UOB SMU EA Centre

During my third year at SMU, I replied to one fateful email which led me to be a part of a team of 3 working as market research consultants under the UOB-SMU Entrepreneurial Alliance Centre (US EA). The following is an excerpt from the US EA website:

“This alliance centre seeks to provide educational opportunities for SMU students to work with local enterprises in Singapore. Through their involvement with local enterprises as student consultants, they will learn about enteprise management issues and SME consulting. The SMU students will not be working alone but under the guidance of SMU faculty and SMU affliated professionals as mentors.”

Since its inception, about 2 and a half years ago (including the present term), the centre has run 32 projects under it with over 50 student participants.

The team (Sheaufen, Charis and I) worked for ACP Computer Training and Consultancy Pte. Ltd., a relatively small operation with a little over 100 employees. We spearheaded an effort to evaluate the customer satisfaction and proposed measures required to improve it. It was fascinating to learn the sheer amount and quality of clientèle were being served by such a small group of people.

In the end, the experience was an enriching one and I learned a lot about requirements-gathering, survey formulation, dealing with important clients and most of all about leadership and working in a team as a team with new people in a new situation.