Each year, HEC Lausanne organizes a summer school in Shanghai managed by Professor Marc Laperrouza, expert in emerging markets at the University of Lausanne. This year, 22 students took part of the program and will spend 10 days studying some parts of the Chinese economy (distribution, luxury), discover some aspects of Chinese culture (calligraphy, kitchen, etc..) and deepen the concepts of "global mindset."
Within this summer school, one day (8 of July 2014) is dedicated to the relation between Swiss and China in term of business. For this reason, the group has spent the half of the afternoon and the entire evening at swissnex China.
The activity of the afternoon was dedicated on the import of Swiss products like cenovis or Alp horn in China. In 20 minutes, the student had to draw up a strategy to sell these products in China and had also invented an advertising slogan. After that, each group showed its results in 5 minutes. The presentations were very interesting and creative.
The evening was animated by an event organized by the Club HEC Lausanne with the help of swissnex China. The event started with a conference on the challenges on social business in China and finished by a nice networking apero between the students and the few Alumni from Swiss University. To cover the conference, we had the honor to have Floriane Lemoine, the project manager of Shanghai Young Bakers, as a speaker. She is a graduate from Sciences Po Paris and Peking University. She is passionate by china and sustainable development. That is why she decided to work at Shanghai Young Bakers. Founded in 2008, this association is a charity program providing a fully-sponsored French bakery training to disadvantaged Chinese youth. During the conference, we learnt more about the aim of the program and how does it work in term of logistic and funding.
Finnaly, we had a successful networking apero thanks to the delicious buffet provided by the association itself. The students started a rich exchange with the Alumni from Swiss University who live in Shanghai and discussed about their experiences at the University of Lausanne and more globally in Switzerland or/and in China.