In E&I Business Project, participants take on the role of junior consultants and will be provided with the opportunity to conduct a real-life consulting project with a well known, multi-national operating company - Mayr-Melnhof Karton AG, a manufacturer in the paper and packaging industry, based in Vienna. 

Besides sound theoretical inputs on the methodological approach by the E&I faculty, a clear project goal and a straight-forward project strucuture, participants will be supported by external coaches (e.g. Deloitte, Accenture) that provide insights on presentation skills, group facilitation, and consulting insights. In turn, participants will be asked to commit themselves to the project, devote a reasonable amount of their time to it and to work on the project self-responsibly.

After completing this course students will...

• have the ability to apply systematic methods and tools
• be able to efficiently find and evaluate commercialization strategies
• know how to transfer technology to alternative application field

In addition, students will...

• have learned how to manage innovation projects
• know how to handle external stakeholders (e.g., the project partner)
• be able to structure and present complex matters
• be able to manage difficult decision processes and discussion within project teams
• improve their self-organization competence and time-management skills
• deal with high-tech topics

Attendance: In order to successfully pass this course, your absence is limited to 20% of our appointments.

Oct. 10th: Planned field trip to factory

Please note that the full-time presence at the kick-off days (Oct. 4 + 5), the mid-term presentation (Dec. 5), the final presentation (Jan. 23) and the E&I Touchdown (Jan. 18) is obligatory!

The final grade of the course will depend on

• participation at the internal kick-off meeting and during coaching sessions (15%)
• the mid-term and the final presentation (20%)
• quality of the 4 written reports (status updates) (40%)
• final business proposal (20%)
• executive summary, touchdown presentation (5%)
• peer-ratings can influence the final grade

 In order to pass the class, all of these performance indicators have to be positive!

Dr. Kathrin Reinsberger:

• Email: kathrin.reinsberger@wu.ac.at
• Phone: +43-1-31336-5582

Last-minute changes to appointments should be expected, due to the fact that students will work on a real-life project with an external partner. Reliability, flexibility, and tolerance for ambiguity are of utmost importance!