ESSEC Diaries: Study Trip Adventures in Asia with Max Kern

In this episode of ESSEC Diaries, Max Kern discusses his study trip to Hong Kong as part of his marketing, management, and digital master program in Singapore. The purpose of the trip was to gain insights into the real work environment and make connections with companies in the Asian Pacific region. Max and his team visited 11 companies in five days, including luxury groups, marketing agencies, and a shopping mall. One interesting insight Max gained was the importance of combining online and offline marketing efforts in the Hong Kong market. He also learned about the power of e-commerce in the Asia Pacific region compared to Europe. Max believes that the trip provided valuable knowledge and skills that will benefit his future career, particularly in staying up-to-date with AI and AR technologies. Overall, the study trip was a great opportunity to learn from companies and gain practical experience in the field. Welcome to ESSEC Diaries, Student Journeys in Singapore. I'm your host, Joe Escobedo, and on today's episode, we're talking about study trips, what they are, and how to get the most out of them. Joining me today is Max Kern. Max, welcome to the podcast. Hi, thank you so much for having me. Well, Max, we'd love to introduce yourself to the folks. So my name is Max. I'm originally from Germany. I have joined the marketing, management, and digital master program here in Singapore last September. And I'm now in the last few days and weeks of the program and just came back from Hong Kong. All right. Welcome. And I think that kicks us off for today's conversation, which is the study trip. So you just got back from Hong Kong. Maybe you could let us know what is a study trip? How long were you there for? Sure. So the idea of the study trip in our program, as it is mandatory to do, is to get some insights into the real work environment to see how companies out here in Asia, in the Asian Pacific region are operating, to not only have our theoretical background from class, but also to see how it actually comes to life in a real company, to make connections and to find out in which industries we might want to work later on. And so this was a one week trip that we did in March, which was very fun. And we visited 11 companies in five days. Companies in five days. Sounds like it was quite action packed. Yes. It definitely was action packed. Awesome. I'm curious, how did you prepare for the study trip? Because once again, you were studying in Singapore. You went to Hong Kong for a week. Yes. The team that supported me on this whole organizational journey, we were 11 people and this team was formed in November last year and so we had from November till March basically time to work on it. It was more or less decided by school where we want to go. So we had a few options to choose from, but we then pretty quickly decided on Hong Kong because of the companies that you can visit there because we are all into luxury marketing and digital marketing. So this was the right market to go to. And the preparation basically was mainly finding those companies, reaching out to those companies and convincing them of why they should host us as a student. I'm sure they're very excited to host you guys. What were some of the companies you guys visited? Sure. So we have been visiting Richemont as one of the big luxury groups. We have been visiting Kering. We have been to Farfetch, to Boston Consulting Group, Coca-Cola and multiple more, so it was a good mix of luxury companies, marketing agencies like Wavemaker, which is one of the biggest marketing agencies around the globe. And we also visited one of the biggest shopping mall in Hong Kong, which is called Landmark. Awesome. It sounds like it's quite diverse in terms of industries, both in-house and agency. I'm curious because you mentioned that part of the trip was to learn what's going on on the ground, the real world. What were some of the insights you picked up from the trip? One of the most interesting insights was around the whole digital marketing world, how it functions in Hong Kong, which is a specific market in this sense because all of the companies are doing digital marketing and they have to be present online, but still, as Hong Kong is still a pretty small market itself, people tend to shop offline. So one of the interesting insights that I personally got was the mix that companies have to find between making advertisements and marketing online, but also being very present offline and converting the marketing effort that you do online into offline sales. This was one very interesting learning that we had from the Hong Kong specific markets, which many companies were mentioning. So it's a very good insight because when I talk to a lot of my students, I ask them, what is marketing to them? A lot of them say social media. So it's an interesting point where you talked about a lot of consumers in Hong Kong actually purchase offline in-store. The question for marketers is how do you, like you said, combine online and offline and tracking? I think that's something that a lot of companies really struggle with. We've also had this nice morning session at Wavesmaker, which is part of Group M, the marketing agency, and they were telling us all about the trends that are going on right now, not only in Hong Kong, but in the Asia Pacific region and how they consult their clients. They mostly have all of the big players around the globe as their clients. In terms of digital marketing, in terms of e-commerce, and then how to still have your offline presence with activation in the real world and not only digitally. So yeah, that was a really good session as well. Awesome. Glad to hear that. And you mentioned you're originally from Germany, you're studying in Singapore, you did the study trip in Hong Kong. I'm curious if there was any additional insights in terms of international business, maybe differences you saw from your home market to how Singapore or Hong Kong or any international insights that you picked up from that. Yes. So one of the big insights is the power of e-commerce here in the Asia Pacific region is a lot bigger than in Germany or Europe, because in Germany and Europe, people are not yet that much into shopping online. They of course shop online, but if you compare it to the Asia Pacific region, it's a different world. Seeing how much more companies have to focus on being successful in digital marketing and driving e-commerce sales is something