New course with Corvinus University of Budapest and Magyar Telekom
Author: Aikokul Bolotbekova – Master student in Economic Analysis at Corvinus University of Budapest
Business and Technological Model of the Agile Organizationscourse was offered collaboratively by the Magyar Telekom, the leading Hungarian ICT company bringing expertise from the digital operations, marketing, and organisation disciplines. By giving some insights about the key drivers of their business such as customer centricity and agile organisation, they integrate their deep experience and thought leadership to extract the best from global expertise as it helps organisations transform themselves into agile ones. It was a great initiative to bring academia and practice closer which is the first time when companies in cooperation with the professors of Business Economics have developed and delivered a complete course.
The course combined the introduction part, history and achievements of the company, explained the theoretical background of the core business and brought in real business cases to be solved by the teams. The teams were designed with a great mixture of students from all over the world where they could build an international professional network through discussions and talks with other students, professionals, experts with different backgrounds. The teams were encouraged to apply their expertise and skills during the course through discussions and sharing interdisciplinary skills. This was a vital part of developing students’ broadened vision and strengthened their ability to translate research-based academic knowledge into resolving specific and often complex societal issues. Instructors were the best experts of MT, who not just presented the topic but gave an opportunity to Q&A sessions and convinced students to interactive discussions. Creative interaction between students and MT employees, systems and extra-corporate entities facilitated the competitiveness of the course. This course clearly identified the relationship between the organisational culture and information technology and enabled the international students to get more information about the latest developments and the real practice of the leading Hungarian companies.
Upon completion of course students had greater organisational internal understanding of technology and how it is applicable to mature organisations that have internally streamlined processes and a high degree of connectivity, but who wish to become a knowledge-based organisation. Through the course students have identified several of the keys to becoming agile and that central to these is the ability to be innovative. The final day was dedicated to teams’ presentations followed by valuable feedback and evaluation of high-level experts from MT. Closer ties to practice and concrete cases from the surrounding world helped equip students for tomorrow’s job market. At the same time, it allowed students to raise awareness of their own skills as well as fostered important networks that can be a valuable asset both before and after graduation.
All in all, it was a new mutually advantageous initiative between the university and the business world. I would like to thank our academic staff and MT personnel for their professionalism and dedication to their roles in preparing students for the fast-growing world. Despite the remote environment of student learning, the given course provided highly qualified knowledge and abundant scholarly resources in core branches of business within a multicultural environment. I think that cross-cultural communication is required to take a giant step forward for accelerating digitalisation in the contemporary world.