Ms Anna Maria Braun’s visit to the School of Business Innovation and Technopreneurship UniMAP
Kangar, 7 March- Ms Anna Maria Braun, the President of B. Braun Asia-Pacific Region, is a National Adjunct Professor and CEO of Faculty Programmes (CFP) at UniMAP. She was officially appointed to these positions by the Malaysian Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE). Ms Braun first visited UniMAP on 19 January 2016 and delivered a talk entitled “Envisioning Your Future.” 600 UniMAP students and staff attended the session. Her second visit to the university was on 7 March2016, where Ms Braun addressed 60 International Business students from the School of Business Innovation &Technopreneurshipon Change Management.
It was during her second visit that Ms Braun shared her vast knowledge, experience, and expertise on organizational management.The main thrust of her talk was on the concept, types and forms of organizational change, while also highlighting two models for implementing change within an organization. Ms Braun elaborated on how Kurt Lewin’s Three-Step Change Process model works, i.e., by unfreezing and refreezing an organization into desired states and directions, and on John Kotter's Change Management model. Through discussions on the Eight-Step Change Process,the students learned the importance of establishing a sense of urgency, forming a powerful guiding coalition, and creating visions to achieve organisational goals. Ms Braun compared between Kotter's Change Management model and Lewin's theory, hence enlightening the participants on the various change management models applicable to organizations.
The later part of Ms Braun's session of the day involved a case analysis which was conducted outside of the classroom. Working in six groups, the students examined a case study on “Relocating the Regional Headquarters of B. Braun Company in the Asia Pacific Region.” The case study required students to apply what they had learned in the earlier part of the talk, and to translate theory and experience into practice. They had to generate solutions to the issue at hand, which was how to render the relocation of Braun headquarters a successful process and endeavour. Students’ report of the session indicated that they thoroughly enjoyed the learning process, and the lively discussion they had on the case analysis. They too discovered how they may play an effective role in managing a company. Particularly helpful was the information shared by Ms Braun on the resources utilized by the B. Braun Company in solving the relocation of its regional headquarters.
In the final part of the session, students' ideas, suggestions and possible solutions were consolidated into a change project called “Bersama-Sama”. Each group member provided input and feedback to the case analysis, after which summaries were generated according to the change models discussed. The actions that should be taken by B. Braun were explained and rationalised by Ms Braun. She presented the steps that were taken by the B. Braun management team to successfully relocate the regional headquarters in the Asia Pacific region. The talk ended with a Q&A session.
The 4-hour session conducted by Ms Braun was effective as it enhanced students’ understanding of the practical aspect of problem solving. Additionally, the sessionsuccessfully got the students to operate on the six cognitive levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy, i.e., Knowledge (C1), Comprehension (C2), Application (C3), Analysis (C4), Synthesis (C5), and finally, Evaluation (C6). The effective coverage of Bloom’s Taxonomy hence fulfilled the teaching and learning requirements for this course (BFT346 Change Management).
Pursuant to the session, Ms Braun expressed her interest to accept students from UniMAP to conduct their practical training at B. Braun Industries. Students who perform well in the first phase of the industrial training will be considered for further training in the B. Braun Company based in Germany. To this end, Ms Braun requested that the names of potential trainees be submitted to Dr. Jürgen Tertel, the Corporate Human Resource Manager of B. Braun for Asia-Pacific region for consideration.
