TBS INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS WEEK 2019

TBS International Business Week brings Bachelor in Management students from Toulouse and Casablanca to Barcelona

Students of the TBS Bachelor in Management from Toulouse and Casablanca campuses came together in Barcelona in order to put theory into practice and make the most of cultural interchange. From visiting some of the city’s most important business sectors to attending talks by field-leading experts, hands-on methodology and cross-cultural management have been the main talking points.

Learning by doing

At the centre of the International Business Week is a team project that mixes students form different campuses and nationalities who work to provide a solution for a problem presented in a business case. They had to collaborate in order to reach a proposal and then defend it in front of a professor. “The added value is that they now get to experience what they have been learning in class. They are not spectators, but actors“, says Sylvie Recoules, in charge of the TBS International Business Week.

Cross-cultural management

One of the main goals of the final project was to train students’ soft skills by placing them in situations where they had to work together with peers from other countries. “It is enriching and crucial for students. They had to be agile, integrate people and bring them together. They learnt a lot about how business is done in Italy, Germany, the US, Morocco, China… just by working in international teams“, explains Sylvie Recoules.

The fusion of technology and business

The highlight of the International Business Week was Big Data expert Didier Grimaldi PhD’s talk about Smart Cities. “Smart cities are cities that use technology as a means to provide quality services with less financial and physical resources”, explained Didier Grimaldi. He added that “In terms of inclusivity, governance, traffic… Barcelona is a great example of a smart city. However, in terms of economy or private-public partnerships, there is still a lot of room for improvement.”

Given their nationality, some of the students were already ‘living in the future’ in some aspects of their life thanks to technology. Chinese TBS student Changui Shi is an example: “in China, when we go to a restaurant, we are able to order food and pay from our smartphones, which allows them to make the process easier and quicker”.