Qualification helped hotel restaurant manager evaluate and respond to Sars crisis
With 22 years' experience in the hospitality industry, Derek Lam Kwok Wah says the practical knowledge he has gained working in the hotel business gave a real application to the theoretical input of his studies.
Mr Lam has climbed the ladder from his beginnings as a bartender at the Furama Hotel to his present job as restaurant manager at the JW Marriott Hotel, chalking up experience in restaurant, room service and convention service areas along the way.
Before he enrolled in the MBA programme at the Open University of Hong Kong in 1999, his experience was peppered with hotel and business management diplomas.
He says a general MBA programme held greater benefits because it enabled him to view things from different angles and with a broader perspective, and to develop more effective analytical powers for making decisions.
'It was only through a formal MBA programme that I was able to further embrace management concepts and skills.'