AACSB APAC: Plenary – Transformation Toward Design Driven Institutions

The AACSB International Asia Pacific Conference was kicked off at the NUCB Business School Marunouchi Tower Campus on Tuesday, October 30 with a dual-speaker plenary session. On the topic of transformation toward design driven institutions, Prof. Yuriko Sawatani and Mr. Hideki Shibata set the tone for the conference by discussing one of the major trends in the service economy where design processes and innovation are becoming more and more integral in developing the customer journey from the perspective of business schools, administrators and students.

Professor Yuriko Sawatani is a faculty member of the NUCB Business School as well as the school’s Chair for the Center for Entrepreneurship and CEO for Design for ALL. Prof. Sawatani is highly-regarded as one of the top Japanese researchers and practitioners in the field of service design. During the plenary she discussed the complexity and transformation of the service system while introducing case studies to the participants. Mr. Shibata added his perspective as the Senior Design Manager of IBM Japan and both fielded questions from the participants which started the longest day of the conference.

The AACSB International Asia Pacific Conference was held in Nagoya, Japan from Oct. 29 – 31 and was hosted at the NUCB Business School Nagoya Marunouchi Tower Campus. The city of Nagoya has long been the manufacturing heart of Japan and continues to experience explosive growth as a business hub for all of Japan. AACSB, the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, is one of the three most respected and valued global accreditation bodies that signals the highest level of quality assurance to students, employers, and other business schools around the world. The NUCB Business School is only one of four schools in Japan with AACSB accreditation and the only one with AACSB and AMBA dual accreditation.