6 October 2011

Learning from the Trenches

Bringing industry into the classroom is without doubt one of the most effective ways of ensuring relevance in any area of business study.

That’s why an upcoming series of interactive panel discussions hosted by the Discipline of International Business promises to be a major highlight of the academic year. Designed to showcase the latest issues, trends and developments in business, the forums are intended to give students an opportunity to get acquainted with the practical day-to-day problems that currently challenge business while engaging with key industry leaders and representatives.

The first event (scheduled for Friday, October 14 at 1pm and set to examine the risk to business presented by social media) promises to be extremely insightful. Indeed, there can be no doubt that the Internet is impacting international business models in ways that were perhaps never properly anticipated. For an example of this we only have to look to recent events where social media tools like Twitter and Facebook have proven extremely effective for rallying people to protest against certain groups and organisations. The potential for extreme damage to brand credibility or corporate image resulting from a single Tweet posted by just one dissatisfied customer is certainly something that demands proactive risk management initiatives.

The panel members for this inaugural event will include Peter Fraser from SR7 – a consulting company that works at the frontier of social media risk analysis. He’ll be joined by Nada Siratkov, General Manager of Marketing at Aon Australia. A leader in risk management and insurance in Australia, Aon found in their 2010/2011 Australasian Risk Management Benchmarking Survey that the top perceived risk to businesses as nominated by business leaders was in fact brand and image, partly due to exposure to social media risk.

Anyone wishing to register for the event can do so by visiting International Business Matters website.

Author: Sandra Seno-Alday - Lecturer and Sessional Staff Coordinator, Discipline of International Business

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