“The group internship with Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits has exposed student and faculty to the emerging field of Robotic Process Automation (RPA),” said Doug Lehmannm, assistant professor of professional Practice. “By leveraging the support and resources of our corporate advisory board members, we are able to continually innovate curriculum, while accelerating our students' career preparedness and experience with emerging technologies."
This program combines a capstone project with an internship, offering real world business experience for the students while SGWS benefits from the education and expertise of students from a program ranked 16th in the US by QS rankings.
Mark Chaplin, Vice President Sales and Marketing fostered the partnership between the MS in Business Analytics and his company. The beverage distributor is represented on the School's Business Analytics advisory board by Ann Dozier, Senior Vice President, Chief Information Officer for Southern Glazer's, serves as the executive sponsor of the innovative program. Dozier also represents the company on the School's distinguished advisory board for Business Analytics.
“In our master’s program, we’ve always been told that technology is the goal,” said Jane Liu, a Miami Herbert MSBA student enrolled in the ETP. “While working on this project, it’s evident that technology isn’t possible without the people, the communication and the different departments behind it. This internship proves that business and technology work hand-in-hand to find a solution that supports a company’s business objectives, which I’ve held on to since day one.”
Prior to launching the program, ETP Director of Innovation Maria Hernandez developed a roadmap for success inclusive of training, weekly meetings, presentations, proposals, and much more, in an effort to create a immersive, engaging experience for these students.
“Having the opportunity to work with RPA and being able to collaborate with other departments has made this internship so different from what our peers have been experiencing,” said Eva Jiao, a current ETP intern. “I’ve heard of internships where students spend most of their time filing and inputting data to desktops, but this experience have been very hands-on.”
“Experiential learning is an integral component of the MS Business Analytics curriculum, as it offers students the opportunity to advance their skills in a real-world environment,” said Lehmann. “The group internship with Southern Glazer's has our students working as a team on a difficult business problem, expanding growing their marketability in the job market.”
With the inaugural cohort students program concluding May 1, 2020, program organizers from Southern Glazer's and Miami Herbert already thinking of expanding. The long-term vision is to develop the next generation of business technology professionals while nurturing a talent pipeline for well-qualified graduates.
