Tapping into young minds
INDUSTRIAL training – you either love it or hate it, and that largely depends on which company you land yourself in for three to six months. While some undergraduates may find a wealth of learning and practical skills during their internships, stories abound of students who end up doing repetitive, boring clerical or administrative work during their attachments.
“As educators, we do our best to team up with companies that give our students a rich challenge but yes, sometimes students find that they cannot contribute or learn much during industrial training,” said KDU Penang University College’s School of Business head Lee Heng Wei.
To beat this, KDU Penang devised a module in its Bachelor of Business Management programme titled the Undergraduate Consultancy Project.
It is tailored to give companies the best thing an undergraduate can offer them – a bright, young mind.
“Nearly all businesses today have the younger generation as their target market. The consumer market changed a great deal in the last five to eight years when social media and mobile technology exploded. No matter how senior or experienced the business development team of an organisation is, they will benefit from an undergraduate consultant’s feedback and input. And from what we have seen, it works great,” Lee said.
Business management final-year student Tan Shu Ting had “the time of her life” helping CG Group of Companies increase the market penetration of their brands, Switch and Urban Republic. Her task was to help create brand awareness for the company in Johor and Kuala Lumpur.
“We had to brainstorm ideas for a Switch tour event and their team had already thought of all sorts of things. We had to think of something new and that was challenging,” she said.
But it turned out that there was something they did not think up – egg-capsule vending machines.
“Many of us love playing it and we sometimes get good prizes. So, we suggested to the company that they sell RM20 tokens for the vending machines and make sure that many of the prizes in the egg-capsules are worth more than RM20. The company loved the idea and they will be launching it soon,” Tan said.
Tan and her fellow undergraduate consultants were also asked to think up social media content and they gave one that helped the company increase iPhone sales.
“As a reseller, we suggested that the company make a social media promotion for people to buy iPhones minus their protection plan. This allowed them to resell iPhones at about RM100 cheaper and that became attractive to the younger generation.
“We know that Apple already has a protection plan for iPhones and the plan from Switch is an extra, so by separating the packages, it gave consumers more options,” she said.
KDU Penang works with CG Group of Companies, Ikea, Hewlett-Packard, Jabil and Leader Steel to utilise undergraduate consultants.
“The organisations identify a business problem or question requiring a solution, and provide a project briefing and review. Our students are supported by appropriate academic input and guidance from KDU Penang’s School of Business in the form of a mentor and via the workshops,” Lee said.
KDU Penang’s business management students also subsequently undertake industrial training and the undergraduate consultancy project was an add-on for them to get that extra level of experience in applying their business knowledge in the real world.
■ For more information on programmes in KDU Penang’s School of Business, visit www.kdupg.edu.my