The MBA students will start the week with a tour of the university’s own catering facilities to experience first-hand how the catering team has implemented the Fish! methodology into their daily routine to cope with the growing student visitors.
Product innovation
Henk van Opheusden, owner of local cafetaria Het Bokje will teach the MBA students his innate knowledge of building long-term customer relationships. Van Opheusden says managers shouldn’t find it difficult to understand their customers’ preferences. For him, it means knowing every menu choice of every customer in the neighbourhood by heart. Van Opheusden will teach the new MBA elective ‘Complications and Complaints’ which gives strategies for using knowledge of customers and clients to deal with tough negotiating in business relationships.
He will also teach assessing the product range, something he does at least annually. “In retrospect it may seem trivial, but we had a lot of internal discussion about the introduction of the ‘viandel’, fearing it would drive people away from the traditional Dutch frikandel,” he said. “Of course, that never happened. We just used existing product innovations to expand our current business model,” added Van Opheusden. The school anticipates anecdotes likes this will deliver teachable moments about strategic innovation decisions in day-to-day management, a specialist research subject for RSM’s department of Strategic Management and Entrepreneurship.
Entrepreneurship in foreign markets
Addressing aspects of intercultural entrepreneurship in foreign markets to RSM’s MBA students will be the responsibility of Xu Tian Fa, owner and manager of Tian’s Place. His appointment will strengthen the business school’s teaching of intercultural enterprise. Mr. Xu also has long experience of running a family business, one of the most recent research topics at RSM’s Erasmus Centre for Family Business (ECFB).
Apart from bringing their practical and applicable management skills to the table, the two restaurateurs will also teach the basics of frying and serving fast food to MBA students who wish to participate.
Dean of RSM, Steef van de Velde said: “Having these experts on board brings students into the heart of a business we all enjoy. Competition in the hospitality business is increasing, and MBA graduates must learn how to cope with this and act accordingly. Adding this elective to the curriculum means that professionals with an RSM MBA stand out from the crowd even more than before.”
UPDATE: Thanks to everyone who chuckled with us about this little April Fools' joke via our Facebook and Twitter channels!