52nd Issue
Innovation Management
Innovation at Volvo Importance of Soft Skills SNCF Intrapreneurship camp European Students of Industrial Engineering and Management Issue 52 2017/1 | ISSN 0874-5242 | Price 0 Euro | www.estiem.org
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INTRODUCTION
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION 4 5 6
Project Leader’s Speech President’s Speech Introducing ESTIEM
FOCUS TOPIC 10 Innovation Managegement meets Innovation Sciences 13 Innovation at Volvo 15 Innovation at the Sea Channels City 16 Open Innovation 19 SNCF Intrapreneurship Camp 21 Interview with BLESH 24 Innovation in China
INSIDE ESTIEM 37 45 48 50 51 53 54 56 59 61 63
Board Update Club of 100 The Magic of Criticism The Future of External Relations European Master Thesis Award The ESTIEM Spirit Analysis Committee IEM Education Forum ESTIEMpreneurs Community Sustainable Business Days P/C/I Updates
SCENE EXPLORE 26 22 31
Ambitious Tracks Employability of IEM Graduates The Factory of 400 Smiles
CAREER 33 35
66 68
South Korea The IEM Aspect of a World Tour
ESTIEM, a First Step to your Career Importance of Soft Skills
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INTRODUCTION Project Leader Melis Dönmez Design Veronika Losonczy Mariana Branco Article Acquisition Staff Dominik Rampp Claudio Codispoti Rui Gonçalves Proofreaders Sebastian Hummel Alex Perez Diaz Alexandru Florescu Ege Birol Enrique Biosca San Miguel Evdoxia Pantazi Mark van Uden Olaf Klooster Lea Lemberg Danijel Pavlica Advertisement Acquisition Sander Kroep With special thanks to ESTIEM Alumni and Tiago Carvalho Contact leader.magazine@estiem.org ESTIEM Permanent Office Paviljoen B-6 P.O.Box 513 5600 MB Eindhoven The Netherlands Fax: 0031-(0)40 2473871 info@estiem.org www.estiem.org Disclaimer The contents may not always reflect the opinion of the publisher. Any reproduction or copy is permitted only with the permission of the editors.
Project Leader’s Speech Dear Reader, With the continuous developments happening in the industry, creativity became a requirement for leadership in the 21st century. By increasing focus on creativity, a new term came into our lives; Innovation. As defined by Gijs van Wulfen, innovation is a feasible, relevant offering such as a product, service, process or experience with a viable business model that is perceived as new and is adopted by customers. Innovation Management is a business discipline that aims to drive a sustainable innovation process or culture within an organisation of which initiatives utilise a disruptive method of change to transform businesses. Every business must innovate in order to compete in the industry. They need to come up with new ideas that will change the market, they need to produce new products, new services and new solutions. Today it is not hard to realise that there is a rapid change in everything we see—in industries, businesses, even job titles. To keep up with all those changes, we need to understand the language of innovation. Therefore, I would like to introduce to you the Focus Topic of the 52nd issue of the ESTIEM Magazine: Innovation Management. In this issue, regarding the Focus Topic, you will have a chance to read more about innovation sciences. You will be informed about open innovation and find out how innovation happens in China. In addition, you will have a chance to read about an innovative startup: Blesh. Furthermore, inside the Scene section, you can read about current trends in Industrial Engineering and Management (IEM), such as the employability of IEM students, sustainable developments in Cambodia, and startups and innovators around the world. If you take a look inside the Career section, you will be able to read about the experiences of an ESTIEMer, find some tips and tricks on how to use ESTIEM as a first step to your career, as well as learn about the importance of soft skills for the new generation of leaders.
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Apart from those, you will also get insights in the recent achievements and developments of ESTIEM. You will read about the newest committee of ESTIEM—the Analysis Committee; a big source of support that comes from our Alumni—the Club of 100; an outcome of a collaboration with ESTIEM Alumni—Leadership Alumni Training Event; the latest editions of the European Master Thesis Award and IEM Education Forum; and much more. Last but not least, you will have a chance to discover South Korea from the eyes of an experienced member, and read curious things about the IEM side of a world tour. The mixture of academical and leisure-oriented articles was prepared in order to inspire and inform all of our readers about Innovation Management and the current happenings in the IEM field and ESTIEM. As Darryl McDaniels said, when it comes to business, art, education even; innovation is key for growth and success. As you turn the pages of the 52nd issue of the ESTIEM Magazine, you will get more ready to catch up to the speed of the industry and to implement new ideas and processes to it. Enjoy reading!
In high ESTIEM,
Melis Dönmez ESTIEM Magazine Project Leader2016/17
INTRODUCTION
President’s Speech Dear Reader, The focus topic of this, the ESTIEM Magazine’s 52nd issue, is Innovation management. In order to manage innovation, managers and engineers must have a common set of tools, which enable them to understand the related processes and goals. With this topic we wish to bring these tools and processes closer to our readers. The ESTIEM Magazine has always been among the first to innovate within ESTIEM, be it with new focus topics, which no one has thought of before, or with the processes necessary to deliver its bi-annual goal. This kind of progress creates value to not only the ESTIEM Magazine or ESTIEM network, but to anyone who is reached by the magazine, and can be considered the purest form of positive innovation. ESTIEM is a unique network from an innovation management perspective, because innovation management requires two different kinds of people—managers and engineers, both of whom need to cooperate in order to achieve the highest levels of effectiveness in their work. Luckily, these are also the people most students in the ESTIEM network are striving to become—managers and engineers. IEM students are the bridge that enables innovation and ESTIEM is the network wherein they can get that first hand experience without the fear of failure. That’s why we call our network a playground, where IEM students can develop themselves. This academic year has been a very fruitful one in terms of innovation. Together, ESTIEMers have delved into processes and organisation charts once again, in order to increase the efficiency of the network so more students could benefit from what ESTIEM has to offer.
A lot of hours have been spent on discussing and troubleshooting the new ideas which have come up, because ESTIEM is not only about finding new solutions, but also making sure they are the best possible solutions. With this said, I hereby invite you to keep reading this issue of the ESTIEM Magazine and discover the content it holds,
In high ESTIEM,
Taavi Valgerist 27th President of ESTIEM
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INTRODUCTION
All over Europe... Back in 1990, students from five different countries founded an organisation, which they named ESTIEM: European Students of Industrial Engineering and Management. After 24 years, it has grown into an organisation bringing together over 60 000 students from 79 universities in 31 European countries, and it is still growing. All these universities offer courses in IEM. Based on this structure, ESTIEM forms links between students, academia and companies in order to create an Europe-wide, multi-level IEM network. ESTIEM has continuously increased the number of its activities, thus being able to offer a great variety of events to IEM students and an opportunity to experience different cultures, take part in international projects and become friends with other ESTIEMers from all over Europe. Naturally, the backbone of ESTIEM is the European IEM student. The students involved in ESTIEM incorporate both the skills required for modern business and an open-minded approach towards other people and cultural issues.
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80
180+
Local Groups in 31 countries make ESTIEM a large network
events are organised by Local Groups every year.
ESTIEM Magazine
The decision-making body of ESTIEM is the Council, which meets twice a year, in autumn and in spring. Each university, represented by its so-called “Local Group�, sends two student representatives. The six members of the Board of ESTIEM are elected during the spring Council Meeting. The Board is responsible for the management, coordination and administration of the association. Besides taking leadership positions in the Board and as Project or Committee Leaders, ESTIEM members can also take up responsibilities by working in one of the Projects, Committees or Initiatives. With lots of teams and tasks to choose from, there is a place for everyone. For more detailed information about our organisation and its activities, please visit our website at www. estiem.org.
