The University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus (UNMC) is the first private higher education institution in Asia offering the multi-organisational Global Business Services (GBS), course according to GBS Research Network. The GBS course was initiated in Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia within the network in which UNMC plays a key role, serving the educational and national economic transformation agenda in developing talent for the GBS industry.
The first British University in Malaysia, UNMC launched its multi-organisational GBS course in collaboration with Talent Corporation Malaysia (TalentCorp), the Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE), Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) and UKM in a ceremony which was officiated by the Deputy British High Commissioner to Malaysia Paul Rennie.
This GBS course will be part of the Industry-Academia Collaboration (IAC) for the Global Business Services (GBS) sector initiative which was launched by TalentCorp together with MOHE and MDEC on 26 September 2016, at the Sector Focused Career Fair (SFCF) University Pendidikan Sultan Idris (UPSI) 2016 in Perak. IAC-GBS offers a coordinated approach for the sector’s employers and universities to identify areas for collaboration towards enhancing graduate employability, while raising awareness among Malaysia’s future workforce of the career opportunities opening up in GBS.
At UNMC, the GBS Course is offered as a module in Nottingham Advantage Award (NAA). NAA is an award that enhances employability, personal and professional development by providing a platform for students to get involved in extra-currucular and co-curricular modules.
According to UNMC CEO and Provost Professor Graham Kendall: “We are proud to be a part of a key employability initiative in Malaysia. It will continue to ensure that UNMC graduates are competent and employable in Malaysia. Our student employability rate is already about 90%, one of the highest in Malaysia, but we are always looking to improve even further.”
“We are confident that our students will benefit from this initiative and it enables us to support a national agenda of retention of Malaysian graduates who can enhance the economic development of the country.”
GBS is an industry that is fast gaining momentum in Malaysia and is one of the priorities in the country’s Economic Transformation Plan and the National Key Economic Areas (NKEA) towards its transformation into a high-income, knowledge-based economy by 2020. At the end of 2015, Malaysia was home to more than 450 GBS firms, employing more than 86,000 people. Every year, 60-65 new firms from different countries of origin add their footprints to this country.
The course which started in September 2016 has five industry partners, namely Emerio, an NTT Communications Company, Sime Darby Global Services Centre Malaysia, Xerox Business Services Malaysia, IBM Global Delivery Centre Malaysia and Sellbytel Group Malaysia. On campus, the senior managers from these companies each delivered a GBS talk on an assigned topic and worked with academic mentors to decide on the case study project topic which featured some of the challenges faced by the company or industry. After attending a total of seven talks by the industry experts, students were then armed with the knowledge of interviewing techniques and etiquette through a case study workshop conducted by academic mentors prior to embarking on the case study project. Both academic and industry experts collaborated and mentored the students simultaneously throughout the case study project. UNMC also collaborated with Global Talent Academy whose role was to provide IAOP professional certification to the students. Through this experience, students were introduced GBS firms and the career paths they offer.
GBS Challenge Presentation
Participants of the GBS course presented their project group assignments on the following topics; New Age GBS, World-class Mentoring System, Stalwart of Quality GBS, Embracing Agile Workforce, We Have Got Talent and GBS Recruitment 2.0. Out of the six competing groups of students, the top three were selected based on the following criteria; content, organisation, presentation skills and ability to handle questions from the judges.
The judges include Michael Warren, Managing Director, Emerio, an NTT Communications Company; Victor Lam, Group Head, Sime Darby Global Services Centre; Jimmy Teh, Finance Director, Xerox; Patrick Khoo, Quality Manager, Sellbytel Group Malaysia; Yogeswaran Govindarajah, Graduate and University Collaboration Programme Manager, IBM Global Delivery Centre Malaysia academics from UNMC; Mandy Sim, GBS Research Network Vice President and Programme Academic Lead, Sugunamalar Vijayaratnam, Dr Pek Chuen Khee, Dr Jason Lee, Chiang Choon Lai, Ng Chee Kean, Dr Vengadeshvaran Sarma and Rosniwati Mohd Nasir.
(Article image caption: Paul Rennie, OBE and Professor Graham Kendall with partners of GBS)
(Thumbnail image caption: Professor Kendall presenting a token of appreciate to Paul Rennie at the launch)
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More information is available from Dr Sivabala Naidu on sivabala.naidu@nottingham.edu.my, Mandy Sim on mandy.sim@nottingham.edu.my or Josephine Dionisappu, PR & Communications Manager on +6 (03) 8924 8746, josephine.dionisappu@nottingham.edu.my .
Notes to editors: The University of Nottingham has 42,000 students at award-winning campuses in the United Kingdom, China and Malaysia. It was ‘one of the first to embrace a truly international approach to higher education’, according to the Sunday Times University Guide 2013. It is also one of the most popular universities among graduate employers, one of the world’s greenest universities, and winner of the Times Higher Education Award for ‘Outstanding Contribution to Sustainable Development’. It is ranked in the UK's Top 10 and the World's Top 75 universities by the Shanghai Jiao Tong and the QS World Rankings.
More than 90 per cent of research at The University of Nottingham is of international quality, according to the most recent Research Assessment Exercise. The University aims to be recognised around the world for its signature contributions, especially in global food security, energy & sustainability, and health. The University won a Queen’s Anniversary Prize for Higher and Further Education for its research into global food security.
Impact: The Nottingham Campaign, its biggest ever fundraising campaign, will deliver the University’s vision to change lives, tackle global issues and shape the future.
Posted on 21st December 2016