An initiator and a leader

Before entering the business school, I had the experience of leading a team. As a leader, I had all kinds of responsibilities in the team, such as assigning tasks to team members, supervising the team’s work and correcting errors whenever they happen, giving out suggestion to members for better performance, and so on. However, in this summer project, I realized what an initiator is. We have an independent task several members and I were responsible for. We did not elect a leader in this task and were quite self-ruled. However, it often happened that we still needed someone to stand out and “lead” a part of work. We are a newly-formed team, and did not know what everyone was good at, but different part of the task required different skills. Understanding the situation, I stood up and asked for responsibility for several parts of the task. This is the time when I felt very different for being an initiator and a leader. When you are a leader, you are assigned all the responsibility and roles in the team. You are required to do all the work. But as an initiator, nobody asks you to do anything. You do all the work just because you want the team to work well, finish the job excellently and help members as much as you can. If you do not keep the team in mind, you won’t take initiatives to take responsibility. In my understanding, a true leader will be someone who wants his/her team to work great, rather than someone else ask them to do so. They will not care about rewards from their hard work, and will take care of their team members for the purpose of the team, not personal benefits. A leader needs to be an initiator in the first place.

A rewarding learning experience so far

The internship is coming toward its end. I liked the experience so far. It provided me a great opportunity to go inside the industry I am interested in always but did not find enough exposure to it. With the internship, I got access to the whole eco-system of the industry, from the technology trend, to the institutions involved in it, to the major players in the market, and most important, the people working in it. They are hard-working with professional training, and always explore new technologies and research new topics. They also have enjoyment in their work and complaints. But when work begins, they bring out 100% attention and effort for it. This kind of spirit impressed me. But without the internship, I will have no way to go near to these people; we are separated by the service interface, through which I require their services and they provide them, and no more beyond the request and supply. Another important point is the potential market growth identified during the project. China developed rapidly and after these decades, the accumulated effect on people’s disposable income is very obvious. They can afford more high-end products, and in big cities like Beijing and Shanghai, their GDP per capita is near developed countries. So my observation is that for emerging countries like China and India, their process to become developed countries will be a new way different form history examples; they will not follow a way we find from western countries or Japan and Korea. They are big at territory and population, and there will be no way for all the areas and people in different part of the countries to become basically equally economic developed - that will require such great resources that the earth cannot provide without sacrificing welfare of other countries. The possible development way I think may be some big cities enjoying high level of development as in rich countries, and a large number of cities having medium development level but still greatly improved from the past. This medium cities will become a big market requiring a good balance of quality and price.

Thinking about China Market Size

China market is attractive to many global industry leaders. However, during my internship, it became clear that not all customers in different regions can afford quality goods and services. So why is China market attractive to those multi-national companies? For example, the customers we visited in Beijing and Shanghai have a higher disposable income level, and the demand for high quality goods is strong, even the foreign brand products are expensive considering the costly R & D expense and all taxes during the import. We saw that the products purchased every day by the customers are in the mainstream catalog in the US market, keeping pace with the global technology update. Although it is still rare to observe cutting-edge products here, it is understandable considering those new technologies did not originate in local markets and the adoption will take some time. However, China market is huge and definitely segmented. When we visited the Tire 2 cities, things changed. The popular products are often one generation or two older. The customers are quite price-sensitive. The distributors are seeking not the best products, but cheap ones that can just do the same job. From our observation, it can be concluded that there are three types of markets co-existing in China. One is high-end, one is middle-end and the last is low-end. With a big population and great difference of social development between regions, business people can find in China market similar to developed countries, market of medium profit potentials and market of poor countries. Although only high-end market in Tier 1 cities are the targets for global players and they already penetrated these market quite well, the growing medium market is quite attractive to them as well. They can develop medium quality products with better price to explore the market now, and also build brand names and roll out high quality products when this market matures in the future. This promising medium market of high volume should be the shining point that attracts global companies.

A Great Learning Experience

After nearly one month of interning, I really learned a lot from it. Healthcare industry is a totally different area for me, although I am interested in it for a time. During the internship, I met the doctors and nurses in person, watch operations carried out in the operation rooms, and observed the patients during all the time. Hospital’s mysterious feeling was disappearing day by day when I watched all kinds of routine work happened in it. Surgeons, who I used to think were super smart and whose jobs were too complicated for common people to understand, became common too. Their work is comprised from detailed knowledge of human bodies, carefulness and attention, and long-time training for more accuracy and efficiency. However, I was still moved by their spirit of professionalism when they cared every small thing related to potential danger to the patients’ health. When you see them washing their hands so thoroughly before operation, or disinfecting patients’ body so carefully, you can feel the responsibility in their hearts. Through the internship experience in this summer, I witnessed something precious that people do not care for the sake of money.

Another knowledge I obtained from the project so far is a deeper understanding of market potentials. I used to put focus on the maturity level of a market, thinking that only developed market could afford high margin goods and hold great profit potentials. However, during market research and discussion, I found market growth rate can be another standard for evaluating a market, even though the market is relatively new. Considering the growth aspect of a market would provide a more comprehensive view of the market for a long time. I have met with real examples of such views these days. When two comparable competitors entered into the same market, one cultivated its brand and sales force early on even the market was a small one; the other was just unwilling to invest more resources than the profit the market could bring then. However, after around 10 years, the first player enjoyed a much more solid market share while the other one is working very hard to catch up.

The First Week of Internship

Now I started the internship. After the first week, it is a good chance to sit down and reflect a little about the experience so far. Basically, this is a great opportunity of learning new knowledge and utilizing existing skill set. Health care industry is big, comprising mainly of hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and medical device companies. The devices section is what I am interning on. People invented an innovative way of surgery, which is more efficient and requires smaller cutting on human bodies. Patients undergone such procedures would need shorter recovery time and less pain during the operation. The smaller cutting also means fewer risks of infection and other medical accidents. Because of many advantages, this kind of technology is getting popularity all over the world, and also brings benefits to many patients in China. During the first week, I learned how the new procedure goes on, interviewed with doctors about the expansion of the new technology in China, and investigated the ecosystem of Chinese health care.  

Interacting with doctors and other people in the hospitals are rewarding, learning knowledge about human bodies and disease, and good habits of keeping healthy. When talking about curing people’s diseases with less pain for them, you can feel it is a meaningful thing. I am encouraged by new advancement of modern medical technology, and happy to know that China is keeping pace with the technological development. It is introduced that big hospitals in major cities send their doctors regularly to foreign countries to learn the new technology for around half a year.

There are some personal experiences when I observe procedures in the operation rooms. The operation looked scary at first site, but when repeated many times, they become routine and I can focus on the medical aspect of the procedure, rather than the blood scene.

An Exciting Internship Coming Soon

I am Tim, an MBA student from Ross School of Business. I worked at different roles in a multinational company and gained experiences in general management. After coming to the business school, I thought about my interests and strengths, and decided that general management would be ideal for my future career after graduation. I worked hard during last several months and secured the internship in a medical device company. I will work in their strategy and marketing function and the project will be focusing on marketing research and potential identifying in the emerging market. I would expect to leverage my experience in business development and marketing knowledge learned in class to solve real business issues. I will also have opportunities to discuss development strategies with the people in the company and learn their methodology and approach to decide potential business opportunity in a new market and build models to quantify the financial estimates. These learning experiences would greatly enhance my business skills for future career and satisfy my economic curiosity. I am also very excited to meet the team members from other schools and look forward to learning from them. However, I am a little concerned about the possibility that what I learned in class might be different from what the people in real business world actually implement. I would keep my eyes open and adapt to the environment.