3.000
travels are made yearly by 2.000 students.
8.000
members and a reach of 60.000 towards IEM students in Europe.
INTRODUCTION
... Students involve themselves in various international Projects...
ESTIEM is also a playground for great ideas developed by highly motivated students. If a student manages to convince ESTIEM’s Council of his idea, he can start his own international project. Currently, there are 10 projects running. The Tournament In Management and Engineering Skills (TIMES) is the largest panEuropean case study competition for the students of Industrial Engineering and Management. This prestigious, highly acclaimed event is the flagship project of ESTIEM. It has successfully been organised since 1994 and attracts around 1000 top European students every year. After Local Qualifications in 75 different universities and 8 Semi-Finals in selected cities, the winning team of the Final is awarded the title of Europe’s “IEM Students of the Year”. The Vision Seminar Series aim to educate students by offering an overview of a specific industrial topic through a limited number of events. The events constitute a series and are concentrated around a topic, each event being directed on a different area of it. Therefore, the Project is destined towards a specific target group (students interested in the topic) and manages to explore the yearly subject through multiple dimensions—engineering, economics, sustainability and business. The goal of Academic Days is to share ESTIEM universities’ knowledge with the network. It supports the personal and professional development of students across Europe willing to complete their curriculum. In order to achieve this, each event provides participants deep insights into a specific topic in which the organising Local Group’s university has a high expertise. The Academic Team is the Educational department of ESTIEM that has been established by the merge of the Education Initiative and the Academic Days Project. The department gathers activities that are striving for the common goal of Supporting the Educational Formation of IEM Students. Europe3D is a five-to-seven day long seminar series, where participants get deep insights in the hosting country on three unique dimensions; politics, economy and culture. An environment with a blend of different backgrounds and customs helps the participants get a better understanding of the basic local parameters existing in European countries.
Lectures given by experts from these three fields, combined with a training about intercultural awareness, as well as various institutional visits, provide theoretical insight for the participants. Through the Summer Academy, ESTIEM recognises the importance of and takes responsibility for providing knowledge of ethics and sound leadership among the future leaders of Europe. It was set up to bring international students together during summer holidays to engage in open discussions, group work, debate and private study under a senior Academic Leader. The official publication of ESTIEM provides the perfect platform to reach a target group of approximately 60 000 students of Industrial Engineering and Management at universities all over Europe. The ESTIEM Magazine is published twice a year and distributed among IEM students, graduates and also professors and companies across Europe, through the ESTIEM network. businessbooster aims at creating an environment where all needed information, experience and support to excel in your future professional endeavours can be found. The goal of this unique environment is to boost entrepreneurial spirit and engage ESTIEMers, Alumni and companies to collaborate with each other. BrainTrainer is designed to develop leadership, presentation, business and social skills of participants through professional trainings lasting one or two days. Its aim is to coach and develop the participants to become more professional and successful in their organisation as well as in their own future career. The ESTIEM Language Programme aims to raise awareness of the importance of multilingual communication between IEM students and to encourage language learning within the ESTIEM framework. Through various language activities and intensive language courses it focuses on achieving and following its vision – to foster understanding.
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INTRODUCTION
...and Europe-wide Committee Work
The committees support the Board in maintaining and developing the organisation ESTIEM further. Students from all over Europe engage themselves in various topics in one of our 10 committees. The Analysis Committee supports ESTIEM to make the decision-making more fact-based in order to help the organisation move forward, by providing insights through data collection and creation. Its main tasks include creating dashboards and conducting analyses to track performance of ESTIEM activities, Local Groups and the network as a whole. The Analysis Committee also supports and trains ESTIEM members in their analytical and IT management skills by supporting the use of online courses and one-on-one help from ESTIEM Alumni members. The Corporate Relations Committee coordinates the relations between ESTIEM, companies and universities jointly with the Board. The Committee’s work covers a number of fields with the aim of improving and simplifying ESTIEM’s relations with companies and universities, such as updating co-operation proposals, creating and gathering results for different surveys or training people on how to approach companies and universities. The Corporate Relations Committee also plays an active role in supervising and supporting Projects and other Committees with regards to sponsors and academic supporters. The Financial and Legal Committee’s role is to ensure ESTIEM’s compliance with all laws and regulations. It supports the Board, other Committees, Projects and Local Groups in all financial and legal matters. On one hand, it consists of experienced ESTIEMers and ESTIEM Alumni, who are motivated to provide advice whenever requested. On the other hand, active Committee members work on creating and updating Best Practice Documents, trainings, templates, etc. for all related topics, giving advice on event budgets and proactively giving legal advice. Since many people are unexperienced with finances and regulations, the Financial and Legal Committee aims at helping them to deal with them correctly. The Grants Committee supports ESTIEM in applying for European grants and aims to establish and develop knowledge on public funding opportunities and their application procedures. Moreover, the committee wants to spread the existing knowledge among ESTIEMers and motivate the Local Groups and their members to learn more about EU public funding. The Information Technology Committee maintains the e-mail, intranet and web servers of ESTIEM and coordinates all IT-related development in the organisation such as the IT back-end system (.NET framework & C#). To complement the knowledge of ESTIEMers about ICT and IT systems, it provides trainings in an open learning environment. In addition, ITC offers troubleshooting services and technical advice to all ESTIEMers. The Knowledge Management Committee supports ESTIEMers both on Local and Central level with the knowledge 8
ESTIEM Magazine
that comes from over 26 years of experience. KMC updates and creates Best Practice Documents (BPDs) by documenting the collective experiences of ESTIEMers, from an ESTIEMers’ starter pack to how to be a member on the Board. The Feedback System manages the quality of ESTIEM events by collecting feedback from the event’s participants in order to make Event Specific and Project Specific Reports, to show the development of ESTIEM’s projects and events. KMC always supports and assists Projects/Committees/Initiatives and Local Groups about knowledge management. All BPDs are available on the ESTIEM Wiki Pages and the ESTIEM Portal, while feedback reports are available on the ESTIEM Portal. The Members Committee supports the members of ESTIEM and supports students interested in joining ESTIEM by forming their own Local Group (LG). It guides them through the whole process, starting from establishing contact, via the Guest and Observer period, all the way until their fully pledged membership. It takes care of the LG Requirements, helps all LGs via the Regional Coordinators, and supports LGs and central ESTIEM in motivation and recruitment issues. It fosters connections between LGs, tries to figure out what they need locally and cooperates e.g. with the Trainers on Tour concept to fulfil the needs for training topics such as HR, PR, recruitment and fundraising. The aim of the Public Relations Committee is to take care of ESTIEM’s outer appearance. The Committee is responsible for communicating the brand of ESTIEM and increasing the awareness both inside and outside of ESTIEM. The PR Committee works with several different tools to achieve this, for instance designing PR material, creating design templates and guidelines, as well as working on press and social media visibility. Personal development is a part of ESTIEM’s vision, as are ESTIEM trainers a part of our network. By passing on knowledge, skills and attitude in their sessions, ESTIEM trainers support ESTIEMers on their path in ESTIEM and in life. “Developing future leaders of society” is the vision of ESTIEM. Becoming a future leader of society means to develop a mind-set of ethical behaviour towards people and planet. The Social and Environmental Responsibility Committee (SERC) aims to support the development of this mind-set of ESTIEMers by raising awareness and educating about social and environmental challenges, and by providing a platform for discussions, positive actions and new initiatives. The Trainers Committee provides our trainers and enthusiasts all the support needed for them to suitably give their trainings, additionally guiding them to greater advances themselves with feedback and personal support as well.
