Course description

The business project reinforces the CEMS partnership between universities and companies in jointly shaping international management education in Europe. The Business project is designed as a real life learning experience for students. It provides students with a unique opportunity to gain insights into corporate practice of a global player. International students teams solve a real business, strategy and/or management problem as a one-term activity tutored by university faculty and the company.

The wine estate "SKOFF ORIGINAL - Walter Skoff" has been in the hands of the Skoff-family for more than five generations, but especially the current owner Walter Skoff has been growing the winery from little property to one of the biggest estates of Austria with a total production of 600,000 bottles of wine a year. The wines are exported around the world and are enjoyed in some royal families around Europe as well as in three Michelin star restaurants in Tokyo. Although the wines have just recently been introduced in the Chinese Market, the wine estate was already visited by a Chinese TV station to make documentary about the high premium wines of Styria (the second largest of the nine Austrian federated stated located in the Southeast of Austria). Furthermore, the wines are awarded with a large number of international awards (up to 40) every year.

In order to better fulfil the specific demands of different distribution channels and to ensure further growth, the estate launched a second line called "SKOFF ORIGINAL" last year - therefore the lines "Walter Skoff" as well as "SKOFF ORIGINAL" are available in the market. As a result of limited growth potential in Styria - it is a small wine region - and very high demand for premium wines, the wine estate has most recently introduced a new product line called "INTERROIR" in 2011. This registered brand name consists of the word INTERNATIONAL and the wine specific term "TERROIR" - that expresses the influence of climate, geology and topography on the wine - and stands for wines that are produced outside of Styria (in many different wine regions). Therefore, INTERROIR is not just a new brand of the wine estate, but most notable a novel concept of producing, positioning and selling wine. In order to differenciate the brand, it was designed in Asia.

The challenge that the family is currently facing is to find a clear positioning for Walter Skoff and SKOFF ORIGINAL versus INTERROIR and work out how to develop synergies in terms of marketing and sales between the brands and avoid cannibalization. Furthermore, it has to be defined which products should be produced by INTERROIR and especially where the production plants should be located.

Knowledge and Understanding:

After completing this course students will have

- gained insights into the challenges a global company is facing in an international market environment and how it deals with such issues.

- learned how to analyze and structure real-life strategy and/or management situations in a global context.

- combined and applied several theoretical concepts to the international strategy and/or management challenge.

-received feedback from practicioners on the outcome of their analysis and the viability of their recommendations.

Cognitive & Subject Specific Skills:

On completion of the course, students will have the ability to

-apply tools for analyzing strategy and/or management challenges in the global environment,

-select and utilize suitable theoretical concepts to which they have been exposed during their studies to real-life business situations,

-develop critical thinking and defend their developed arguments in class and in front of practitioners.

- As this course is cross-sectional and depends on the respective corporate partner´s managerial challenge, subject-specific skills need to be developed individually for each term.

Key Skills:

Students on completion of the course will have the ability to

-structure complex international strategy and/or mangement topics.

-conduct research on real-time international strategy and/or management challenges independently.

-gather and filter information efficiently on a specific research topic.

-organize teamwork including presentation and report writing skills.

-shift material quickly and efficiently, to structure it into a coherent argument and to present it in a concise way tailored to a professional audience.

-present and "sell" this business project to the customer in a professional way, through personal presentation skills and support of suitable media.

-utilize the theoretical knowledge and the interpersonal skills developed throughout their studies to solve a real-life business challenge.

This business project uses a combination of discussions with company representatives, feedback sessions, presentations, group coaching and feedback, as well as individual/group work outside the classroom. Groups of students will be formed in the kick-off session.

AIMS

The aims of the course are:

-to investigate and structure a complex strategic management challenge that an international company faces in its market environment,

-to provide an in-depth ananlysis of the current status,

- to provide alternative strategic solutions that are viable under the given organizational and financial constraints,

-to come up with a decision for the most promising solution, and

-to support this decision with key arguments based on theoretical considerations and empirical findings

Assessment

Assessment is based on the quality of the mid- and end-term presentation, the participation during the classes, group members` peer rating, and the final report.

