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The accumulation of industrial practical experience has always been the source of the development of academic theories. In recent years, with the support and promotion by Ministry of Education, Technological and Vocational Education spares no effort in creating partnership with industries, offers more access to higher education, making the whole education system more complete and thus, building up a firm foundation for the future successful development of domestic industries.
In order to respond to the education reform promoted by the government, and to develop competent employees for the industries, the Department of Marketing and Distribution Management of NKFUST, the only department offering distribution-related courses in Taiwan, leads five junior colleges(National Taipei College of Business, Jin-Wen Institute of Technology, Van Nung Institute of Technology, Chin-Yi Institute of Technology, Fortune Institute of Technology) to initiate the partnerships with domestic franchised chain enterprises, creating “win-win”, mutual benefits for each other. On the one hand, industries provide students with intern opportunities and assist schools in designing practicum courses, and on the other hand, schools would modify former courses to fully implement the practicum course. Campus practicum will turn into after-school practicum in industries, extending the old, a few-hours student training projects into the on-job training that lasts for a whole semester. We consider the European Sandwich Teaching to be a great model for us to learn from their experience.

Even though there are various types of industries, distribution operation management approximately includes marketing management, stores management, commercial automation, logistics management, accounts management, purchasing management, warehouse management, retailing management… and so on. Indeed, the related theories and techniques of these operations can be found in distribution-related textbooks and literatures for pedagogic use, however, the quintessence of practical know-how and business process could hardly be gained without the guidance of the seniors in industries. Put differently, distribution management of the chain stores requires both practice and theory. Solely depending on knowledge from textbook does not guarantee students hands-on experience.
In the past, Taiwan society used to be diploma-oriented. Generally, teachers lack practical experiences in the course of studies. Once they graduate and start lecturing in schools, they could simply instruct students in theories and barely talk about practical tips in management. What’s more, marketing management is merely a sub-course of business management in higher business school. Regardless of abilities in practice, talents specialized in academic field of marketing management are limited, let alone distribution management scholars.
Most business school graduates at most take courses in Introductions to Marketing Management, having only basic concepts of distribution management. They lack practical training and do not have a solid grounding of professional knowledge. Needless to say, they would not be competent enough for industries. The application of both theory and practice is essential in the management of distribution operation; none of them is dispensable. Comparatively, there are limited talents; as a result, human resource management of franchised enterprises would undoubtedly face great difficulties. And this kind of education is actually a dual waste. On the one hand, schools engage in idle theorizing and fail to develop competent graduates for industries, which is truly a great waste of education resources; on the other hand, industries need to spend extra cost, time and resources to train graduates, making them competent employees.

In order to stop education resources from wasting, with the assistance of Taiwan Chain-stores and Franchise Association (which has about 150 member companies and over 8000 member stores), schools participating this project will have thorough discussion with domestic franchised chain enterprises. Through the discussion, we hope to adopt the Sandwich Teaching, which has been practiced for a long time in Europe. After all, companies and enterprises pay taxes and what they expect from the government education system is competent employees to work for them. Excellent employees can raise the capacity, increase the revenue, add tax income up for the government, beef up the competitiveness of the country and thus, create welfare for all people. This is the so-called “win-win-win” situation.
    In fact, “win-win-win” efficacy is not hard to achieve. The point is, how to create channels of partnership and communication with industries in accordance with policies of education reform made by the government. The communication between academia and industries has multiple significances:
1. Whether students could get the intern opportunities to work in industries. By this practicum, students can prove theories they’ve learned in class. In this way, students are competent enough for industries when they graduate; the whole re-training process is not needed.
2. Whether another “high way” can be built in existing technological and vocational education. By the realization of this goal, all levels of employees from industries can go back to school to study, according their own needs and interests.
3. Whether a system with mutual benefits can be designed to make industries willing to provide demonstration lecture for teachers. In this way, the flaw that teachers in higher education master only theories can be remedied; as result, students can combine theory and practice, instead of engaging in idle theorizing.
The Sandwich Teaching Practicum Plan we are designing carries out the first proposition listed above.
d staff is focused on marketing and distribution related areas. Academic research includes marketing concept, new-product marketing strategies, management of new-product development, market segmentation, organization learning theories of marketing and R&D, interactive media strategies, e-marketing strategies, intelligent distribution systems, and the application of fuzzy math to distribution.
Practical research includes survey of business-sphere dynamics, planning of distribution systems, planning of marketing strategies, research of media combination, market testing, installation of marketing information systems, installation of R&D information systems, planning of new-product development, setting product specifications and consumer research.