INTRODUCTION
Our Mission
ESTIEM’s Mission is to foster relations and mutual understanding among European Industrial Engineering and Management Students while supporting them in their personal and professional development.
Our Vision Developing the future leaders of society. We believe that it is our responsibility as young European IEM students to challenge the status quo and interact with one-another in order to grow and develop into future leaders that share the same European Values and tackle society’s problems.
Our 4 Core Values Embracing diversity
Striving for development
We see multiculturalism as a strength of ESTIEM. We benefit from our cultural diversity by being able to approach chances and challenges with different insights. Respect is not just something we strive for, but part of the very basis of our network
We grow together by trying hard and learning from mistakes, we are eager to go through a learning process and see accessibility and freedom as highest goals. ESTIEMers gain practical experience and important soft-skills needed in today’s world.
Encouraging participation
Aiming high
ESTIEM being a democratic organisation with a flat hierarchy encourages the participation of all its members. We inspire each other to partake in ESTIEM’s activities and develop new ideas.
We are not afraid of stepping out of our comfort zone. ESTIEM’s members are proactive students that always give 100%. We encourage an entrepreneurial spirit among students and other stakeholders by gathering and exchanging experiences and best practices.
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Innovation Management meets Innovation Sciences Benedikt Wirmer ESTIEM Alumni Local Group Eindhoven & Paderborn
Innovation Sciences are a fairly small niche in the academic world but offer interesting research; trying to understand the systemic processes behind innovation. This article aims at creating a bridge to Innovation Management and presents a practice-oriented approach to developing innovation strategies. Innovation Sciences in a nutshell The roots of Innovation Sciences go back to the Schumpeter model of economics. Following the idea of creative destruction, it puts innovation and technological progress at the centre of economic growth. Interestingly, this is largely ignored in many of the classic economic models. Innovation Sciences go a bit deeper and try to get a better understanding of the underlying processes of innovation and technological progress by looking at technical as well as social aspects. This makes it unique in the sense that many researchers in this field have a background in engineering or humanities rather than in classic economics. The backbone of Innovation Sciences research is the belief in so-called Evolutionary Economics. Applying Darwin’s principles of evolution to economy, economics is not seen as a system that oscillates around an optimal equilibrium but rather as a timeseries of connected events, or trajectories. This way of looking at economics embraces imperfections and irregularities much more implicitly than other economic models—species can go extinct, innovation trajectories can have flaws and dead-ends.1
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The technological trajectory of the computer keyboard The QWERTY keyboard was designed so that letters that are commonly used oneafter-another were put apart. This way, the type bars of a mechanical typewriter would not get stuck so easily. 150 years later we still use the same keyboard layout, even though the original restrictions do not apply anymore and better keyboard layouts such as Dvorak exist. Hence the question; why are we still using a clearly inferior technology? Introducing and learning a new keyboard layout is too cumbersome and therefore we are stuck on a technological trajectory that started 150 years ago. A large part of current research in Innovation Sciences revolves around the pressing issue of sustainability transitions. Concepts such as “Strategic Niche Management”2 try to find ways to break out of the technological trajectory of the fossil fuel regime. However, Innovation Sciences are not limited solely to sustainability transitions. Even though this may sound promising, there are two major issues that are probably the reasons why you
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never heard of Innovation Sciences before: 1) Innovation Sciences are currently still quite focused on analysing historical innovation processes rather than trying to influence and predict future ones. 2) Innovation Sciences are quite policy-oriented and theoretical in nature and there are little links to more practice-oriented fields like Innovation Management. In an attempt to overcome these issues, I will present a concept originating from Innovation Sciences in a simplified, more practice-oriented context. I hope it serves as a source of inspiration and maybe even finds its way into your organisation or research project. Innovation Management with the Functions Approach to Innovation Systems (FIS) Some researchers in Innovation Sciences tried to distil the main influencers of an innovation process by studying many innovation systems in great detail. The result is a set of seven innovation functions as described below. These functions can serve as a foundation of an innovation framework that involves the following three steps:
The seven Functions to Innovation Systems F1 Entrepreneurial activities This function captures the entrepreneurial activities in the innovation system. Depending on your usecontext, you need to gather information about startups, single entrepreneurs, companies investing into new business opportunities, radical new products on the market, etc. Besides assessing the extent of entrepreneurial activities, it is also important to investigate why certain actors do not perform entrepreneurial activities.
Identify and define the stakeholders and the system the innovation takes place in. Analyse the system with the help of the innovation functions and the corresponding guiding questions. Identify bottlenecks and opportunities to create an innovation strategy that aims at overcoming / leveraging those bottlenecks and opportunities. Get started with the Functions Approach An editable, more elaborate step-by-step manual of the functions approach is available on http://wirmr.net/innovation This broad, systemic perspective on innovation may be able to provide useful strategic insights, in particular in innovation settings where multiple stakeholders are involved, e.g. mergers and acquisitions, open innovation or cross-departmental innovation in larger organisations. Very generic in nature, it can be customised to a certain industry or innovation setting and incrementally improved and refined based on insights that emerge during its use.
F2 Knowledge development This function describes the R&D activities related to the technology in focus. Relevant information includes research done by universities, NGOs, joint projects, research departments of companies, etc. Besides assessing the extent of knowledge development activities, it is especially interesting to investigate where the focus of research activities diverges between stakeholders and learn more about the underlying reasons behind that.
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F3 Knowledge diffusion This function is about the different channels in which knowledge about the new technology can be spread within the innovation system. Information about networks, workshops, conferences, marketing channels, experiences with knowledge diffusion in the past, etc. is relevant for this function. Also information about elements that may help to diffuse knowledge in the future should be considered. Assessing the performance of this function requires a differentiated view. Bad knowledge diffusion may actually lead to a competitive advantage and therefore improve the performance of this function. F4 Guidance of the search This function focusses on the possible directions the innovation is developing towards. In contrast to information related to the knowledge development function, information related to this function should focus more on a long-term strategic level. This includes information about (perceived) trends, expectations and visions of stakeholders. For the analysis of this function it is especially interesting to investigate where these visions and expectations diverge and learn more about the underlying reasons behind that. F5 Market formation This function captures activities that already Further reading Wirmer, B., 2014, A functional approach to guide sustainable innovations in the sanitation chain: http://repository.tue.nl/778536 Bergek, A. et al., 2008. Analyzing the functional dynamics of technological innovation systems: A scheme of analysis. Research Policy, 11 February, 37(2008), pp. 407-429.
surpassed the entrepreneurial level, e.g. a business that started to become profitable. This includes information about preliminary orders, success cases, price, availability of a product on the market, business models, etc. F6 Resource mobilisation This function encompasses the availability of resources that are needed for the development and introduction of the technology in focus. Information about the following aspects is needed: ability and willingness of customers to pay, the availability and costs of skilled labour, education opportunities, funding, financial services and material. It may be useful to distinguish between resources needed for the development phase and the operational phase in the analysis. F7 Creation of legitimacy / counteract resistance to change This function describes acceptance issues around the technology in focus. Relevant information includes cultural aspects, decision making processes regarding laws and regulations, and conflicts of interest. If there are no experiences regarding this yet, related past experiences, e.g. reports of failed projects, may be a good source of information to anticipate future developments.
