntory Beverage & Food, Mitsubishi Corporation, Nikkei, Sumitomo-Mitsui Banking Corporation, Microsoft and Dai-ichi Life Insurance.

It was our great honor to visit their offices to listen to the industry experts sharing with us about their corporations’ strategies and future plans. We have learnt about the current Japanese economic situation and the challenges these companies faced either locally or globally and how they planned to mitigate them. We have also learned a new term: Sōgō Shōsha, general trading company. It is a unique business model in Japan and has actually played an important role in the economic development of Japan. We also appreciated the opportunity to be given a tour around the operation office of Nikkei Asian Review, given some “blue” roses by Suntory as well as a visit to General Douglas MacArthur’s former office at Dai-Ichi Life building.

Now a “work & play” part. Besides visiting companies, the School also organised a cocktail reception where we had a chance to have a more personal conversation with some senior leaders of the companies that we visited. There was a big spread of food and alcohol for all of us to be comfortably engaged in such professional networking till late. For instance, we learnt about the potential of HR Consulting in Thailand and Indonesia, where more companies are seeking external help to establish their HR practices.  We were also able to build stronger bonds with our faculty members, who shared their personal stories.

Furthermore, we were also very fortunate to get connected to some of our alumni who are based in Japan. We had dinner together at ICCHOU on a very cold and wet evening, but the weather did not stop them from attending the event. It was a lot of fun learning about the alumni’s life after graduation and building our connections. In fact, we even recognized one of the “superstars” among the alumni because we have seen him in several demo videos in one of our modules (yes, some modules can be fun like that! :D).

What about the PLAY part? Well, one of the days happened to be Culture Day, which was a public holiday in Japan on 3^rd November. We took the opportunity to immerse ourselves in the rich Japanese culture by experiencing a traditional tea ceremony and visiting some of the famous attractions in Tokyo. The tea ceremony was a calm and serene one – besides watching how it was done, we also got to taste the tea and learned how to appreciate the art paintings on the tea cups, as well as showing our appreciation through some Japanese words and gestures. In fact, one of us even got the chance to experience making the tea and serving it to our tour guide! At the event of the ceremony, we were also given some green tea sweets and beautiful paper cranes as souvenirs.

After that, we went to visit Sensoji Temple and Meiji Jingu Shrine. The tour guide was very knowledgeable and shared with us a lot of information about these places during our journey there, including some Japanese culture. She also taught us the appropriate behaviours at these places of worship, such as washing our hands before entering, paying our respects and getting our Omikuji – fortune telling paper strips. Some of us also bought Omamori, lucky charms for our studies, career and of course, love.

All in all, we had a wonderful time together and the bonding session was memorable. We now know who has no sense of direction, who is likely to wake up late, who enjoys shopping like there’s no budget, some childhood nicknames and various other quirks and oddities of each other that we would not have known if we did not go to this BSM. And of course, we have to mention about the wonderful range of Japanese cuisine that we had, for example, freshly made sushi and sashimi that melts in your mouth, flavourful ramen soup, crispy light tempura, and rich mocha ice-cream.

Last but not least, we would like to show our appreciation to two of our Japanese classmates who joined us for this BSM, Junya and Takashi. They had been a great help in making the trip delightful, by translating food menus, sharing Japanese customs and guiding us around in Tokyo. A very big thank you to both of you!