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

The aims of the course are to:

● investigate and structure a complex strategic management challenge that a company faces in its

          international market environment,

● conduct an in-depth analysis of the current status,

● provide alternative strategic solutions that are viable under the given organizational and financial

          constraints,

● propose a decision for the most promising solution, and

● support this decision with key arguments based on theoretical considerations and empirical findings.

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.

In a first kick-off session with supervising faculty, the challenges and milestones of the real-life international strategy and/or management case are outlined. At the same time, students are familiarized with the guiding principles of project work, with the project plan and rules in handling supervising faculty/corporate partner interaction.

After familiarizing the students with the international strategy and/or management challenge, contact with the corporate partner is established. In a plenary session, the corporate partner outlines the business challenge from their perspective and provides useful input into the business, the market situation, and the specific challenge to be dealt with.

Subsequently, groups of students work on their assigned real-life international strategy and/or management case the firm is currently facing. Groups collect relevant data through secondary and primary (qualitative and/or quantitative) market research. Based on these analyses, recommendations for the specific international strategy and/or management challenges are prepared and substantiated through theory and market research results.

Throughout the process, various feedback loops (in coaching sessions with the individual faculty supervising group work, in plenary sessions with all groups/academic supervisors (mid-term presentation), or in coaching and feedback sessions with the corporate partner) are installed to make sure that students are on the right track and get the input needed in each project phase.

Results are presented to the corporate partner at the end of this process. The verbal and printed presentations will be assessed. Students will have to actively participate in class, hold group presentations and summarize their findings in a final report.

It is the express policy of the class that no late assignments will be accepted under any circumstances. As this course format heavily relies on personal interaction between students, corporate partner, and faculty, presence in sessions is mandatory.

Participation

Students are expected to actively participate in discussions with company representatives and also provide feedbacks to peers.

Group Presentations

Each student group holds a mid-term and an end-term presentation during the course. Assignment to groups and sessions will be done in the corporate kick-off meeting.

Final Report

Each student group is expected to hand in a written report.

Group level (70%)

Mid-term presentation (20%)
For the mid-term presentation, student groups need to prepare a ppt-file to be presented within 30 minutes that summarizes their first findings concisely and to the point.

End-term company presentation (30%)
For the oral presentation, student groups need to prepare a ppt-file to be presented within 45 minutes that summarizes their findings and recommendations concisely and to the point.

Final report (20%)
The final report includes a documentation of the final recommendations and the methodology applied (overview of data collection process, which primary and secondary data sources were used, etc.).

Individual level (30%)

Peer review (10%)
On an individual basis, group members are asked to evaluate the contribution of fellow group members to the work process throughout the project (in terms of contributing to the content but also to workflow issues).

Participation (20%)
To assess individual course participation, we use the following indicative marking scheme