Bergek, A., Hekkert, M. & Jacobsson, S., 2008. Functions in innovation systems: A framework for analysing energy system dynamics and identifying goals for system-building activities by entrepreneurs and policy makers. In: T. Foxon, J. KĂśhler & C. Oughton, Hrsg. Innovation for a Low Carbon Economy: Economic, Institutional and Management Approaches. s.l.:Edward Elgar Publishing.
Hekkert, M., Negro, S., Heimeriks, G. & Harmsen, R., 2011. Technological Innovation System Analysis - A manual for analysts. Utrecht University - Faculty of Geosciences.
1) Frank W. Geels, Technological transitions as evolutionary reconfiguration processes: a multi-level perspective and a case-study, Research Policy, Volume 31, Issues 8–9, December 2002, Pages 1257-1274 2) Johan Schot & Frank W. Geels, Strategic niche management and sustainable innovation journeys: theory, findings, research agenda, and policy, Technology Analysis & Strategic Management, Volume 20, Issue 5, October 2008, Pages 537-554
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Innovation at Volvo: Perspectives and Challenges from a 90-year-old Sofia Ohnell ESTIEM Alumni Innovation Manager at Volvo Group Local Group Gothenburg Welcome to the Volvo Group! April this year marks the 90 year anniversary of the first Volvo branded car leaving the assembly line. Since then, Volvo has introduced a number of ground-breaking innovations. Some examples from different parts of the business model are: The three-point seatbelt (1959), the world’s first hauler with four-wheel drive (1966), the Front Underrun Protection System (1996), and the first CO2 free truck factory (2008). But in spite of this grand old age, the Volvo Group is a very spry and visionary company, always on the lookout for new ways of working and innovations in all parts of the business model. Why does innovation matter? Operating in today’s market is much like taking part in a competition; take for example Volvo Ocean Race, which incidentally starts again in October this year. At the start of the race the market offer, service and/or product, is launched, then to keep up with the competition, you need to continuously improve your market offer, and if you want to move ahead of the competition, you have to accelerate—do something radical or disruptive. In the Volvo Ocean Race, that might mean choosing a radically different route, and for Volvo Group, it might mean introducing a radically new technology like the gearbox “Volvo I-shift” (2001). So, how do we do that? How do we continue to be relevant to our customers and to society at large, to re-invent, and come up with new innovations? What is Innovation? The word innovation is often misused, which can create confusion, so let’s take a step back to define innovation and its closely associated words. In the Volvo Group, we use very simple definitions:
■■ Creativity is a cognitive process that produces newness by finding hidden patterns or making connections between seemingly unrelated things. This is a skill that anyone can learn. ■■ An Idea is an outcome of creativity, in our context it’s a proposal or an embryo for a solution to an identified problem or opportunity ■■ When an idea has been developed and tested, the Invention is a verified solution. ■■ An Innovation is an invention that has been implemented. Note that not all ideas will generate innovations, and those ideas that do, will not necessarily generate the same type of innovation. It’s not obvious from the beginning which ones will and which ones will not. Different types of “Innovation”
The picture above shows different types of innovations. What we typically are very good at in the Volvo Group is to leverage or build upon our existing competencies to continually improve and enhance our existing market offer, as can be seen with every product or service iteration. But to stay competitive, we need to improve our abilities in working in the other quadrants, particularly working with disruptive 52nd issue - Innovation Management
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and radical innovations. The challenge is that doing so requires a different process than we use for our regular technology development and product development projects. Such a process has to allow employees to work on ‘far-out’ or ‘wild’ ideas without knowing which ones will grow to blossom or which ones will fade away and die. Having a culture that both caters for the big product projects aiming at sustaining innovations, and can manage the ideas with potential to become disruptive or radical innovations, that’s the trick. Innovation @ Volvo Group At Volvo Group, we take innovation seriously—it’s what’s building the future of our business and secures that we continue to be relevant to our customers, and competitive, as the world keeps changing. To that end, we have developed a framework that supports our employees in their daily work, creating and developing new ideas to shape the future.
Open Innovation Communication
Internal Ideation Innovation @ Volvo Group
Training
Methods & Tools
48 hour sprint; and our Open Innovation initiatives, which include both idea competitions targeting students at universities that are part of our Academic Partner Program universities, where we have a deeper collaboration with selected universities, and competitions open to everyone such as the hackathons that Volvo Trucks has held. Even though all achievements should be appreciated, such as having this framework in place, there’s always something more to do. Thus, it is important to keep improving and innovating the way we work with innovations and how we innovate as well. Our experiences help us understand what gaps we have in the innovation framework and what concepts and tools we are missing. For instance, right now we are looking into a garage concept where breakthrough ideas can matured in a sheltered environment. In an organisation as large as the Volvo Group, it’s impossible for any one team to drive the entire innovation culture. So, as it should be, the majority of this task is driven by coworkers in other parts of the Volvo Group through networks, and communities— making creativity and innovation part of everyday life. Coming back to the Volvo Ocean Race analogy, working with innovation management is like any competition—it’s often tough and pushes yourself and the organisation to the limits, but when it works, it is plain sailing and like feeling the sun warming your face, knowing you “create value by doing things differently”.
Innovate Process
Volvo Group: Facts & Figures The base of the framework consists of the Innovate Process that supports ideation and exploration of ideas and concepts; the innovation and creativity trainings that are open to any employee, and specially tailored trainings for technology specialists and creative workshop facilitators; tools and Methods such as facilitators and innovation coaches, facilities designed for face-to-face creative workshops, and online collaborative tools to facilitate the ideation phase; and the Communication platform with an intranet community site, dedicated to sharing, encouraging, and inspiring each other across organisational units and geographical locations with good examples, tips & tricks, external links etc. The framework’s base supports both our Internal Ideation, for instance innovation jams where we invite coworkers to participate in an online ideation activity—the largest one had close to 3,400 contributors, spurring 450+ unique ideas during a 14
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Mission: Driving prosperity through transport solutions. Products and services: Manufacturer of trucks, buses, construction equipment and marine and industrial engines, and also provides complete solutions for financing and service. Headquarter (Volvo Group): Gothenburg, Sweden Global footprint: Approximately 95,000 employees, production facilities in eighteen countries, and sales of products in more than 190 markets. Examples of brands: Volvo Trucks, UD Trucks, Renault Trucks, Mack Trucks, Volvo Construction Equipment, Volvo Bus, and Volvo Penta. If you’d like to know more, please visit www.volvogroup.com, or contact innovation@volvo.com.
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Innovation at the Sea Chanels City University of Aveiro
Manuel Au-Yong Oliveira University of Aveiro – Department of Economics, Management, Industrial Engineering and Tourism
Rui Gonçalves Summer Academy Project Leader 2016/2017 Local Group Aveiro
From a student’s perspective, the University of Aveiro itself is already a national synonym for innovation and creativity. The University of Aveiro is the birthplace of SAPO, one of the most used web portals in Portugal, and is a frequent presence in the media year after year, producing innovative and disruptive products and methods in the most diverse fields. During Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees, IEM students are frequently in contact, almost every year, with subjects that teach and stimulate innovation, such as Marketing, New Product Development and Advanced Techniques of Production. In the last two subjects, within groups, one of the main tasks of the semester is to come up with a totally new product and develop all the stages attached to the production and commercialisation of the product. In recent years, Aveiro has become one of the national capitals of innovation, mainly due to the continuous investment of its university in the students’ ideas, turning entrepreneurs’ dreams into reality. To compete in today’s markets, firms have to innovate. For IEM students, special attention is given to innovation, for example in the Marketing course, which students take as an option during their third undergraduate year. The competitive advantage of
firms is a function of innovation. Innovation management can take on many forms, with firms investing in open innovation, closed innovation or both. Where is the next radical innovation that is going to render my business model obsolete going to come from? The late co-founder and CEO of Apple, Steve Jobs, would lose sleep on matters such as this, recognising in himself in his innovation management process that one has to cannibalise one’s products to stay ahead of the competition. The case study approach is preferred on the Marketing course and the cases of successful innovation management firms are openly discussed—such as Apple and Intel. Students are made aware that, much as with human beings, radical innovation or significant departures from the norm for the better occur when firms are doing badly, as they are more willing to risk disrupting the status quo and have to look for novel solutions.
