On the morning of June 20, the launching ceremony of the 2021 MBA orientation of College of Business (COB), Shanghai University of Finance and Economics (SUFE) was held in the scientific research laboratory building, at SUFE’s Guoding Road campus. The theme of the event was “New patterns, new business subjects, new practice”. More than 500 MBA new students, with their yearning for the future, made their first collective appearance at the school to start a new journey in life. Distinguished guested who were invited to attend this event  include: Wei jianing, a well-known economist and researcherat the Development Research Center of the State Council; Wang Bin, Party Secretary and General Manager of Shanghai Xujiahui Mall Co. , Ltd. ; He Yuchang, Chairman of the Teaching Research Committee of Economic Theory of the Shanghai Economic Society; Liu Zhiyang, Associate Dean of  COB,  and Executive Associate Dean of the Entrepreneurship College, SUFE; Chen Zhijun, Dean of Human Resource Department and Academic Director of MBA Center of COB, SUFE; and Xu Songwei, Associate Director of Administration Department ofCOB, SUFE, and the faculty representatives of MBA Center of COB, SUFE. Wu Yunzhen, Executive Director of the MBA Center of the Business School, hosted the event.

The 2021 MBA orientation started with the national anthem.

Liu Zhiyang,Associate Dean of COB,  and Executive Associate Dean of the School of Entrepreneurship, SUFE made a speech. He expressed warm welcome to the class of 2021 MBA students who joinedthe family of COBwith a common dream. In the context of with the current domestic and international environment, he introduced the mission of COB is to develop business talent, create business knowledge, transform business practice and promote business civilization”, as well as the futuredevelopment of SUFE’s MBA program o with distinctive characteristics of finance and economics., He suggested students to develop the  sense of national identity, make friends with each other, and abide by regulations after they joined the business school, and strive to become innovators of management practice and practitioners of innovative management, to make contributions to the great revitalization of China.

Professor Wei Jianing, former inspector and researcher at the Development Research Center of the State Council, gave a lecture themed “How to achieve ‘Innovative Growth’?”. He pointed out that from the change of the three basic elements of labor force, capital, technology which support the fast economic growth in the past decades, the innovative development of China’s economy is necessary and urgent. Combining the new development concept of the fourteenth five-year planning and the new development pattern of China’s economy, he made a deep but simple interpretation from the aspects of the coronavirus accelerating the digital transformation of the economy and the problems faced by China’s economic transformation. Linked with concrete real-life cases and abundant data analysis, he believed that to achieve innovative growth in the digital era, it is necessary to drive the economic transformation through reform and opening up, to drive the transformation and upgrading of the industries, so as to promote the economic growth.

Chen Zhijun, Director of the Human Resource Department and Academic Director of the MBA Center, gave a speech on “The growth path of the business elite in the digital age”. He pointed out that in the  process of continuous evolution of management models, management scenarios and innovation forms, business elites in the digital age need to adapt to the new rhythm of change, master new technologies of digital intelligence and innovate talent management models, and finally achieve the continuous upgrade of digital ability from mindset, professional knowledge, coordinated execution, forward-thinking to cross-field fusion. Finally, he introduced the content of the new talent training plan, including the rankingsSUFE’sMBA program, the talent training system, and the curriculum. He encouraged students to cherish the time and forge ahead at a new starting point in their study, set sail for a brighter future.

In order to set an example to commend the outstanding students and encourage new students to study hard andbe innovative , the 2019 SUFE MBA Academic Excellence Scholarship award ceremony was also held. Eight students, including Jiang Mengzhi and Yu Miao, won the first prize of Academic Excellence Scholarship, and other 21 students, including Wang Qian and Chen Qi, won the second prize.

Then, the first-class scholarship winner, Business School 2019 EMBA student Zhang Ruizhen gave a speech as a student representative She talked a lot about her achievements since she joined the school and expressed her gratitude to her alma mater. She sincerely hopes that the younger students will have high aspirations, dare to challenge, work hard, and take the Ggory and dream of their alma mater to achieve the best of themselves and move towards the future.

In the afternoon, Wang Bin, Party Secretary and General Manager of Shanghai Xujiahui Mall, delivered a speech on the topic of “Digital business and  business digitalization of physical retail industry”. Wang Bin said that dDigital business and business digitalization of physical retail business is inevitable in the era. Under the overall trend of industry digitalization, physical retail enterprises need to build up digital capabilities facing the future and the three key factors of digital transformation are to realize the digitalization of business,  digitalization of statistics and intelligence of digital business. The only way for the physical retail industry to expand business is to transform and even reconstruct the existing business process by means of digitalization, to realize the digitalization of all business segments, to take the data of commodities as a connection to analyze the potential needs of customers, and to create opportunities for sales promotion.

Professor He Yuchang, director of the Teaching Research Committee of Economic Theory of the Shanghai Economic Society and a Professor of Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, gave a lecture on the topic “Academic integrity is the bottom line of study”. He stressed the importance of academic integrity to students from the aspects of academic discipline, integrity in the course examinations, and academic standards of thesis-writing, and required students to abide by academicregulations, adhere to academic integrity, maintain academic dignity, abandon academic misconduct, and strive to become a practitioner of academic ethics and the maintainer of a good academic atmosphere.

Finally, the introduction of extracurricular activities for the MBA program began. The chairman of the SUFE MBA Student Union and heads of student clubs, such as Asia Desert Racing Competition Club, Table Tennis Club, Basketball Club, Football Club and so on respectively introduced the student activities in the clubs.

The year of 2021 marks the 100th anniversary of COB of SUFE and the 30th anniversary of SUFE MBA Program. It means a lot for the 2021 class to be enrolled in such a special year. To give new students an unforgettable experience, the school has prepared a special package for each new student, which contains “COB 100” badges, “MBA 30” badges,  COB ‘s T-shirts, books for new students, student brochures, baseball hats, thermos bottles, environment-friendly bags and so on. tThe beautiful campus, modern teaching facilities, warm and careful service madee students immersed in the excitement and joy of entering the new semester with good expectations forthe upcoming student life.