ASSIGNMENT 7 | INTERCULTURAL KNOWLEDGE AND

CRITICAL EVALUATION DAYS

TMD2
2IBM | Richard Verding

Assignment 7 | Intercultural knowledge and critical evaluation days

Table of Contents
Part 1 | The international week..................................................2
Holly Cybulski | Rolling out the red carpet: Keys to Event Management success. .2
Esther Melkebeke | Chinese brands and internet and e-commerce in China.........3
Kinga Niemczak | Stock buybacks: rewarding shareholders or boosting executive
compensation?...................................................................................................... 3

Part 2 | Critical reading task intercultural knowledge..................5

Bibliography.............................................................................6

Part 1 | The international week

From the 2nd till the 4th of May 2016 the fourth edition of the International
days took place at our campus with plenty of interesting keynote
speakers. I was grateful to attend the seminars of Holly Cybulski, Esther
Melkebeke and Kinga Niemczak. Therefore, I will discuss and explain the
content of the seminars. Furthermore, I will give a short reflection on each
topic I choose. Finally, I will summarize what I have learned from them.

Holly Cybulski | Rolling out the red carpet: Keys to Event

Management success
Attending Holly Cybulskis seminar was an obvious decision for me since I
have worked in the event sector myself. I have a strong interest in events
and everything that is related to event management. Almost every event
is different. This challenging aspect of creating unique moments for
clients, interests me a lot. Due to my experience I know exactly how
hectic managing an event can be. Therefore, attending the seminar of
Holly Cybulskis, very experienced in organizing and managing events,
was a perfect opportunity to broaden knowledge.
According to Holly Cybulski the success of every event is hidden in the
details. The key message is to treat everybody as a celebrity without
losing the objective of the event out of mind. She made her explanation
more tangible by referring to a case where she encountered troubles on a
red carpet event between her client Colin Farrell and the paparazzi. During
that specific event she didnt thoroughly think of the details and thus it
went wrong. She added that it is mainly the fault of the manager if
something goes wrong because it is the responsibility of the event
manager to plan ahead and be alert. In addition, she gave great advice
which will help you to manage and avoid problems from happening. Six
tips for successfully managing an event:

Why-factor: This is one of the most important aspects of event

management. To manage an event successfully you always need
to bare the objective of the event in mind. Decisions should be
made and based upon the reason or goal of the event.

2IBM | Richard Verding

Assignment 7 | Intercultural knowledge and critical evaluation days

10% rule: This is an error margin that you need to apply on

basically everything such as time, money and materials. You
cannot foresee every situation, hence with a 10% margin you
have the possibility to react accordingly.
Virtue is in the details: Every detail on an event has to be taken
into account to result in the best possible outcome. It has to be
different as well as memorable.
Importance of relationships: Build up good relationships. Treat
people as a partner and not as a supplier because you never
know who you will be working with later.
How to build on a dream team: Ensure a good communication
flow within your team and set up clear rules.
Was the mission accomplished? Verify if all objectives were met,
and if the guests and hosts were satisfied with the event.

This seminar broadened my scope on event management. Especially, the

advice might be useful in my future profession. My intention is not to
become an event manager, nevertheless these tips can be applied on
other fields. For every manager this advice might be useful. Besides I also
realize that it is really important to be proactive. Try to act instead of react
or at least be prepared to take reactive measures. An other important
aspect is that clear communication is key. Not only within you team but
also towards your clients and guests.

Esther Melkebeke | Chinese brands and internet and e-commerce in

China
This was my second seminar I attended and the reason that I choose this
one is because I would like to work in China in the future. I have always
been interested in Asia and more specifically in China. I really want to
enhance my knowledge on Chinese market and how to conduct business
in/with China. In that perspective I attended this seminar. In addition, next
year I will study a semester in Beijing, thus it might be useful to know
about Chinese brands, the internet in China and e-commerce.
The first part of the presentation was about Chinese companies that went
global and why more and more of them are going global. The main reason
for these companies to go global are the large manufacturing scale. In
addition, China also has the people and drive to do so. They have a huge
population that is well educated. The intense competition in China also
drives companies to go global. Afterwards Esther Melkebeke explained
how these companies manage to go global. The answer to that is the large
scale of manufacturing. This allows Chinese companies to offer decent
quality at a low price. Their decision to go west has been a great
success. In some cases, Chinese companies change their business model
to go global. Her example was Huawei that started as a B2B business and
changed to a B2C business. An often used strategy of Chinese companies
is to start their activities in more rural locations where the competition is
lower, and afterwards when they have enough market share, move to
other markets.
2IBM | Richard Verding

Assignment 7 | Intercultural knowledge and critical evaluation days

In the second part she mentioned some of the barriers in China. The most
important ones are pollution, and the restricted use of the internet and
social media. The internet is under the control of the government and
some of the social media platforms that western countries use, are not
accessible in China. At last she explained and compared Chinese ecommerce with the rest of the world. With the example of Alibaba she
showed that Chinese e-commerce is the most advanced one in the world.
She briefly explained their strategy and how they managed to become so
successful.
Since I would like to work and live in China, this seminar was very useful
to me. Now I have a better view on Chinese brands and businesses. Also
the cultural link was present in the presentation, which made it even more
interesting because I believe you need to have a certain level of
understanding of their culture to successfully conduct business with them.
For my career path, e-commerce might be a domain I want to explore
further because my field of interest is sales and marketing.