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Open Innovation Hadi Salahshour ESTIEM Alumni Local Group Lappeenranta Companies and organisations in different sectors are experiencing a radical change in their innovation process and new product and service development. Not long ago, companies only accepted ideas that were developed in their internal research and development departments. The twentieth century, until the mid-80s, was likely the most ’closed’ period in the whole history of innovation (Arora and Gambardella, 2010). This conventional innovation funnel did not allow ideas to become accessible to outsiders and rarely accepted external ideas due to ‘not invented here’ syndrome. Internal research and development was viewed as a strategic resource that could prevent new companies to enter the competition (Chesbrough, 2004). However, the innovative landscape in the world has changed and for big corporations, the conventional model no longer promises high levels of top-line growth (Huston et al. 2006). A paradigm shift in how we perceive the sources of innovation was demanded. Since Henry Chesbrough (2003) coined the term Open Innovation (OI), many companies are paying more attention to this new paradigm. OI suggests 16
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that firms can and must utilise external sources of innovation as well as internal ideas (Chesbrough, 2006). Moreover, Open Innovation challenges the conventional mindset, which suggests that in order to win in the market, one needs to create the best ideas and deliver them to market. Therefore, a company can now profit from licensing out its Intellectual Property (IP), or acquire IP from outside to gain competitive advantage (Chesbrough, 2003). Procter & Gamble estimated that for every researcher working inside the company there were 200 other scientists or engineers outside the company who were just as good—a projected number of 1.5 million individuals (Huston et al. 2006). In today’s highly competitive market, companies such as P&G should scout the outside environment for new sources of innovation. Mortara and her team conducted a series of interviews in 2009 with leaders of pioneering companies in Open Innovation. These managers claimed that the main benefits of adopting Open Innovation are shorter time to market, finding new technologies, access to additional competence, cost reduction, cost efficiency and many others, the majority of which are surprisingly focused on an
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inbound view of OI (Mortara et al. 2009). On the other hand, some companies decide on externalising their knowledge and innovation via an outbound process to gain competitive advantages in the market (Gassmann and Enkel, 2004). This approach, also known as the inside-out process, suggests that companies can offer their knowledge to market, and sell IP in order to realise ideas more quickly than internal development could (Enkel et al. 2009), thus allowing companies to serve markets beyond their conventional reach through joint ventures or spinoffs. Thanks to these new income sources, companies can benefit from an increase in overall revenue from innovation (Lichtenthaler and Ernst, 2007). Enkel et al. (2009) describe the coupled process as the third core process in Open Innovation. The coupled process discusses the co-creation aspect of Open Innovation, which combines the two previously mentioned approaches to jointly develop and commercialise innovation with complementary partners (Enkel et al. 2009). Inspired by open source project development (Von Hippel and von Krogh, 2006), co-creation discusses joint production of innovation by leveraging the knowledge of the crowd. This joint production can be done with collaboration with communities (Lakhani et al. 2008), consumers (Hienerth, 2006), lead users (Frank et al. 2006), universities or research organisations (Perkmann and Walsh, 2007), and industry partners (Enkel and Gassmann, 2010).
As the degree of uncertainty in early-stage technological advances is high, one faces a complex evaluation process. A successful innovative company must follow a flexible innovation process rather than sticking to a handful of Open Innovation approaches that offer a set of tools to enable stakeholders of a company to contribute to the innovation cycle. For instance, tools that enables customers to create their own product or integrate internal and external idea creators (Gassmann et al. 2010). InnoCentive is a great example of leveraging crowd knowledge to find novel solutions for problems offered by companies.
Today, OI has faced a variety of trends and is being applied by an increasing number of companies who previously refused to cooperate with the outside world. The shift from a stage gate process to a probeand-learn approach indicates that open innovation principles are facing a paradigm shift (Gassmann et al. 2010). Indeed, it requires courage and vision to experiment new ideas in times of financial difficulties. However, if neglected, companies could easily face decreases in revenue growth and losses in market share. Open Innovation certainly provides multiple possibilities which, if diligently pursued, can lead to greater innovation and increased growth (Chesbrough, 2007). Moreover, it is necessary to mention that a standard OI strategy may not be fitting to every company. The success factor lies within careful consideration of what the company needs. About the Author: My name is Hadi Salahshour and I became a member of ESTIEM in 2013 in local group Lappeenranta. I entered the businessbooster team in 2014 and later took responsibility as SET CR leader in 2015. My Master’s degree was focused on Innovation Management and I was lucky to write my thesis for BASF SE during the Creator Space™ project on the topic of Innovation Contests. Currently I am working for Daimler AG as Project Management Officer. Business Case of BASF SE In the 150th year of its existence in 2015, BASF—a German chemical company—celebrated by connecting people and ideas around the globe to address the key challenges of our time. Together with celebration, co-creation were the key pillars of the anniversary year and Creator Space™ was its co-creation programme. The company started this movement to deliver BASF’s purpose to cocreate chemistry for a sustainable future by involving and connecting employees, customers/partners, scientists, and the relevant public in an open, creative, responsible and entrepreneurial way. During this programme, BASF collaborated with various stakeholders on challenges such as water accessibility in Mumbai, resource efficient farming in North and South America, smart consumption in Shanghai, energy storage in Ludwigshafen, and low-income housing in Sao Paulo. In addition, BASF enabled a platform for topic experts around the globe to come together, exchange ideas and debate solutions on the three topics of urban living, food, and smart energy. Furthermore, this co-creation programme consisted 52nd issue - Innovation Management
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of 50 co-creation activities with different stakeholders, focusing on various themes. With Creator Space™, BASF extended its external network of people in science, business and civil society and leveraged these connections to enable a deeper understanding of the challenges fronting humanity around the globe. With better insights, the company identified potential solutions, which were developed together with BASF’s co-creation partners both internally and externally. Creator Space™ is considered the largest OI and co-creation programme conducted by a corporation combining both online and offline channels. Creator Space™ presents eight co-creation methodologies wherein BASF involved different stakeholders in different phases of the innovation process to explore, ideate, or validate a solution. Figure 1 provides an overview of these co-creation formats. In this figure, the y-axis represents the different co-creation stakeholder groups that are suitable for each co-creation methodology. The x-axis differentiates between the various levels of
stakeholders’ engagement; from a highly virtual environment, e.g. online platforms, to a physical environment, e.g. workshops. In addition to these new methodologies, Creator Space™ offered a scalable learning and knowledge diffusion model to foster this cultural change. This approach started with the creation of new approaches and was then followed by a global training across multiple BASF business units. A series of educational webinars with the methodology experts were conducted throughout the year to provide an opportunity for all BASF employees to get familiar with these topics. A set of easy to read and small handbooks were designed and distributed freely to innovation departments in the company. Moreover, by applying these methodologies in approximately 50 pilot projects during its anniversary year, the company put itself in the cycle of experimentation and learning. The learned lessons were captured, and then analysed in order to further improve the processes.
