Harvard Business School Students to collaborate with DY Works and Reliance Retail for hands-on programme

A team of students from the Harvard Business School will be working closely with DY Works and Reliance Retail India in January to understand cultural trends and consumer triggers in the Indian context. The experience is part of a required first-year course at Harvard Business School called FIELD, which stands for Field Immersion Experience for Leadership Development. DY Works is one of 156 FIELD Global Partners spanning 13 countries around the world. Together they will host more than 930 students in all.

“We are looking forward to this engagement. As a company that bases its work on culture and semiotic enquiry, this experience falls seamlessly into our vision of research”, said Alpana Parida, President DY Works.  “We are pleased to be working with Harvard Business School to provide students with a real-world learning experience in Mumbai, India. We feel certain that the students will gather insights here that they would never be able to glean from a classroom discussion alone.”

FIELD has three modules that run through the entire first year of the two- year MBA program. The first module focuses on developing individual leadership skills through team feedback and self-reflection. The second focuses on developing global intelligence by immersing them in a foreign country to develop a new product or service in the country for their Global Partner organization. The final module brings all the lessons together by challenging students to develop and launch their own micro-business as part of a small team back in Boston.

This collaboration includes India’s retail giant, Reliance Retail who will facilitate the engagement of the students with consumers and their purchase environments. DY Works executives have been working with the team remotely in the months leading up to their arrival in country. While here, they will pitch their ideas to the leadership team, conduct field research with consumers around Mumbai and present their final recommendations to management.

Harvard is quick to acknowledge that this important learning experience would not be possible without the Global Partners.

 “We are extremely grateful to DY Works, Reliance Retail and all the FIELD Global Partner organizations for all they do on behalf of our students,” said Professor Tony Mayo, the faculty head of FIELD. “The students benefit immeasurably from this experience and we hope the partner organizations do as well.”