Friday, November 2, 2012

International Immersion - Skopje, Macedonia

"Deriving Business Value from Analytics" was the title and the focus of the workshop organized by Kelley Business School, Indiana University in partnership with South Eastern European University (SEEU) at Tetovo, Macedonia.

The primary purpose of this workshop was to accelerate the understanding of business at functional and strategic levels. However, the programme also aimed at global understanding of business and the importance of cross-cultural experiences. Although the impact of analytics in current economic context is talk of the town, Prof.Vijay Khatri and Prof.Goker Aydin (Kelly Business School, Indiana Univ.) further emphasized its significance by coupling its potential to augment business value. The course was designed in several short modules such as Revenue Management, Managing the Data Lifecycle, Demand Models and Estimation, Designing Smarter Customer Acquisition Campaigns, the Art and Science of data visualization, data governance etc.



The course also involved a competition – where teams were given engaging cases from real life. Teams presented their business analytics insights to solve Business cases. The winning team of Anupama Shukla, Somya Sharma, Uttara Kumar Verma, Nithin Subhakar and Siddharth Asthana was presented with Certificates and SEEU t-shirts.

The entire week passed in a blink of the eye. On the final day at SEEU, a grand graduation reception was arranged by the Kelley School of Business rounding off a hectic but interesting week with rich and relishing food & drink and some more fun-filled moments with the warm and wonderful hosts.
It was not all business though!

As far back as I can remember, people were looking forward to the trip since the end of term II exams. Once we were done with end terms, project submissions and Deloitte's maverick contest we were all set for the international immersion. We took the flight to Skopje, Macedonia on 7th September. Some of our batchmates utilized the stop-over time in at Istanbul to take a short trip of the beautiful capital of Turkey. For the girls and for some guys (too!!), it was the start of a great shopping season.

In Macedonia, the arrangements at college campus, hospitality and weather made our stay extremely pleasant. Industry visits to Ecolog and Renovo - two of the largest organizations of the country and the visit to the City Mayor at the Municipality of Tetovo during our field trips gave us a better socio-economic perspective of the country. We had a sneak-peek into the history of Tetovo while visiting mosques with mesmerizing architecture, artistic works and historical significance..

We visited Skopje, the capital of Macedonia a few times during our stay. You hardly find a city with so many joyful, lively and warm people with an eternal surrounding of celebrations and festivity - Skopje is certainly one such. We all were quite enthralled by whole experience in Skopje – food, shopping avenues, clubs and night life. The centre of the city is being re-built on a massive scale which is grand and elegant. It is also the birth place of Mother Teresa, in whose name we can find a museum showcasing her work and the Nobel Prize.
The trip ended on a cool and calm note with a visit to Lake Ohrid – a serene tourist destination with breathtaking scenery.



In the end, calling this international tour a “memorable” or “exciting” would be an understatement as every one of us enjoyed in his/her own ways and this experience will stay embossed in our memory forever...

Prijatno!

- Anish Verma

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