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 an internationalizing firm. International student teams solve a real business, strategy and/or management problem. The project is designed as a one-term activity tutored Prof. Dr. Phillip Nell who has gained practical experience in a wide range of industries including consulting with Roland Berger Strategy Consultants.

Dr. OWL Nutri Health is a highly innovative Viennese start-up firm engaged in the field of life sciences: “We are frontrunners in providing science based nutritional solutions that protect our customers’ health in a modern and fast moving world”.

The firm is in the process of launching its product in Q2, 2015 in Austria. It tries to rapidly expand to other European country markets. The founding team has ample experience in the consulting industry as well as in FMCG.

Be part of itand consult them in taking the right strategic decisions for long-term success!

The project will be structured into several modules to which the students will be allocated to. The modules cover topics such as (international) market expansion, distribution strategies, marketing research and concept creation. It essence, the project covers many aspects that a young startup firm is facing. The task of the student teams is to provide hands-on management consulting support with implementable solutions.

The aims of the course are therefore to

•    investigate and structure a complex strategic management challenge that an internationalizing company faces in its market environment,

•    provide an in-depth analysis of the current status

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

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

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

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 practitioners 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 management Topics,
• conduct research on real-time international strategy and/or Management challenges independently,
• gather and filter information efficiently and effectively 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.

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 are required to work on their assigned real-life international strategy and/or management case the international firm is currently facing. Groups will need to 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 need to be 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 relevant 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, the corporate partner and faculty, presence in sessions is mandatory. More than 2 times absence during the sessions announced at the beginning of the seminar will lead to exclusion from the seminar.

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. Both presentations need to be sent to both instructors one day before the session. 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 at the day of the end-term presentation.

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.

Group assessment:

•    Mid-term Presentation (PowerPoint Document): 20%

•    Mid-term Presentation (oral Presentation): 10%

•    End-term Presentation (PowerPoint Document): 30%

•    End-term Presentation to Corporate Partner: 20%

Individual:

•    Peer rating: 20%

Students will be assessed on

•    their ability to understand and analyze international strategy and/or

•    management 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.

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.