Around 30 business students from several master programmes were welcomed by Sergey Podolskiy, project leader at MMC and Max Weilguny, consultant at MMC and RSM alumnus. MMC offers a wide range of management consulting services to all business units within the Maersk Group – a corporate partner in the CEMS Global Alliance network – with a focus on strategy, organisation, transformation, and change management.
Powerful communication through coaching
After learning about MMC’s role in the Maersk Group and the shipping industry, there was an introduction to the concept of structured thinking, followed by advice on how to use it to create powerful communication.
The students were encouraged to test their structured thinking skills by rewriting examples of poorly formulated information. Coached by MMC consultants, the students applied their new knowledge in setting their own SMART goals.
Solutions for case in Nigeria
Students were then confronted with the MECE principal, a grouping principle to separate a set of items into subsets that are mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive. They immediately applied this in a case study based on an actual MMC project about scenario planning for APM Terminals Nigeria. This case included a complex set of factors that affect the potential solutions. The RSM students could only reach the outcome by applying the newly learned knowledge and structuring the problem accurately.
The case was concluded using the rich experience with similar problems of the MMC consultants, which not only helped the students to evaluate their solutions but made their experience even more enriching.
The webinar – which would have been an on-campus event if it wasn’t for the Covid-19 crisis – was concluded with a Q&A session during which students asked questions about the topic, potentially starting their career at MMC, and consulting industry tips.
CEMS corporate partnership
The CEMS Global Alliance is a group of 32 prestigious business schools, and around 65 multinationals and NGOs around the world. Its global master programme recruits only the most internationally minded and talented students. RSM is one of these 32 top-ranked CEMS business schools, and offers the unique MSc International Management / CEMS programme. There are many benefits for organisations to become an RSM CEMS corporate partner, including recruitment of top talent, business projects and internships, knowledge-sharing and employer branding.
