To Vietnam, And Graduation

Subscribe to BusinessWeek

On Feb. 23, about 60 of my classmates and I made our way to Ho Chi Minh City for our Global Integrative trip that every Georgetown MBA student is required to take -- the other 180 people in my class were heading toward Johannesburg, Shanghai, or Dubai.



My group was traveling to Vietnam to meet with clients we had been assigned to back in November. These clients -- major Vietnamese corporations or international companies that sought to enter Vietnam -- had sent my school various business projects to work on. We spent November through February meeting with professors several times a week, speaking with our clients over the phone, conducting research, and applying everything we could possibly think of from our education.



At school, each group had given presentations to their class and it was more or less agreed that all the groups had created quality business plans or business solutions that were worthy of being presented to a senior executive of a major corporation. Our professors approved each presentation and the corresponding idea as sufficient for a client presentation. Then we landed in Vietnam and we saw a few of our assumptions about finance, marketing, and economics fragment.



Plans Did Not Hold Water

Now, I obviously only speak for myself and a few other groups with whom I've spoken. But I can safely say no matter where we are from -- we have an internationally diverse program -- we applied certain business notions to our plans that simply did not hold water in the economies we were visiting and researching. And that was the beauty of the assignment -- to learn the necessity of flexibility, of shaping what we learn, and fitting it to environments or situations entirely new to us.



One of our groups gave a presentation to MBAs at a business school in Vietnam. Their idea was a marketing plan to encourage Vietnamese consumers to get and use credit cards. One of the marketing approaches was mailing fliers. Simple -- it seemed. Then a Vietnamese student raised his hand and said: "That's a good idea but no one uses the post here. How are you going to send ads in the mail, let alone the credit-card bill? And the Vietnamese consumers don't trust banks. They keep their money in their homes. How are you going to convince them to take their hard-earned savings and hand it over to some stranger with a business card and a desk in some impersonal bank?"



We were, well, stumped. We assumed banks implied stability. [Note: This was before Bear Stearns (BSC) was assigned a value less than its own building.]



Stumbling Through Our Answer

My own group was assigned the task of figuring out the logistics of a rental car business in Vietnam. We thought this would be easy since there wasn't much of an established industry and the competition was fragmented, mostly mom-and-pop, and limited in scope. Only people with Vietnamese drivers' licenses can drive a car in Vietnam so a driver would come with the rental car. We decided on a nice high price point since there was no competition and we were practically first-movers in this market space. We would offer a convenient, easy-to-use service, with English-speaking drivers.



"Well," asked the senior executive who listened to our presentation, "how do we find English-speaking drivers?" We stumbled our way through an answer to which he nodded thoughtfully. As silence crashed down while he nodded, we cringed and nervously shot each other quick looks that conveyed: "Say something! Anything!" Finally, one of my teammates said: "We, uh, realize there are several elements that still need to be addressed. We are happy to research them further if you would like us to."







We also realized the number of cars on the road was somewhere in the realm of 1 for every 200 motorbikes or scooters. This is not a calculated figure; it is what it looked like when we tried to cross the street. As we walked toward our client's Vietnam headquarters, we mumbled to each other that there were not very many cars.



Confronting Vietnamese Corporate Culture

Then one girl came out and said it: "O.K., uh, nobody drives cars here. It's taxis and motorbikes. Who would rent a car?" Another girl, our resident optimist, said with hope in her voice: "Oh I'm sure there's a market for rental cars. There's got to be." And that was the end of that conversation.



And now for the moment of reflection traveling to a country is one thing. Traveling to a country out of your hemisphere with an economy different from your own is another. And studying the economy and business practices, viewing the micro and macro behavior with an informed eye, and hearing officials from the U.S. consulate describe the Vietnamese economy the day after local MBAs describe Vietnamese corporate culture make the experience of the visit substantially different and far more layered than a trip taken simply as a tourist.



Don't get me wrong -- we did conduct ourselves as tourists despite all best efforts and certainly were perceived that way. Nevertheless, the country hosted us graciously as did our clients and I learned plenty on this trip about Vietnam, the U.S., and the lack of any sort of true answer to finding an economic utopia.