Figure 1. Creator Space™ co-creation formats. Arora, A., & Gambardella, A. (2010). The market for technology. Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, 1, 641-678. Chesbrough, H. (2004). Managing open innovation. Research-Technology Management, 47(1), 23-26. Huston, L., & Sakkab, N. (2006). Connect and develop. Harvard business review, 84(3), 58-66. Mortara, L., Napp, J. J., Slacik, I., & Minshall, T. (2009). How to implement open innovation: Lessons from studying large multinational companies. University of Cambridge, IFM. Gassmann, O., & Enkel, E. (2004). Towards a theory of open innovation: three core process archetypes. Enkel, E., Gassmann, O., & Chesbrough, H. (2009). Open R&D and open innovation: exploring the phenomenon. R&d Management, 39(4), 311-316. Lichtenthaler, U., & Ernst, H. (2007). External technology commercialization in large firms: results of a quantitative benchmarking study. r&d Management, 37(5), 383-397. Von Krogh, G., & Von Hippel, E. (2006). The promise of research on open source software. Management science, 52(7), 975-983. West, J., & Lakhani, K. R. (2008). Getting clear about communities in open innovation. Industry and Innovation, 15(2), 223-231. Hienerth, C. (2006). The commercialization of user innovations: the development of the rodeo kayak industry. R&D Management, 36(3), 273-294. Perkmann, M., & Walsh, K. (2007). University–industry relationships and open innovation: Towards a research agenda. International Journal of Management Reviews, 9(4), 259-280. Gassmann, O., Enkel, E., & Chesbrough, H. (2010). The future of open innovation. R&d Management, 40(3), 213-221.
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SNCF Intrapreneurhsip Camp
Youssef El Ouard Local Group Lyon
Driven by this core value of ESTIEM, Local Group Lyon wanted to set up a challenging event that would be remembered as the first of its kind. After months of work on the concept and the organisation, we were ready to kick-off 2017 with the SNCF Intrapreneurship Camp! Thinking out-of-the-box was our leitmotiv throughout the creation of this event, so what’s so special about it? A New Year’s Eve…in Paris Firstly, its location. The whole event took place in the sparkling and fashionable Paris. It was about time our dear ESTIEM flag got waved in front of the Eiffel Tower! The participants visited the main landmarks of the city including the Notre-Dame Cathedral, the Champs Elysées and the Georges Pompidou Museum. It was a real challenge for the Local Group to organise an affordable yet exciting event far from Lyon and in a city infamous for its expensiveness. Secondly, its timing. Spanning eight days and including New Year’s Eve, the timing of the event is quite peculiar for ESTIEM. We wanted to provide the participants an excellent start of 2017 both partyand career-wise!
Intrapreneurship in ESTIEM Logistics set aside, we also focused on making this event a pioneer in the businessbooster project. The businessbooster project promotes and stimulates entrepreneurship among students. This is achieved by organising different training, educational and networking events, as well as competitions. Our event focused on the rather unexplored concept of intrapreneurship. As opposed to entrepreneurship, intrapreneurship innovates inside an existing structure, usually a multinational. The two concepts share a lot of common characteristics. In fact, an entrepreneurial mindset and skills are of paramount importance for intrapreneurs who wish to create value for big companies in new and exciting ways. However, intrapreneurs face different challenges 52nd issue - Innovation Management
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and obstacles. They might not experience the very common lack of stability and financial resources entrepreneurs must overcome, but they deal with the hardships of hierarchy and red tape. At Local Group Lyon, we are convinced that ESTIEMers are innovative and are looking for dynamic careers. However, some of them might dislike going through the hurdles and risks of starting a business from scratch. We wanted to offer those ESTIEMers the opportunity to discover intrapreneurship through practice. To do so, we partnered with one of the biggest transportation multinationals in the world; SNCF. Discovering SNCF, the case study and Smartly With 240,000 employees in 120 different countries and a 32 billion euro revenue in 2015, the SNCF Group is a huge international mobility actor1. Amid skyrocketing demand for public transport and an increasingly digital society, they aim at creating tomorrow’s mobility2. Their many internal innovation projects make them a perfect environment to learn more about being an intrapreneur. In fact, the participants of the SNCF Intrapreneurship Camp dived straight into action as an international team of intrapreneurs operating from SNCF’s headquarters in Saint-Denis. They sought to make the maintenance of the 15,000 daily train fares3 easier by embracing the hottest technological trends in Artificial Intelligence. The participants had to organise themselves to quickly gather information and come up with a sound implementation plan for Artificial Intelligence within the company’s complex structure. Their final goal was to deliver an impressive and professional presentation to various sponsors within the group to convince them to invest in the project. Participants discovered the principal traits of intrapreneurs through their experience within SNCF; they had to be versatile and independent enough to build an implementation plan for their idea on their own. They had to be creative and visionary to come up with fruitful uses of Artificial Intelligence within the group. Finally, they had to practice their presentation skills and pitch their idea to the sponsors.
Thankfully, the participants were not alone in their quest. They were accompanied by a dynamic and enthusiastic startup called Smartly.ai. The startup showed them massive support by explaining the underlying gears of Artificial Intelligence, answering their questions throughout the week and even building a prototype to impress the sponsors! It was the perfect occasion for the participants to learn how multinationals and startups interact in an everevolving market. The participants also enjoyed the excellent accommodation and food kindly provided by SNCF. The team had all they needed to take on the challenge and make the SNCF Intrapreneurship Camp a success!
Conclusion and words for the future Obviously, coming up with a realistic implementation plan of a new technology in a multinational is not an easy task. Despite the huge workload involved in the camp, the participants remained enthusiastic until the end and satisfied the expectations of the sponsors on the last day. For that, we want to thank Markus, Nadja, Valerie, Lotta, Elli, Lydia, Tania, Mihnea, Flavius and Peter for their work and motivation! As the first—and certainly not the last—event of its kind, the SNCF Intrapreneurship Camp has allowed Local Group Lyon to broaden its reach and innovate inside of the ESTIEM network. We would like to encourage all Local Groups to come up with brand new event concepts and to make them a reality without any hesitation!
1) One Group, 3 Epics, 5 Business Units. Available on: http://www.sncf.com/fr/portrait-du-groupe/un-groupe-de-service. 2) Innovation & Research. Available on: http://www.sncf.com/en/innovation-research. 3) One Group, 3 Epics, 5 Business Units. Available on: http://www.sncf.com/fr/portrait-du-groupe/un-groupe-de-service.
