Business Project 2MO500 – Final presentations of our students

One of the main goals of the Department of International Business is teaching students to connect theory and practice. Therefore, as every year, students of the course Business Project (2MO500), which is a part of the minor specialization International Finance and Business, had a chance to work on projects assigned by our corporate partners:

Carl Zeiss, supervisor: doc. Ing. Alexej Sato, CSc.

In January 2019, the first team of students (Milan Kalců, Kristýna Hrnčárková, Přemysl Papp) successfully completed their semester project in cooperation with the company Carl Zeiss. The goal of the project was to map sales opportunities of the company in the sports optics segment in the Slovak republic. The team presented their results during a joint meeting and discussion with the company’s managers. The representatives of the company raised a number of questions and appreciated how professionally the students were able to react thanks to their thorough analysis of the issue. At the end of the presentation, the students proposed several concrete ways to improve product sales not only through new marketing activities but also by improving the not very efficient distribution network in Slovakia. Carl Zeiss representatives appreciated the results of the team work as they corresponded with their own perceptions of the market development based on empirical data that the company will use as part of the forthcoming market strategy changes in the coming months.

Martina Bakery (Hukvaldské mrkvánky), supervisor: Ing. Markéta Lhotáková, Ph.D.

The second team that consisted of two students cooperated with the family bakery Martina from the Moravian-Silesian Region. The objective of the project was to prepare marketing strategy for launching of the product “Hukvaldské mrkvánky” in retail chains in the Czech Republic with a specific focus on Kaufland. As there is highly competitive environment on the Czech baker market (there are approximately 650 bakeries on the Czech market), this was not an easy task. The team had to conduct a very deep market survey including their own qualitative and quantitative research, understand how the relation producer/retailer works and what tools and strategies could work for a relatively minor and specific product from a local producer to achieve listing and increasing sales in Kaufland. Throughout the project, students cooperated very closely with the company representative, who gave them many valuable insights and came to evaluate their final presentation.