BINUS Business School Supports Digital Transformation in Business through International Lecture Week 2021
JAKARTA, 4 November 2021 – Following the success of last year’s International Lecture Week, the event returned on November 1st-5th, 2021. Organized by the AACSB-accredited university, BINUS Business School, International Lecture Week 2021 carried the theme of “Digital Transformation towards Business Resilience and Sustainability”.
The purpose of this event was to obtain updated information amongst global academia in business school. Through International Lecture Week 2021, BINUS Business School also wanted to increase scholarly engagement with its partner universities.
“BINUS Business School endeavors to continuously increase engagement among business people, faculty members, institutions, and students so that business education is always in line with industry practice,” said the Director of BINUS Business School, Dezie Leonarda Warganegara, Ph.D. International Lecture Week consists of 37 sessions involving 20 professors from 13 countries.
The International Lecture Week 2021 was Inline with BINUS University’s Vision
Due to the current situation of the global pandemic, International Lecture Week 2021 was delivered online via Zoom and Microsoft Teams. The event was held for five days from November 1st – 5th, 2021. All students of BINUS Business School participated in this global-scale event, including undergraduate, postgraduate, and doctoral students.
Under the main theme of “Digital Transformation towards Business Resilience and Sustainability”, International Lecture Week 2021 played a crucial role in achieving BINUS University’s 2035 vision: “Fostering and Empowering the Society in Serving and Building the Nation”. This vision is broken down into one transition period and three main phases.
The transition period is set to occur in 2019-2021, in which BINUS University focuses on digital transformation and ecosystem building to address community needs. Through the event of International Lecture Week 2021, BINUS Business School wanted to raise awareness and improve people’s knowledge on those important subjects.
It Highlights Business Resilience and Sustainability Facing Enterprises
The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way people do business. To maintain business and social resilience, many companies adjust their business model to the current situation. In Indonesia, the COVID-19 pandemic causes a different crisis that affects over 60 million SMEs. Most of their business performance experiences a significant drop by relatively 30-90% since they cannot do the usual face-to-face transactions with customers.
Unfortunately, only less than 15% of SMEs in Indonesia are exposed to digitalization. The country is forecasted to face a recession due to this crisis and SMEs are expected to encounter severe challenges.
The International Lecture Week 2021 pointed out those challenges and how businesses need resilience to survive and recover. Information technology plays an important role in this scenario. For many businesses, particularly SMEs, participation in the digital economy is the key to greater resiliency. It has been proven through the recent trend of how Asian countries fought back to revive their economies by implementing digital transformation.
Based on that trend alone, it shows the importance of digital transformation and entrepreneurship, which were the main themes of International Lecture Week 2021. BINUS Business School was committed to pushing digital transformation that enables businesses to be more resilient and sustainable.
4 Main Programs to Cover Various Topics Related to Digital Transformation
Digital transformation comes with many different important aspects. To cover these aspects, BINUS Business School provided four main programs that consisted of 37 online sessions in the International Lecture Week 2021. These main programs included Public Session, Guest Lecture, Research Forum, and Ph.D. Colloquium.
BINUS Business School also invited 20 professors from 13 countries with diverse expertise to deliver insightful lectures through those online sessions. The General Chairperson of BINUS University, Dr. Marko Hermawan, CA, CPMA, ACPA, said, “The International Lecture Week has become a global forum for scholars to gather and enhance scientific knowledge and share experiences.”
As a collaborative work between 14 programs in BINUS Business School, the International Lecture Week 2021 provided insightful knowledge about digital transformation for more than 6.000 students and 700 faculty members. Moreover, BINUS stakeholders also gained fruitful insights from these activities. **