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BLESH
Uğur Gökdere BLESH CTO Since many readers might not know about beacons, can you give us a brief introduction about how Beacon Technology works? Sure. beacon devices broadcast low energy radio signals, interact with the smart devices in their coverage zone, and exchange information with them. The coverage zone of a Beacon device is 50 meters, and their interaction distance can be fine-tuned within this range. This interaction, which is extremely power-efficient, is based on Bluetooth’s innovative
network technology Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), or the trademarked name; Bluetooth® Smart. When a mobile device encounters a beacon device in a venue, the mobile device automatically refers to a software program (SDK) embedded into an application. Consequently, it consults to the beacon’s server. According to the command from the server, the mobile device performs any action, such as displaying a message, storing data or serving as a micro-location sensor. 52nd issue - Innovation Management
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Can you introduce Blesh to us? How was it developed from the idea to where it is now? The idea behind Blesh (Bluetooth Low Energy Smart Hub) emerged in 2011 as a breakthrough opportunity in mobile technology, with the launch of Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) and Apple’s introduction of iBeacon in 2012. As the founders of the company—me, our CEO Devrim Sonmez, and Selcuk Kizilkaya—we started working on the possibilities that this new technology raises and built a preliminary beacon device that signaled BLE in late 2013. Using this technology, Blesh has begun to offer advertisers and developers to create context aware communications through its beacon platform. In the current market, more than 45,000 Blesh beacon devices are deployed for more than 250 brands in Turkey. Blesh has partnered with industry leaders like Google, Samsung, Intel, and Volkswagen, as well as with enterprises and apps as fastPay, Denizbank, Garanti Bank, Migros and Hurriyet. Do beacons have a significant influence on retail sales? According to Business Insider, over four billion dollars worth of US retail sales were influenced by beacons in 2016. Many retail chains have been testing beacon platforms since 2014 and 2016 was the year brands abandoned the tests and started to fully leverage the opportunities beacons offer. Customers are glued to their mobile devices and retail stores want to attract in an engaging way that will enhance their shopping experience. With personalised offers, in-store deals, navigation assistance and more, retailers are eager to help customers find what they are looking for and make them visit again for the same engaging experience. Online shopping may be convenient, but physical stores will never go out of style. That is why blending the physical and digital worlds through these sensors enables retailers to deepen their relationship with their customers. Retail giants like Macy’s, Lord & Taylor and Sephora have been using beacons with the deployment of over 50,000 beacons throughout the USA. Macy has partnered with the shopping app Shopkick and according to the latest results Shopkick has brought a billion dollars in sales for its retail partners. With new forms of beacons, including USB and card beacons, adoption will even be higher in 2017. We expect that data gathered from the sensors will drive more retailers to deploy beacons even if they do not plan to communicate with their customers.
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How do you see the influence in retail sales expanding and in which industries? The success of beacons in retail already has expanded to other industries, including banking, health and aviation. We have been working with Denizbank for several years now, and have deployed over 2,000 beacons in their branches and ATMs throughout Turkey. Denizbank customers can get queue numbers before entering a branch and Denizbank ATMs can know when they are approaching and can make customised offers. When customers pass by a Denizbank merchant, they can get notified about deals, all thanks to the beacon devices. In 2014, we initiated a payment project called Handsfree Payment with Denizbank’s mobile wallet app, fastPay. The project helps customers get notified about a deal while in vicinity to a store and lets them pay without the need to take out their wallets or phones. The system connects beacons to the app installed on their device and recognises the customer’s e-wallet account. Thus, the customer only needs to confirm the payment. Many airports around the world, including IstanbulAtaturk, Miami, Munich and London Heathrow, are deploying beacons for the same reasons and some more contextual use cases have developed in recent months. Luggage tracking and checking in to flights via beacons are gaining more adoption as well as navigation to enhance the passenger experience. It is also possible for passengers to see how crowded lines are at the counters and plan their time accordingly. How does location based communication affect industries and how do you think it will shape the future marketing strategies of companies? Today’s customers are always connected and in order to grab their attention and have meaningful conversations with them, it is important that enterprises grasp the necessity of having a sound mobile marketing strategy with location based technologies. This enables them to reach their customers at the right time and place and engage with them in a more contextual way. Companies that have physical stores are now able to reach a customer while they are passing by, guide them through the store and offer personalised deals. Earlier you were talking about the different fields in which Beacon Technology can be used, the Smart Objects are popular these days. Can you elaborate more on that? What are the developments in this innovation and what does Blesh do in regard to this? Beacons can take many forms apart from the round
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devices that are placed on walls. The new forms of beacons include USB and card shaped ones as well as those that are embedded into other devices. The latter have gained traction within the last year as they help objects to become smart or smarter. Gartner predicts that the number of these devices will reach 20.8 billion by 2020. Like many do in the industry, we use the term Internet of Things (IoT) to refer to the system and the effect of such devices. As Blesh, we do have products that we regard ‘smart devices’ along with an IoT platform to manage them. Recently, we partnered with Volkswagen for its smart key fobs to be sold online and handed out to new buyers starting from November 2016. The smart key fob is a beacon itself, as it works with Bluetooth Low Energy. It is paired with Volkswagen’s mobile app Volkswagenim—My Volkswagen. The key fob works for three main purposes. Once the customer is done pairing the key fob with the app, they can locate their phone by tapping twice on the key fob and hear a beeping sound coming from their phone. They can do the exact opposite and locate the key fob—thus the keys to their car—through the app. It works as a Bluetooth selfie shutter, working like a very long selfie stick by having almost 50 meters of range.
How do you implement Big Data and data analytics to your work? Data and its analytics are crucial in what we do as sensors collect various types of data from the location they are placed at. The amount of data we collect monthly has reached 200 million at the end of 2016. Companies we work with use this data to see when and where their customers visited a certain venue, which routes they followed, how long they stayed there and what other places they visited. They can also use heat maps that show the popularity of an aisle or a store and come up with a new strategy to drive more sales and engagement. Do you see any risks in this technology, especially regarding data protection? Governments are taking this topic seriously and are acting in line with regulations, so I do not think there is much to worry about in terms of possible
threats. However, there is a steady point that laws and codes could be a little bit late considering the speed of advances in technology. So to be on the safe side, companies acting in the IT field need to respect the data that belongs to the customer, whether categorised as critical or not. What can Blesh offer to Industrial Engineering and Management students/graduates? We have a dynamic start-up environment with highly experienced and enthusiastic professionals in engineering, software development, business development and marketing. Working with smart devices all day is very exciting and inspiring. We do offer internships to Industrial Engineering or Management students and graduates. They can also come visit us anytime to see how and where we work. What do you suggest to future entrepreneurs who want to start their own company in the IT related field? When it comes to becoming a founder of a company, regardless of the sector it’s in, you need to do a lot of research about the market. Every tiny bit of information about the vertical will help you build a concrete business model. So anyone who wants to build a company needs to seek information and understand the correlation of this information with the company itself. Meanwhile, you need to decide whether the company is going to build solutions to end-users or other companies. You also need to build a balanced team and make sure you have thought of every aspect and field that includes developers, analysts and marketing specialists. If the company is acting in the IT field, it might be advantageous to focus more on the technology team. As the company grows and expands, it will find its balance and learns to understand the needs of the market and sales cycles. Before making all these tough decisions, you will surely need to find funds and investors, which will be crucial to focus only on the business you develop. Every day you will focus on the customers, every night you will make decisions on the future of your products, and it will not end there. You will have to make financial decisions, which will be tough, you will learn a lot about finance, team management and marketing. So it is safe to say that everyone who wants to become an entrepreneur should keep in mind that entrepreneurship is not a spare time activity.
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Innovation in China Is there any?