that I've picked up over here, which is not yet existing on that level in any European country. Yeah. So that's a good insight. So once again, e-commerce is massive in Asia Pacific. So I guess the question is if you wanted to move to Europe or you want to go to a place where maybe it wasn't as prevalent and it's still growing, I guess you could pick up a lot of key takeaways from what people are doing and then apply those to different markets. Absolutely. Awesome. I'm curious, were there any specific interesting innovations or products or services that you found quite interesting during your company visits? So one interesting thing that we discovered, which I had never seen beforehand, was Farfetch, which is probably the leading online platform for luxury products to buy on a third party marketplace. And they showed us around their content creation studio, which is in Hong Kong. They only have two, one is in London and one is in Hong Kong for the whole world where they shoot the content that you can see on their online shop and their app on the homepage. And they showed us around the studio and explained to us how many thousands of products they shoot every single day, where we were like, this is insane. They have models that are there the whole day and the pace with which they put on the t-shirts, the pants, whatever, they shoot the content, they shoot the next one, and the level of professionalism that they have was very impressive. But also that explains why they are the leading platform for luxury products online. Yeah, it sounds very cool. It's not only in terms of quality, like you said, but it sounds like also in terms of efficiency, the fact that you're doing it so quickly. I guess there was some key learnings on the back end behind the scenes and how they move that quickly. Yeah, exactly. Now, I'm curious, were there any unexpected lessons from your trip? But was there anything that, any expected lessons that was going to be different or it cemented what you talked about in class you saw once again in the real world? Lessons, not that much because we were basically seeing many of the things that we were talking about already in class. Companies were mentioning similar things, be it the power of social media and how it shifted from TV and radio and offline marketing now more towards online marketing on different platforms. Something, or those were learnings, for example, that we had in the social media and mobile marketing class here at school and something that all of the different companies were mentioning as well. So this was good proof that what we learned at school is actually exactly the same stuff that the companies are talking about. That was a good learning, but not unexpected. It was more in terms of organizational and infrastructure stuff and we had some unexpected learnings in regards to the whole organization of the trip. So there, me and my team, we had some learnings throughout the week, learning by doing, when you organize a trip with 72 people plus faculty members. Yeah, that was a highlight in learning how to manage people. Interesting. So you not only learned from the companies itself, but also I guess how the Asia Pacific team organized the study abroad trip for 75 students. Very interesting. Now, I'm guessing these are skills that you could apply in your future career. And I'm curious, do you think that any of the lessons that you learned are going to help you in your future career? If so, I'd love to hear about any specific skills or knowledge that you picked up during the trip that you're excited about applying in your future career. Yeah. So first of all, many of the companies have been talking about how they are planning to, or how they are already implementing AI technology and AR features into their marketing or into their product development. So all of those companies have been talking about it, which means that you really have to stay up with the trends that are emerging around AR and AI technologies, because all of the brands are talking about it means if you want to work in those brands, if you want to work in this industry, you really have to know what this is all about and how you can leverage on it, not only in product development or customer experience, but also in marketing nowadays, which is our specific field or industry. And the connections that you made during this trip, the contact to the companies, the insights that you got, they were all super open minded and sharing lots of insights and learnings and projects that they are working on at the moment. We can also reach out to them in the future. So those connections that you make during such a trip in those one-on-one discussions and conversations and chats, that's super valuable for the future. If you want to work in one of those companies, not maybe right now for an internship, but maybe in one, two, three years, you can still connect back with those people, referring to the study trip that you did with them. And I'm sure that they will remember a group of 70 students that is visiting their office and those learnings and connections are, I believe, super valuable for the professional future of all of us. Absolutely. Connections definitely help when you're getting your job. And I want to hear about that here in a little bit, but I think you, once again, touched on an interesting point, which is what are companies talked about? And you mentioned AI, AR. So I guess that gives you a good insight when you, like you said, you're looking for your jobs or even doing your interviews, making sure you're up to date on some of these skills so that you're bringing it up, maybe in the conversations they say, oh, okay, Max or whoever really knows or they've done their research about this space, it could be a relevant asset to our company, it sounds like. Exactly. I'm curious, maybe you can, without obviously citing specific names and people, what kind of roles or what kind of titles were you networking or connecting with during the trip? Yeah, sure. So most of the times we were able to not only connect and contact one of the marketing people, but also HR people. So most of the big companies like Fishmall and Kering, they were all present with multiple people of their staff. So we were talking to the regional managers to some extent, to marketing managers, to their talent acquisition people and HR managers. So it was a good mix all the time between having the HR on the one hand, but also the marketing and managing people who are involved in the project. On