The government’s New Southbound Policy intrigued a new phase of economic development in Taiwan. From January 28th to February 10th, the College of Management of National Sun Yat-sen University assigned a group of students, led by Professor SUNG, CHAO-HSIEN, to visit Panyapiwat Institute of Management (PIM) in Thailand. During the trip, in addition to intensive business courses based on ASEAEN countries, business trips, and cultural experiences in Thailand, Taiwanese students had the opportunity to deeply understand ASEAN business environment and one of the most influential corporations in Thailand, Chia Tai Group.

 

PIM is a corporate university under CP ALL, which is a subsidiary of Chia Tai Group. PIM carries out Work-based Education, arranging academic courses and business internship for their students every year so that they can gain academic knowledge and working experiences at the same time, which leads to 100% employment rate among their students. PIM also showed their intention to obtain more experiences of academic research through the interchange with the College of Management of NSYSU.

 

During the two-week courses, the students gained further understanding about the economic environment and future prospects of ASEAN countries, such as Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Malaysia. Besides, they had the chance to actually visit four local companies and see the factory operation; the companies are ICHITAN Tea Factory, CPF Saraburi Chicken Processing Plant, 7-11 Distribution Center, CPF Sausage Processing Plant, etc. One of the students from Department of Business Management, Rita Lin, said that it was not only the massive corporate scale that impressed her, but also the “Slow and Ease” management leadership. From her viewpoint, most of Taiwanese government and companies are mainly target-oriented, putting emphasis on efficient and performance. However, she suggested if Taiwanese companies want to enter ASEAN markets, they should actively interact with other countries from different dimensions in order to accumulate trust bonding, rather than pursing short-term profits.

 

PIM also arranged a series of culture experience activities that stunned the students, including Loha Prasat, Bang Pa-In Royal Palace, Pattaya Floating Market, Sriracha Tiger Zoo, and Wat Phra Kaeo that is full of religious and royal atmosphere. Some of the students shared the same feeling that Thailand takes their culture and natural resources very seriously and made long-term plan for their tourism industry, recommending Taiwanese government and enterprises should be devoted to preserving and sharing the precious natural resources together to strengthen the local tourism in Taiwan.

 

This is the first time that the College of Management of NSYSU had a cross-department overseas visit, and the participants were from institutes of Business Management, Finance, Marketing Communication, Public Affairs Management, IBMBA, and GHRM MBA. With diverse knowledge background, the student were able to arouse different ideas, make good use of the resources and eventually present excellent final reports that contained every aspect closely related to this amazing trip in Thailand. The students were glad to have this unforgettable experience and meet people that they wouldn’t have had chance to know, and they are looking forward to taking part in more substantial overseas visit like this.