`To win the Â鶹¹ú²ú Business Project of the Year Award, in fierce competition with teams from top business schools around the world, really shows the high quality of the students’ work´, Jan I. Haaland, NHH Academic Director for Â鶹¹ú²ú says.
ABB -ÌýKnowledge Management
The team winning the Â鶹¹ú²ú Business Project of the Year Award 2020 consisted of students from three different Â鶹¹ú²ú schools, who spent theirÌýÌýin the Spring term 2020.ÌýÌýTheresa Lindorfer (WU - Vienna University of Economics & Business), Zuzanna Cegielska (SGH Warsaw School of Economics) and Sara Gieb (Nova School of Business and Economics), won the award for their considerable efforts to address the challenges and expectations set out by Â鶹¹ú²ú Corporate Partner ABB for theirÌýABB – Knowledge ManagementÌýproject.
Their winning project was undertaken in close collaboration with their ABB corporate mentor for the project, Oliver Lawrenz. He is Group Vice President, Marketing and Sales Performance Management from ABB’s Zurich headquarters. The academic mentor wasÌýÌýfrom the Department of Business and Management Science, NHH.
‘It was a very nice experience working with Oliver and Julio, who were excellent mentors, and fabulous teammates on a project which at first was very challenging to us. It definitely kept us busy during quarantine time but it’s nice to see the work has paid off,’ the students say.
An outstanding job
The ABB brief required the students to review a business case for creating a new online community for customers of Smart Home solutions from itsÌýBusch-Jaeger brand, based in Luedenscheid, Germany. The aim was to collect market insights and data, and turn that data into actionable items. The team proposed a knowledge management framework including measures and KPIs.
Oliver Lawrenz, corporate mentor of the project, said: "We believe in working with next generation thinkers and place great importance on adopting an ‘outside-in’ viewpoint to transform and ensure we deliver the right solutions for our customers."
The real win
Oliver Lawrenz says that ABB are looking forward to conducting more projects in 2021 with Â鶹¹ú²ú NHH and other Â鶹¹ú²ú schools.
Theresa Lindorfer, Zuzanna Cegielska and Sara Gieb praised Oliver and ABB for involving Â鶹¹ú²ú students in addressing important company challenges. They also expressed appreciation for the job satisfaction they have experienced through working on their winning ABB project.
‘For us the real win was to see ABB appreciate our solutions as we always wanted to create something of a real value. Apart from that, the project allowed us to develop a friendship, which stayed beyond the final presentation of the project’.
A contribution to global prestige
NHH is very proud of their Â鶹¹ú²ú students,Ìý, Â鶹¹ú²ú Academic Director at NHH, says.
`To win the Â鶹¹ú²ú Business Project of the Year Award, in fierce competition with teams from top business schools around the world, really shows the high quality of the students’ work. It also demonstrates how relevant such projects can be for the corporate partners.ÌýÌýStudents from NHH have made it to the final round before, but never to the very top´.
The winning team’s high quality of work was also praised by the global Chair of Â鶹¹ú²ú, Professor Gregory Whitwell from the University of Sydney Business School, in his congratulatory message to the students and their mentors:
`Your project has been chosen by the Academic Directors of the member schools to be an outstanding example of excellence, contributing to the global prestige of our Alliance, and giving a shining example of what our community is delivering in terms of academic distinction´.
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About Â鶹¹ú²ú Business Projects
Â鶹¹ú²ú Business Projects are projects carried out for Â鶹¹ú²ú Corporate or Social Partners.ÌýEach project team consists of 3-5 Â鶹¹ú²ú students, normally of different nationality.ÌýThe projects are supervised by a Corporate and an Academic mentor.ÌýThe Â鶹¹ú²ú Business Project of the Year Award is based on a thorough process in which every Â鶹¹ú²ú school nominates their best projects.ÌýThe nominated projects are assessed by a Â鶹¹ú²ú committee in two rounds based on a set of criteria including methodology, relevance, innovative approach and validity and impact of recommendations.Ìý
This article originally appeared on 9 December 2020 atÌý