On January 25, the final presentations of the Master Seminar “Interdisciplinary Business Project” of JKU’s Master Program “Management” took place. The seminar is a cooperation of the Institute of Retailing, Sales and Marketing, the Institute of Strategic Management, and the Institute for International Management. For the first time, four cooperation partners participated: voestalpine Steel Division, Fronius International, KAPSCH TrafficCom AG and KEBA AG. The students successfully presented their solutions of practical marketing and strategy problems in B2B markets.

Quotes about the Seminar:

Mr. Mag. Wolfgang Mitterdorfer, Member of the management board of voestalpine Steel Division: “…it was a very good seminar. Looking forward to next time…”

Mr. Harald Scherleitner Prok., MBA, Global Director of Fronius Business Unit Perfect Welding: “We started today in the morning with the opening words of Mr. Mitterdorfer and Dr. Werani kicked-off with the words “Moment of truth”. The moment of truth for the students, for the supervisors of the different companies, for the university team and all listeners. […] The Avengers’ lessons says that one team is better than one person is. It is universally different from more people versus one person. A group of more can probably achieve more than one person alone, but it’s when those more people work together as a team, this is when the magic happens. [...]
The hard part is making those individuals put their egos aside, trust each other, and act as a team. Captain America and Iron Man have a pretty different view of the world as Black Widow or the other characteristics, and compromise doesn’t come easy. However, they respect and trust one another despite their disagreements, and they can see the value the other bring to the table.  […]
This event is finished, of course, but it doesn't really stop here – now we have to deal with the proposals/recommendations we heard. The implementation in our business activities has to be the next step.
Ending my closing word with replacing one word from Dr. Werani’s opening words. You said “Moment of Truth”. I would like to replace “truth” by “power”. You all achieved right now the “Moment of Power”!

Topics covered in the seminar:

Three student groups dealt with the general topic “The impact of Covid-19 on industrial markets” for all companies. Thereby, the groups analyzed in depth the subtopics of inter-organizational collaboration (social distancing), resilience in the supply chain, and new work and developed scenarios for the companies.

Another student group developed a concept of “Human innovation in a B2B context” for Fronius International. The Kapsch student team presented results on “Corporate-academia collaboration as the sustainable path to cutting-edge innovation.” A third student group dealt with “The effects of Covid-19 on industrial trade fairs and possible alternatives” for voestalpine. And last but not least the Keba student team gave a detailed overview of the emerging market of “Mobile Service Robots