Cooperative Program Boosts Internships With South African Retailer

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – You never know when you might make a long-lasting friendship.

In 2004, Claudia Mobley, executive director for the Center for Retailing Excellence at the Sam M. Walton College of Business, attended an industry conference in New York and met three executives associated with South African retail. One of those executives served on the board of the University of South Africa and was immediately interested in the Center for Retailing Excellence programs at the University of Arkansas.

The center reflected a marriage of the executive’s professional work in retail and his volunteer work in higher education. Soon Mobley and her team were creating a customized curriculum for executive education for South African retailers.

That chance meeting has turned into an exclusive, international internship program between clothing retailer Mr Price Group and the Walton College. The internship program is 3 years old and boasts six graduate student alumni. 

Mr Price Group is now an executive board-member company for the Center for Retailing Excellence and annually pays for two graduate students to intern each the summer at its headquarters in South Africa. The international retailer funds the students’ housing, salary, food, transportation and tours while there. The center covers the students’ airfare to South Africa.

“My favorite job is being the broker. Getting the right people in the room to make things happen,” Mobley said. 

Tingting Luo stands outside of the Mr Price Group headquarters in Durban, South Africa

Mr Price Group rolled out the red carpet for Tingting Luo and Paola Burgoa, this year’s interns, as they arrived in South Africa. The retailer reserved an apartment for the two just off Umhlanga Beach in Durban, South Africa, and then delivered laptops, cell phones, Internet connection and a car for their use.

“They spoil us a lot,” Burgoa said.

In addition to their work, the interns enjoyed a Cape Town trip, a safari, surf competition, rugby games and cocktail parties.

During the internship, Burgoa researched potential sourcing companies in emerging markets for Mr Price Apparel and Mr Price Home, two subsidiaries of Mr Price Group, while Tingting sought potential cost reduction strategies within the retailer’s supply chain and logistics processes.

 This approach has not only connected Mr Price Group to the center’s board, it has also helped to connect other departments and centers. For example, the George W. Edwards, Jr. Career Center in the Walton College became involved in 2011 to help develop the internship program and coordinate the recruiting process.

Paola Burgoa poses in front of the Mr Price Group headquarters.

This internship creates an “opportunity for students to gain real-world, international work experience with a retail leader in South Africa,” says Heather Sprandel, who directs the career center. “Only two students are selected each summer to participate, and these two lucky students join the less than 1 percent of college students who have international work experience upon graduation.”

Also, in February 2013, Matt Waller, chair of the supply chain management department, and Mobley traveled to the Mr Price Group headquarters in Durban for a week to work with the executive team to create custom executive education for them. The two were able to tour stores and experience a first-hand view of operations. They are now modifying the custom curricula for Mr Price Group based on those observations.

“This internship experience offers graduate students and faculty opportunities to see how companies operate in other countries and exchange ideas,” Mobley said. “And those companies get to come here as well.”