Kinga Niemczak | Stock buybacks: rewarding shareholders or

boosting executive compensation?
The topic of Kinga Niemczak seminar was stock buybacks. I choose this
seminar because Im interested in the stock market. I want to understand
how markets react on certain situations. My purpose was to gain more
knowledge on stock markets and the economy. This might be helpful in my
future profession. If you want to work as a manager you will need to
understand the basic mechanisms of the economy.
In the presentation the keynote speaker explained what stock buybacks
are, which options there are, what the consequences are, etc. This
seminar was a rather technical presentation with a lot of graphs and
figures.
Important questions regarding stock buyback:
1. What are the effects of a share buyback on the number of shares
outstanding and earnings per share?
Eps going up and number of shares outstanding going down
2. Why have companies been spending huge on buyback?
Low interest rate, easy to borrow from outside
A lot of cash on hand and not many investment opportunities
Push stocks up because they are undervalued
3. What is the downside?
If the interest will go up in future?
Is it sustainable to raise money this way?
Net income is not really growing, artificially try to increase net
income, the driver is number of shares outstanding.
4. Apple case?
They have a lot of cash on hand, very liquid companies
Financing buybacks with cheap debt instead of paying tax
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Assignment 7 | Intercultural knowledge and critical evaluation days

5. Dividend or buyback?
Market responds negative on dividend announcement; this is
not the case with a buyback
How to repurchase:
1. Buy in open market
2. Fixed price tender offer
3. Dutch auction tender offer (not at a fixed price)
4. Direct negotiation
Reasons to repurchase:
1. Undervaluation & signalling
a. Positive respond of the market: stock is undervalued
b. Negative respond:
i. net income doesnt change
ii. bad investment opportunities
2. Reduce agency cost
3. Change in capital structure
4. Stock option grants: to motivate management, align them with the
shareholders
Although it was a more technical presentation it was interesting to me. It
was the first time I heard about stock buybacks to be honest. I really like
to expand my knowledge on these topics because I also believe this will
help me in my future profession. At least, I know about this now. This
seminar gave me a new insight in business strategies and the options that
companies have at their disposal.

Part 2 | Critical reading task intercultural knowledge

The quote Belgians worked hard to realize a Franco-German dream the
union of Europe and their Europeanization may have contributed to their
relative facelessness compared to other nationalities strokes me as
particularly true. (Brealey, 2006) The fact that Herman van Rompuy was
president of the European Council from 2010 till 2014, is something to be
proud of as Belgian. (European Council) In my opinion, Herman van
Rompuy perfectly embodies this facelessness the author is talking about.
He is characterized by a neutral, humble and diplomatic leadership style.
One of his quotes as president of the European Council that shows his
personality is: "I ask no harvest, I have no barns, I am at your service
without possessions". In general Belgians compared to our Dutch
neighbours, are more humble, whereas people from the Netherlands are
more likely to speak their minds out loud. (Waterfield, 2009)
Basically Belgium is two nations Flemish-speaking one in the north and
a French-speaking in the south. The two groups do not like each other,
particularly are statements I do not agree with the author. (Brealey,
2006) Although their might be conflicts between different groups, such as
in many countries is the case, this does not mean Belgium is two nations.
Also that the two groups do not like each other is to generalized. A perfect
2IBM | Richard Verding

Assignment 7 | Intercultural knowledge and critical evaluation days

example of Belgium as one nation is when the national teams are present
on tournaments. When the Red Devils play soccer, all Belgians, Flemishspeaking and French-speaking support their national team. (Sporza, 2014)
Just as there are enough examples to state that these two groups dont
like each other, there are plenty of examples to state that there is
solidarity in Belgium.
I have noticed that Belgians respond quickly when they feel mistreated.
The perfect example of that is the amount of strikes that occur in Belgium.
Compared to other countries in Europe, the number of strikes seems quite
high for such a small country. This graph below shows that the number of
strikes in 2014 has never been as high since 1993. (Grommen, 2015)

I believe this is far more concerning then small differences between

Flemish- and French-speaking Belgians. This harms the Belgium economy
and eventually will damage the society as a whole.
To me it seems that the author sees it really black and white. While the
reality is more nuanced. He generalizes and is very sceptic. His view is
that Belgium exist basically out of two big parts that totally differ. His
focus and opinion are based on the differences between Flemish- and
French-speaking part. Therefore, he has a subjective point of view. The
outcome would be different if he would emphasize the similarities
between the two groups.

2IBM | Richard Verding

Assignment 7 | Intercultural knowledge and critical evaluation days

Bibliography
European Council. (n.d.). Former President of the European Council,
Herman Van Rompuy. Retrieved 5 2016, from European Council:
http://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/european-council/former-presidentherman-van-rompuy/
Grommen, S. (2015, 6 17). Retrieved 5 2016, from De morgen:
http://www.demorgen.be/economie/aantal-stakingsdagen-op-hoogste-peilin-20-jaar-b1d754df/
Sporza. (2014, 9 14). Retrieved 5 2016, from Sporza.be:
http://sporza.be/cm/sporza/extra/opvallend/1.2101110
Waterfield, B. (2009, 11 20). Retrieved 5 2016, from
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/6609924/ProfileHerman-Van-Rompuy-EUs-new-president.html
When cultures collide, R. Lewis, Nicolas Brealey International, 2006

2IBM | Richard Verding