the other hand, those were mostly the types of people that we reached out to because we wanted to give our cohorts obviously the insight from a marketing perspective because we are all into marketing. So the marketing people were the first point of contact that we reached out to, but then trying to bring in some HR people as well because they are the ones who in the end will hire us. Yeah, so it sounds like it was a good mix between marketing as well as HR because marketing will obviously give you the insights and trends and what's going on. HR will probably be the people that will hire you and interview you. So it's good to have a good mix of those. Yes. I'm curious, what were the biggest trips or highlights? What's one memory that really stands out to you? One thing you remember after the trip? One of the highlights, first of all, we had one of our nights that we planned all together as an alumni dinner or alumni networking event. So on the Thursday evening of this week, we invited all of the ESSEC alumni that are currently based in Hong Kong that are working there. And we have been at a restaurant that we booked the whole place for us. And we were then able to connect with alumni from a few years ago, but also alumni who have been graduating from ESSEC 10 or 15 years in the past. So we were having this great mix of all different kinds of generations that came to the same place at night, having some drinks, connecting with them, discovering how they made their journey from campus to now being regional directors or head of and all of that. And they were sharing some super valuable insights and about how their work and life in Hong Kong. And they are, of course, also able again to connect you to people in other countries in the APEC region. So this, I would say, was one of the highlights besides, of course, all of the companies. I can't mention one company because all of them have been special on their own way. But this alumni networking dinner was one highlight on top, so to say, I would say. Yeah, that's great to hear. And I think going back to connections, many of my students, they actually end up working with alumni or get introductions through alumni. Yeah, I think getting the opportunity to meet with them now while you're still going to school, like you said, find out their journey, what it's like working in that market and then staying in touch with them when you graduate, you're looking for internships or jobs much easier to facilitate that relationship. Exactly. Awesome. Now, a question is, what advice would you give the next batch of students in their future trips? How to get them the most out of the opportunity? So first of all, you really have to be prepared about all of the companies that you're visiting. That's something that I told my cohort because I was doing the pre-departure briefing before we left for Hong Kong as I was the responsible lead for the whole trip. And I told all of them to come up with some questions, to do your research about each of the companies, especially the ones in the industries that you want to work in in the future. And you can really take the most from this trip, from each of the visits, because if they see that you are interested into their company, into what they are doing, they will be a lot more likely to share what they are doing. And this is then how you really learn something, how you really make connections. If they will remember you, they will more likely help you in the future. So that's something that is really important to be prepared for each of the visits and then ask as many questions as you want, because there are no stupid questions you can ask them. Everything is super valuable, I would say. That they can share and that they are willing to share, because if they host you, they will be willing to share what they are doing. So, yeah, being curious, being interested in what they are doing and connecting with them is definitely the key takeaway for everyone. I think it's great advice, and you mentioned a very interesting point, which I think is extremely important for the future batch, is to be interested in them. So the fact that they, like you said, they've done the research, they understand the companies, maybe the people they're going to be speaking with on the tours, they have those questions locked and loaded. So then when they go there, they have some very insightful or research questions that is hopefully going to impress the person, is also going to show, hey, this person has done the research, they know what they're talking about, and they're going to remember them later on when they come to the modeling center thereafter. Exactly. And one learning for the next organizing committee is to start early reaching out to the companies because it takes more time than you expect it would take to convince the companies of hosting you, finding enough companies for the whole week to visit. I know our schedule has been pretty intense with 11 companies in five days, but at the beginning I told my team I would like to have two visits each day, and that's what we succeeded in the end. We even had one more than two per day. Yeah, starting to reach out to other company contacts, to the alumni from ESSEC who are working in those companies early enough increases your chance of getting hosted a lot because they have time to prepare for it. That's some very good feedback in terms of planning way ahead, because when you're working with corporates, especially with companies of those size, it takes time internally to get signed on, certain spaces, people to get time off to do something like this. An interesting point going back to what you're saying of leverage the alumni as much as possible. That makes it a lot easier because obviously they know the school, they're happy to support the next generation. So very good insight, not only for the students, but also for the organizing community of the future groups. Exactly. Max, thank you so much for coming on today's episode and sharing your insights on study trips. Thank you so much for hosting me, and I wish all of the best luck to the next bachelor's study trip, and I can't wait that one day maybe I'm working at a company and that the future groups and programs will reach out to me. Exactly. Now you know who to reach out to after your future study trip. So thank you guys for watching and listening to today's episode. Feel free to share with anyone you might find this episode valuable, and we'll see you on the next episode of ESSEC Diaries.