Welcome Welcome to the sixth edition of The Willis News. This bi-annual newsletter celebrates Work Integrated Learning at the Faculty of Business and Economics. The Willis News endeavours to connect current students and clients of the practicum and consulting subjects to past clients and alumni of the programs. We hope that this newsletter highlights the great achievements that have come out of the projects over the past six months. The November 2016 Global Management Consulting (GMC) program took place in Santiago, while the January 2017 program visited San Francisco and Bangkok. Once again, our valued industry hosts offered some challenging and interesting projects to their student groups. Each city hosted 20 of our BCom students, with groups of four or five working as consultants in each company. Some of our industry partners included Pacific Hydro, Austrade and QBE. The GMC students found their experience full of valuable learning opportunities, in a new culture and environment. Management Consulting produced some great projects for a diverse mix of clients such as City of Melbourne, World Vision, NAB and Sensis in Semester Two last year. We had 60 students participate in the program, working on projects for 15 different clients. Our congratulations go to the Digital Affair student consulting group, who won the $2500 FBE Management Consulting Team Prize for the highest performing team during the semester. You can read about their project for Digital Affair on pages 4-5. We would also like to congratulate 3rd year BCom student, Christopher Hunt, who was the winner of the 2016 AT Kearney Australia Management Consulting Prize, which is awarded to the student who receives the highest grade in the subject over the entire year. Well done Christopher! The Global Business Practicum grew this summer, with eight teams hosted by organisations in Singapore, and 11 teams travelling to Hong Kong. In Singapore the teams worked with companies including NAB, PWC, Fairmont and KPMG. In Hong Kong our clients included HKICPA, Nomura, Deloitte and Ocean Park. Our students had the opportunity to gain work experience in these professional organisations while also learning about their city’s business culture. Monique Lau, one of the students with the HKICPA team, described the team’s final presentation as the “most rewarding experience of the GBP… as our team’s practical and actionable recommendations were well-received by our hosts.” Meanwhile, back on home turf, we were also able to increase student participation in the Melbourne Business Practicum, sending a total of 15 multi-disciplinary teams to organisations across Melbourne. We continued our longstanding partnership with clients including ANZ and The Huddle, North Melbourne Football Club. New partnerships paved the way for student teams to work with organisations such as the National Heart Foundation, Keep Victoria Beautiful, Melbourne Football Club, L’Oreal and The Smith Family. You can read about the experiences of our Melbourne Business Practicum students at Medley Hall, one of the residential colleges here at the University of Melbourne, on pages 18 and 19. The summer graduate subjects were recently celebrated at the Business Practicum Showcase. This event was a wonderful opportunity for our industry partners, students and staff to connect with each other and showcase the amazing work that came out of the Practicum subjects. We were very pleased to have George De Crespigny from the Melbourne Football Club attend and speak about how impressed the Club was by the work generated from their two student teams, and that he was already thinking of projects for the upcoming winter intake. He strongly encouraged other organisations to get on board. It was gratifying to hear of the student experience from one of the two project teams allocated to the Melbourne Football Club. There was some envy in the room when the MFC team shared that their office space for the duration of the program had been one of the corporate boxes at the MCG! To conclude, we would like to recognise the commitment and hard work that students and clients, past and present, have put into making these subjects a great success. We look forward to these programs continuing whilst growing our alumni and client network.
Professor Nasser Spear
Professor Prakash Singh
Deputy Dean, Melbourne Business School
Head of Department, Management and Marketing