Students will be assessed on:

-Their ability to understand and analyze international strategy and/or mamagement challenges.

-Their ability to use the appropriate analytical techniques and to come up with relevant market research information.

-The quality of the presentations, the written reports and the examination questions; by quality in this context we mean the clarity and persuasiveness of each bit of work. This implies an ability to work in teams.

-Students failing to participate in their teams will lose the marks for that piece of work.

WU will retain a copy of all coursework for Teaching Quality Assessment as part of the ongoing quality assessment programme. It is important, therefore, that students make a second copy for their own purposes.

Plagiarism and Cheating

The University´s general guidance for students on plagiarism and cheating can be found at http://www.wu.ac.at./cems/program

Course Admission

Only CEMS MIM students are eligible to take this course. 10 students make a course viable at MSc level unless special circumstances prevail. If fewer than 10 students register, the course will not run.

Professor Björn Ambos, PhD, Dr.rer.pol., Dipl.Kfm.

Björn Ambos is professor at the Institute for International Businessw at the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration. He also acts as the school´s academic director of its CEMS Master in International Management. Professor Ambos previously held positions at the University of Edingurgh, the University of Hamburg and WU, as well as several visiting teaching positions in Europe and Asia. He also gained industry experience as a product manager for a German tour-operator in Vietnam, Italy, Paris and New York and consulted or participated in corporate trainings for firms like EADS, Ford, France Telecom, Hutchison 3G, Puma, SAP, Siemens and Villory & Boch. Professor Ambos` research intersts revolve around marketing, strategy and innovation in the mulinational firm. He serves on the Editorial Board of the Strategic Management Journal and was recently appointed to the Board of the European International Business Academy. His research has been published in journals such as Strategic Management Journal, Journal of World Business, Management International Review, and Research Policy.

UZA 1, Kern B, 3rd floor, Augasse 2-6

Tel: 31336 51 21

E-mail: björn.ambos@wu.ac.at

Anne K. Hoenen, M.Sc.

Anne Hoenen holds a Master of Science degree from the Copenhagen Business School, Denmark. She majored in the fields of International Management and Global Strategy. She has been a Research and Teaching Associate with IIB since 2010. Anne gained practical experience, especially in marketing and business development, through her three years with Deutsche Lufthansa AG and her two-year employment at Carlsberg A/S working at the German subsidiary as well as headquaters in Copenhagen, Denmark. Her main research focus lies in the problems arising in headquarters-subsidiary relationships within a global network of dispersed units in the MNC as well as regional management and strategy. Anne is a participant in the Nord-IB PhD program, a member of the Strategic Management Society, as well as a member and reviewer for the European Academy of International Business.

Room 3.25.2, UZA 1, Kern B, 3rd floor, Augasse 2-6

Tel: 31336 51 24, E-mail: anne.hoenen@wu.ac.at

EMAIL ACCOUNTS AND LEARN@WU PLATFORM

All matriculated students automatically receive an e-mail account from the University. This is known as a student´s WU email account, and the email address is of the form: h1234567@wu.ac.at. Students can access their emails via a direct web interface, allowing access from most web browsers virtually anywhere on the internet.

The Institute and other University services such as the Library and CEMS office will use this email address (only) to contact you. You should therefore check this email account frequently and regularly. Should you wish to read your email on an account other than your WU email account, you should enable an email auto-forwarded from your WU account to this other address by following the advice on the IT Services (ZID) Web pages: http://www.wu.ac.at/zid

The Course Website can be found on the Learn@WU system, which you can access through the WU Student portal (https://learn.wu.ac.at/). You will be able to find a copy of this course outline, course handouts, announcements, etc. It is important that you regularly check the Learn@WU system in order to keep up to date with the course. Course instructors and secretaries will use the system Learn@WU Mail function to send out important announcements to the whole class. It is vitally important that you check your WU mailbox regularly or set it up so that it forwards messages automatically to your regular e-mail account.

PLEASE NOTE: The syllabus and all information related to this project are SUBJECT TO CHANGE!