[Mark Dawson] I am Dr Mark Dawson. I'm a Senior Teaching Fellow here at Lancaster, and I am the Programme Director for the full-time MBA. MBA students, they bring something to the table that companies really appreciate, which is, i.e. diversity of thought They bring the opportunity to demonstrate the learning that they've had on the programme and apply that.
[Simon Powell] I'm Simon Powell, and the Assembly Operations Manager at Leyland Trucks. So at Leyland Trucks, we are the UK arm of Paccar, which is a global truck manufacturer. We produce DAF vehicles at Leyland, a centre of excellence for medium duty,and for DAF, producing up to 12,000 to 13,000 trucks a year.
[Mark Dawson] Students find it really beneficial to work on the company project because they get access to a range of people who work at the company, and they can make or expand their network. So it's not just about delivering something related to a brief; it's also about making contacts and growing that network.
[Shivam Tiwari] My name is Shivam Tiwari. I come from India, and I have eight years of experience catering product management to different industries, especially to consumer electronic industry. We got the opportunity to work with the Director of Leyland, there, Simon. It gave me a lot of learning in terms of actually going to the client, meeting different people, experience of you getting there and talking to people who are working for like 20 to 25 years in the same industry. So yeah, it was a good project in terms of network building, and also getting a different exposure of industry I was not aware about.
[Simon Powell] So the main focus of the project was to really understand where we were currently in and around key job profiles; are we pitching the expectations at the correct level? But are we also ensuring, then that we are training and upskilling people to be able to achieve those core responsibilities? One of the main things that made me look immediately at The Management School was the ability to do a very quick sprint project like this with a Master's [cohort]. It wasn't very arduous going into a scope. It was quite a high-level scope. And just having the ability to turn something around quite quickly was key as well.
[Mark Dawson] I would advise students to be open to the process. I'd really like them to be curious and creative. I want them to think about the team dynamic, but to really hone that skill, but mainly to be perceptive, to listen and to really apply themselves to this particular opportunity.
[Simon Powell] I think the way that the programme itself is set up around, they have to form a consultancy. It becomes more professional. It's been really beneficial both from a what have we learnt, but also understanding what we can do in the future.
[Shivam Tiwari] Definitely I would recommend - you get this chance to actually meet, greet and get in the client and the project management
sort of feel. Out of all the modules or the challenges that we had or the simulations that we had, Consulting Challenge is a must go. I do recommend.
[Simon Powell] But I would really say to any other businesses thinking about doing this, definitely, because I think from my perspective, it's just giving us a different outlook.
