The Denver MBA’s Corporate Challenge officially kicked off March 3, thanks to the generous support of 10 host partners. In April’s BizNotes, we’re exploring the partnerships Daniels enjoys with Oracle Corp. and Terumo BCT.
Please give a brief description of your company.
Oracle Corp.:
Oracle offers an integrated array of applications, databases, servers, and storage and cloud technologies to empower modern business. For most companies, flexibility is critical. Oracle provides a wide choice of software, systems and cloud deployment models—including public, on-premises and hybrid clouds—to ensure that technology flexes to the unique needs of a business. More than 420,000 customers across 145 countries have harnessed Oracle technology to accelerate their digital transformation.
Terumo BCT:
Terumo BCT is a global leader in blood-component, therapeutic-apheresis and cellular technologies—the only company with the unique combination of apheresis collections, manual and automated whole-blood processing and pathogen-reduction technologies. We believe in the potential of blood to do even more for patients than it does today. Terumo BCT’s mission is to improve lives through innovation, quality and services enabled by our blood-component, therapeutic-apheresis and cellular technologies.
What value does your company receive from being a corporate partner?
Terumo BCT:
What we value most about the opportunity to collaborate with the students is having a chance to get a fresh perspective on a complex project. The students come from a wide variety of experiences and backgrounds. This allows them to take a unique approach to complex problems or opportunities. Sometimes we are so close to these initiatives that it is difficult to look at them through a different lens, but the students can’t help but put a different perspective on the subject. We can benefit from their unique point of view.
Oracle Corp.:
We were looking for opportunities to gain new perspectives on our target market, and the Daniels Corporate Challenge offered us just that: the ability to work with a team that would take a fresh approach to analyzing industry trends and market opportunities.
What do Daniels students stand to gain from this collaboration?
Oracle Corp.:
We hope that the team enjoys learning more about what it is like to work for a Fortune 100 organization and the many challenges and opportunities that come with such a large global company. The culture at a high-tech company is always on the move, and so are the tools we leverage to collaborate and innovate faster. Throughout the Corporate Challenge, the team will have an opportunity to see what a large tech campus looks and feels like, from the flexible workspaces and cafes to the modern engineering labs where our teams are working on the next generation of our cloud offerings.
Terumo BCT:
They get a chance to apply the theoretical, classroom learning they’ve gathered over the course of the year to a real business situation. They also get a direct perspective on what it is like to work within a corporate structure—how to collaborate across a wide array of functions and teams to drive results.
So far, what has been the most interesting or enjoyable aspect of working with our students on the Corporate Challenge?
Terumo BCT:
The team is extremely engaged and passionate to learn and be successful. It will be great to see how they apply their various perspectives to the task at hand. It is incredible to see how quickly they embraced the project and are working together to make an impact.
Oracle Corp.:
After spending a few working sessions with the Daniels team, it was great to see their minds spinning and coming up with new ideas that we had not considered. We can’t wait to see how these ideas grow over the course of the quarter.