Ready for a Paycheck

At another meeting with Vietnamese MBA students we had a question-and-answer session. Many of the students asked for our suggestions or how certain aspects of our economy worked and why. And then one student asked our group if someone could please explain the subprime crisis and what exactly happened. I wouldn't go so far as to say it was embarrassing to be the first-world country in which credit availability froze and assets plummeted in value, sending us spiraling into a recession, but it was not something we wanted to show off as we offered business suggestions to the Vietnamese MBAs. All that while we were trying to convince them that credit cards were a fantastic idea and they should incorporate them into their lifestyles. Need I mention the irony that the majority of us Georgetown MBAs are most likely in some sort of credit-card debt, none of which we enjoy having on our own personal balance sheets?



Which brings me to timing. I am at the point in my MBA education where I am very ready for a paycheck. After analyzing my own balance sheet I realized I am far over-levered [i.e., I have far more debt than equity to the extent that it is "financially unhealthy"]. I am sure I'm not alone. Many of us are on our last legs of savings after spending almost two years in school. Our credit-card bills make us nauseated and we ask professors in stingy undertones if the book is really necessary since we are in no mood to buy another $175 book -- used. The answer is usually something along the lines of "feel free to venture into the library and borrow the book, because yes, it's necessary and it will help you."



I am also at the point in my MBA education where motivation has become a function more of self-control and discipline than of simply getting up in the morning. This is a too-fancy way of saying that despite having graduated from high school, I have found myself sitting on my couch experiencing something very similar to the senioritis I enjoyed way back then. And the disease is widespread. In fact, I can't think of anyone who hasn't exhibited senioritis.







Personals E-Mails from the Professor

Our teachers have been good-natured but firm and managed to keep us interested. I still marvel at some of the professors I've had. My former M&A professor is co-teaching a private equity course with the president and CEO of one of the top five midmarket private equity firms in the U.S. He has brought major senior executives from other well-known private equity firms to speak to us in every class. Each time they discuss a recent acquisition or leveraged buyout and its intricacies, including some semiconfidential information such as the methods and strategies.



But what makes my M&A and now private equity professor [I also took investment banking from him in my first year] so truly remarkable is that he writes personal e-mails to his students praising them for a comment in class or participation. He mentioned to me that he was happy to see my confidence had increased and that I spoke more frequently in class. And this was the same day I walked out of class convinced that everyone, including he, had decided I must be on another planet because of my dopey comment and thus I should never raise my hand again, ever.



My Financial Statement Analysis II professor is the Sherlock Holmes of financial statements and walked us through how to find out if a company that seemed financially healthy was actually healthy. She basically taught us how to figure out if we should short a company using financial statement analysis -- after all, returns are returns. She is one of the sharpest people I have ever encountered and she gave me hope -- and confidence to boot -- since she was an English major for her undergraduate education. She mentioned this in class one day, just in passing, and I wanted to leap out of my chair pumping my fist and shout, "Liberal arts majors of the world, unite!" but instead I just sat up a little straighter.



An MBA Is Worth Every Penny

So I finish classes in a few weeks; every time I think that to myself, I want to cry. While I am indeed excited to finish school and start my job, I am about to leave a place that has enormously changed my life, has given me a marvelous education, and has opened doors for me that I never even thought existed. And now I just leave? Sayonara? That's it?



Many people say an MBA is pointless or a waste of money, among other descriptions. But for me, those people could not be more wrong. When I think about what I know now vs. what I knew in 2005, I know it was worth every penny. Sure, the life lessons were important. And the personal growth was significant. And the friends I've made are outstanding. But in addition to all that, I really got a solid education. I do feel like I learned enough about the quantitative and qualitative aspects of business to give me a sturdy foundation for wherever I go to learn a trade.



It's impossible to go to business school and not learn anything -- unless you try. But if you walk into class on the first day and promise yourself that you are going to utilize every last bit of education offered to you, then it is massively worth the hard work, busy days, and sleepless nights. And sorry for the cliche, but the life lessons, personal growth, and wonderful friends are what make it priceless.