The reason? We have gone a step ahead and we do international internships. The philosophy for the same is that it not only exposes the students to a new place, new people, new culture to adapt to but also because it gives the students a fresh perspective, wider scope and an opportunity to understand nuances in an international setting. The students team up with the host University and international partner universities' students abroad to do joint consulting for a company. This way, they get to do the internship, they get to work abroad and most importantly, they get to understand the principles of corporate governance, small business nuances and other business functions in a cross-cultural, international setting. This would have been impossible to learn by text-book centric learning. The opportunity to integrate their learning through authentic international business consultation experiences in a foreign country is unique. The opportunity to team with foreign business students in a way that replicates the multicultural teams used in business today is most practical. Recruiters from multinational companies tell us that JSCP is the best credential that a student seeking employment can have. The learning that comes from these programs enables young professionals to undertake any international assignment with confidence. In a world that is growing increasingly interdependent, students who complete these programs will be highly sought after.

The three week Joint Student Consulting Projects (JSCP) 2008 of OUCC from June 30th to July 18th were organized at two foreign locations - Ancona, Italy and Wuhan, China in addition to one domestic location - Bangalore, India.

Joint Student Consulting Projects (JSCP) 2008,INDIA

The Year 2008 Joint Student Consulting Projects (JSCP) in India was a departure from previous years Applied Research Projects (ARP). The uniformity in project design, approach, schedule and assessment made the JSCP project experience similar across various sites like that in Wuhan, China and Ancona, Italy. Prior to the commencement of the consulting work, students were given training on consulting process by our faculty through a weeklong workshop. Mr. Henry Heilbrunn, a seasoned consultant from Washington DC, complemented the process by providing further training on nuances of consulting.

There were 16 projects in India across 10 organisations. These organisations include Allergan India Pvt. Ltd., Attra Infotech Pvt Ltd, Barclays Bank PLC, DTZ, Indegene Life Sciences, Intellligroup, Supervalu Services India, Vikram Logistics and Maritime Services, ICICI Prudential Life Insurance, ING Vysya, The Consulting problems were related to marketing strategy, revenue and cost related issues, operational issues, business development and expansion, human resource and strategic issues. There were 11 Ohio University, Athens Campus students were also part of these project teams that had about 70 Bangalore Campus students.

Five faculty members namely Dr. Thom Luce, Prof. Venkatesh Bhagvath, Mr. Henry Heilbrunn, Prof. Pradeep Mehta and Dr. Amalendu Jyotishi guided the students' teams throughout the project period. Ms. Gayathri Nandakumar facilitated the project process whereas Mr. Dayanand Pai along with his administrative team provided the logistic support throughout the project period.

Joint Student Consulting Projects (JSCP) 2008, CHINA

JSCP China was facilitated by the cooperation of Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST) in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China. Equipped by training on consulting and research, 14 students from India proceeded for this project, which was scheduled from 30th June to 19th July, 2008.
There were 7 projects in diverse sectors at companies like Wuhan Eastlake Hi-tech Innovation Center, ETSC Technologies, HUST Ven5ture Capital, Hubei Radioactive Station, Wuhan Jin Meng, Wuhan Green Cyber Technology and Wuhan Real Estate Co. The scope of these projects ranged from improving efficiencies of HR departments, Market analysis to analyzing financing channels and trend analysis. Each project had 2 Indian students teamed up with 4 or 5 Chinese students from HUST giving them a thorough feel of working in a multicultural team. The students also got a chance to interact with the under grad students from Ohio who had come down for their Group Consulting projects (GCP).  The feedback from most of the clients was that the projects were above expectations and it was a unanimous appreciated opinion that the Indian students' conduct was most professional.

Joint Student Consulting Projects (JSCP) 2008,ITALY

In Italy the projects were done with ISTAO university MBA students. Prior to the commencement of the consulting work, both Indian and Italian students were given training on consulting process by the OHIO and ISTAO faculty through a workshop. It got the Italian media coverage and was aired on Italian national television channel on July 1st, 2008.

There were 5 projects in different companies such as CLEMENTONI, FAAM, FIAM, INOXA, and SACMA from various prominent sectors such as toys, kitchen appliances, battery, apparel and accessories and high end glass furniture. The 14 OUCC students teamed up with 13 ISTAO students and worked hand-in-hand on these projects. The companies were highly impressed by our students' in-depth research, analytics and professionalism. As many as four out of five companies expressed their wish to expand their business in India in the near future after studying the report and presentations given by our students.