Alumni interview Ariel Zhang: pursuing a business discernment

10 years ago, Ariel ZHANG made her career transition from supply chain management to business consulting. The transition was triggered by a common problem for supply chain practitioners: an efficient and compliant supply chain management often becomes a bottleneck in operation, due to the market competitiveness and product profitability, after it has been put on the market. Hence, she changed her profession to business consulting, hoping to understand supply chain management at a higher level and have a full picture of how a business is operated. The new profession has made her, from a task performer focused on “tactics”, a business planner capable of overall business arrangement from the perspective of “strategies”. In 2017, she attended the SJTU-KEDGE Global MBA with the intention of learning to build effective operational strategies and developing a business discernment through an in-depth comprehension of the nature of business.

A PANORAMIC VIEW IN OPERATION: MAXIMIZING THE VALUE OF SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT

Ariel was first involved in the work of supply chain (mainly in purchasing) during her graduate internship. She soon learned that supply chain is one of the key corporate strategies, and it plays an important role in cost saving and revenue boosting. With 7 years spent in supply chain management, she got familiar with the field and accumulated a lot of knowledge and experience in sourcing, supplier selection, supplier management, order management, warehouse management, logistics, after service, etc.

However, she found that even if the supply chain management met the standards of efficiency & compliance, every time when the products put on the market failed to perform as expected, it was always the supply chain team that fell in for the major share of the blame.

“It was the very moment that you understood supply chain management only works when it is designed in cooperation with other parts of the business. In order to improve the product competitiveness, you need to think beyond supply chain itself”, said Ariel, “Research and design, manufacturing, brand management, market positioning, sales channels, and even market environment, information technology, changes in consumer habits, cross-border competition, the understanding and processing of these factors will all have an impact on the performance of the products. This requires improving the supply chain management under the guidance of a panoramic view in operation.”

Therefore, Ariel decided to step out of in-company supply chain management, and started to focus on business consulting. For her, the career transition would not only enrich her knowledge of supply chain strategies of different industries, but also get her in touch with top management who decides the future of the company. With a comprehensive understanding of the corporate vision and planning, better supply chain solutions could be developed and thus maximize the business value it may generate.

MBA STUDY: PURSUING A FORESIGHTED BUSINESS DISCERNMENT

In business consulting, in addition to an intensive study of the company, the ability of looking into the future and making foresighted decisions is also indispensable in providing clients with effective solutions. To develop the ability, Ariel applied for the SJTU-KEDGE Global MBA programme.

"At that time, other MBA programmes on the market focused mainly on the practical operations. However, what I wanted was a future-oriented programme where I could learn to build business models that would work in the future and to correctly forecast the results of different strategies. The SJTU-KEDGE Global MBA programme suits perfectly my needs."

Looking back on the last two years of MBA study, Ariel believes that she has benefited a lot and summarizes several highlights as below:

• International and neutral points of view: as the faculty is made up of professors coming from all over the world, the business knowledge, logic and perspectives the participants received are quite diversified. And this will help them to find out the best solution by identifying the universal rules and detecting where the differences come from in the global business world. The international character of the courses will also bring neutral point of views that lead to more objective judgments of the business changes.
• Strategic thinking: the cases studies are all selected from the latest and representative ones in the business world, targeting the industry prospects for the next 5-10 years. Professors share advanced analytical tools and thinking perspectives, while the decision-making is left to the participants themselves. To look in the long run, mastering the skills to develop future-oriented "strategies" is more valuable than equipping oneself with currently-working "tactics".
• Entrepreneurial learning: preparing the final SBP for graduation is actually a process of building an entrepreneurial project. During the 2-year study, one learns to start his or her own business. The conception of the business plan starts from the first class. And the following courses are dedicated to help participants to find new ideas, build business models, reflect on implementation, revise unjustified points, and polish the project until it becomes a formal business plan that is highly likely to work on the market. Many participants choose to start their own business after graduation and this entrepreneurial learning contributes largely to their career change.

“The pandemic this year also underscores the value of this future-oriented business discernment”, added Ariel.

PRACTICAL APPLICATION: RESPONSES TO THE PANDEMIC

The outbreak of the pandemic in 2020 caught the whole world off guard. The global businesses had to adapt to the changing conditions. With the world's largest commercial database and strong data analysis capabilities, Huaxia D&B joined the global battle against the pandemic in the first moments. As witness and participant of this fight, Ariel believed that Huaxia D&B has given full play to its role as a leader in the global corporate credit risk industry, combining business development with social responsibility.

At the outbreak of the pandemic, Huaxia D&B assisted the Chinese government and relevant institutions in procuring overseas masks by providing the first qualified suppliers information. When foreign enterprises showed serious concerns about the work resumption of factories in China and considered to transfer their orders to other countries, Huaxia D&B kept updating the resumption information to foreign enterprises in order to help stabilize the supply chain arrangement in China. When the pandemic struck oversea countries, Huaxia D&B offered free access to information platform of oversea enterprises to over a thousand small and medium-sized export companies in China, which enabled these companies to keep abreast with the real-time situation of their oversea clients.

As for Ariel, her main job at that time was to lead the team to digitalize their service with the help of the technical team. For one thing, they provided live webcast of open lectures or conferences with the themes like credit risk, compliance risk, and supplier risk. For another, with D&B’s huge database and analytical strengths, they made public the access to the data platform and modeling kit, allowing clients to build a variety of business models online for free. The effective measures facilitated the enterprises’ transformation of their business models as response to the market changes brought about by the pandemic.

"The pandemic is a severe test, and the management must keep an eye on the situation and make foresighted decisions as soon as possible. From a personal point of view, the quick responses of my team could not be separated from the overall vision, strategic thinking and accurate market judgment that I’ve developed in my MBA study.”

Speaking of the business planning in the near future, Ariel said that in the post-pandemic period, Huaxia D&B will follow closely China’s “dual circulation” strategy. On one hand, helping domestic export-oriented enterprises to identify qualified overseas clients by providing the credit information of overseas enterprises; launching a specific service to improve the brand integrity for small and medium-sized enterprises so as to promote the their “going-out” to the international market. On the other hand, encouraging the “bringing-in” of qualified and well-reputed oversea enterprises aiming to accelerate the construction of the domestic social integrity system.

ADVICE TO MBA PARTICIPANTS

For people looking for an MBA programme, Ariel suggests that they identify clearly their own needs before making the decision. Is it an acquirement of systematic management knowledge? An expansion of business network? Or a degree leading to a higher working position? Once the needs identified, an in-depth research of the programmes that meet the requirements should be followed to make sure that your choice works best for you.

For those who have been successfully admitted as participants of SJTU-KEDGE Global MBA 2020 intake, Ariel strongly recommends that they make the most of the MBA programme resources to expand their knowledge and network, by taking active part in company visits and club events organized by the school and alumni associations, in addition to the courses.

As president of KEDGE Supply Chain Club, Ariel is also working with the Club board committee to prepare for the upcoming events focused on the post-pandemic supply chain development. They will invite experts and cooperate with professional organizations and look forward to seeing more new MBA participants and all alumni showing up in the events!

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