Course Title: SeminarⅠ
Instructor: Prof. U. Aytun Ozturk
Date: August 5, 2019
Venue.: Da Nanang, Vietnam

A group of FILA students enrolled in Prof. U. Aytun Ozturk’s seminar paid visits to two organizations in Da Nang during their trip to Vietnam in August to learn about business practices of local enterprises. Students’ first stop was the offices of Evergreen Labs, a project development and impact consulting organization, whose mission is to help or develop companies that are driven by social causes. During the visit, the founder and director of Evergreen Labs shared the growth story of the firm and explained how the organization supports and builds companies nationwide in developing sustainable business models and strategies. The director also took the time to address questions of the students on a multitude of topics including the role of culture in business, importance of communication in talent development and community based tourism. The briefing session was followed by a tour of the Evergreen’s facilities.
Students’ next stop was Furama Resort Danang. Here students were welcomed by the Assistant HR Manager and were given a tour of the impressive resort. Next, students were greeted by the HR Manager of the resort. During the briefing students learned about the global clientele of the resort, how diverse culinary experiences provided by five resort restaurants are amplified with Furama’s unique approach to hospitality, and how Furama’s strategy enabled it to continue providing top-notch quality service to its guests. Students who participated in the excursions commented that the visits were a valuable and rare opportunity to learn first-hand about businesses in different industries in-situ. For their capstone paper, Prof. Ozturk’s seminar students are tasked with researching a company of their choice and zeroing in on one of the issues the company is facing to develop a solution using one of the analytics tools they learned about in his Management Science and Operations Management courses.