Partnership with SMU bears fruit
Students come up with feasible proposals for Wanin Industries, which supplies Pere Ocean water dispensers.
MEN looking dapper in their coats and ties and women dressed smartly in their power suits seated around a table, conferring and deliberating. That is probably the image evoked when one thinks of meetings that involve coming up with the company's latest It product.
However, the collaboration between Wanin Industries - which started out with the Pere Ocean brand and pioneered the bulk bottled water and cooler rental industry in Singapore - and SMU bucks the trend. The firm, which was established in 1986, wanted to find out the young generation's perspective of Pere Ocean. Wanin Industries was referred to UOB-SMU Asian Enterprise Institute (UOB-SMU AEI) by a business adviser at SME Centre (Spring Singapore). UOB-SMU AEI then introduced Wanin Industries to SMU-X course, which was launched in 2015.
The firm took up the opportunity to collaborate with the university in one of its courses - The Design of Business - under SMU-X. The Design of Business is a capstone course that all business school undergraduates take in their final year. In fact, the company was so keen that it set aside a budget of S$50,000-S$100,000 for this partnership.
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