Prof. Dr. Nikola Zivlak Donghua University Shanghai, China
For someone who has been living in China for ten years already and studies innovation in China for equally long, it is always challenging to say something new about this interesting topic. In recent years, ‘China’ and ‘innovation’ are both buzzwords that are often mentioned in media, academic- and business-literature. Even though China as a country is an economic miracle, the second strongest economy and the largest market in the world, linkages between innovation and this country are not always very positive. The majority of researchers and businessmen, as well as common people around the world, do not really see anything innovative happening in China. So what is actually the truth? A bit of Etymology
First of all, it is crucial to properly define innovation. The word innovation is derived from the Latin word innovatus, which is the noun of the verb innovare which means “to renew or change”. The word itself consists of the two terms in which means “into” and novus which means “new”. The word that is most commonly used in Chinese language to explain innovation is 创新 (chuàngxīn), where the first character 创 stands for “create” or “initiate” and the second character 新 stands for “new”. The goal of innovation is usually a positive change, to make someone or something 24
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better. Innovation leading to increased productivity is the fundamental source of increasing wealth in an economy. In economic terms innovation must increase value for the producer and/or customer.
A History of Innovation
When talking about China and innovation we should definitely look into the not so recent history. Even though just few people in the so-called ‘modern world’ of today know it, Chinese people and China as a country have historically always been extraordinary innovative. Chinese people themselves are sometimes as ignorant of this fact as Westerners.
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A British scholar, Robert Temple, came to an interesting conclusion while working on his book “The Genius of China”, which was mainly based on previous work done by his friend Dr. Joseph Needham. He concluded that possibly more than half of the basic inventions and discoveries people nowadays recognise and use in everyday life come from China. A lot of these inventions are taken for granted without knowing that they actually originated in China. As Temple (2007) presented, it is just as much a surprise for the Chinese as for Westerners to realise that modern agriculture, modern shipping, the modern oil industry, modern astronomical observatories, modern music, decimal mathematics, paper money, umbrellas, fishing reels, wheelbarrows, multi-stage rockets, guns, underwater mines, poison gas, parachutes, hot-air balloons, manned flight, brandy, whisky, the game of chess, printing, and even the essential design of the steam engine, all came from China.
The Chinese Potential
China as a country currently has a strong innovation capacity and it has the potential to evolve into a leader of innovation and retake the position that it held in the past. According to McKinsey Global Institute, China is already on the right track to become a global leader in innovation. China spends more than 200 billion USD on research annually, second only to the United States, produces a large number of PhDs, especially in science and engineering, and leads the world in patent applications. China has the world’s largest manufacturing ecosystem with 150 million manufacturing workers, a developed infrastructure and a supplier base five times the size of, for example, Japan’s.
China
World’s Largest Manufacturing Ecosystem
• 150M workers • Infrastructure and supplier base 5x bigger than Japan • $200B spent on research annually By 2025
Manufacturing & Service Industries: • $1.0 - 2.2T = 24% China’s GDP growth Source: McKinsey Global Institute
From Made in China to Designed in China
The economy of the People’s Republic of China and the country’s social system are managed under the framework of China’s Five-Year Plans. The Five-Year Plans are key guidelines for economic development and reforms in the country that brought superb results to the country’s development. The thirteenth Five-Year Plan, introduced in 2016, lays out a number of challenging goals, which are aimed at continuing the drive towards moving from ‘Made in China’ to ‘Designed in China’ and to boost domestic innovation. The central government has realised that Chinese industrial products are internationally still perceived as being of inferior quality and that certain national technologies lack domestic core platforms. Hence they introduced numerous policies to move China up in the value chain by abandoning old heavy industries and building up bases of modern informationintensive infrastructure. Two of them are marketed as “Everyone is an entrepreneur, creativity of the masses” (大众创业，万众创新) and “Made in China 2025” (中国制造 2025), inspired by Industry 4.0. Even though China still doesn’t lead the world in scientific discovery and engineering, Chinese companies are great at filling customer needs with better products and services and applying innovation in production processes. China is using its unique advantages such as lower costs, a large pool of researchers, a good infrastructure, passionate people and a huge domestic market to innovate fast and to catch up with most developed countries.
Will China take this opportunity?
Analysis of the development of innovation management theory shows that the shift of economic power from Europe to the US was mainly based on superior innovation. Economic power usually shifts to the places that are able to create more superior innovation in comparison to others. It seems that for China it is now time to improve its innovation performance and it is the best moment for China to reintroduce its qualities and to put maximum efforts in introducing innovation. Innovation is at the same time extremely important for sustaining China’s growth. It was calculated by McKinsey Global Institute that innovation opportunities in manufacturing and service industries in China could yield 1.0 to 2.2 trillion USD by 2025, which is equivalent to 24% of total GDP growth. This is an enormous opportunity for China, but internationalisation of strong and innovative Chinese enterprises is also something that might potentially change the whole global business environment.
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SCENE
Sergio Molino Local Group Milan
September 14, 2016. the day I started what I could call the journey of my life. Many thought I was crazy and others couldn’t understand why I was doing it—and well… let’s not talk about what my parents said… poor them. The plan was to travel through Asia for one year while meeting startups and innovators on the way, all with a tight budget—around 450€ a month—and write about all of it. I talked to one of my best mates about the idea. Travelling around the world and meeting world-class entrepreneurs and startups sounds like something you can’t reject. He didn’t think twice, got on board too and we launched Ambitious Tracks. So far we have met startups and innovators in Spain, Switzerland, Thailand, China, Laos, Myanmar, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia. We’ll continue to Cambodia, Vietnam, Hong Kong, the Philippines, and Kazakhstan and in September I’ll go back to Europe for the Euro-tour while Borja, the other co-founder, will go for the American-tour. In Laos and Myanmar, we had the chance to meet the first innovators of the country, those that are shaping the future of the country and fighting the corruption of their governments. In Singapore we 26
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felt how devoted a nation can be to improve and keep improving, even though you are the first in the race; absolutely mind-blowing. We ask all startup founders we meet for a piece of advice for other entrepreneurs and very interesting things always come up; be perseverant, the most common advice, Rome wasn’t built in three days; don’t trust in experts, they don’t know how to disrupt a field in which they are already masters; take your time to hire your first team members, don’t rush this; and don’t look for the perfect product, because if you have it, you are probably entering the market too late. Finally, as one of the most important pieces of advice: develop your personal network; it’s the best investment you can make. Although, if you are part of ESTIEM, you are probably good on this one. But behind all these cool things, there are some downsides as well. I’m half of the way there at this moment and there have been some challenges—
SCENE
sleeping in hostels for six months, it’s cool the first months, later on not anymore; staying up late working while your roommates go to parties and come back drunk; changing beds each four to five days on average; having stomach-aches twenty percent of the days because your stomach isn’t used to the spices they use in the region; feeling ripped off 70 percent of the days; loneliness, because although you meet a lot of people, you meet few true friends; being kicked out of Thailand to Malaysia while all the luggage was in Thailand; and trying to get a routine and create a ‘home’ every five days to be as productive as possible. After four months I had a turning point in the trip. I couldn’t keep up with the rhythm of moving that fast. I was tired, both physically and psychologically, and really wondered whether I should keep going and if what I was doing was meaningful. Stubbornness, or maybe the fear of coming back before the date I was supposed to, made me decide to finish the plan no matter what would happen to me. Sergio, from Spain, was part of ESTIEM LG Milan during his studies of management engineering in Como, Italy. There, he felt the power of global networks, which is one of the reasons to start the journey that he is on right now.
I realised that all these problems I experienced were ‘first world problems’ and all the tough things I had seen during the previous month, made me behave like a kid for even thinking about quitting. From that moment on I decided to slow down and stay for one to two weeks in each place. And after that crisis … magic happened. I met Borja in Singapore and we attended EmTechAsia (http://ambitioustracks.com/en/emtech-asia2017-highlights-quotes/), one of the most important tech/innovation events in the region, and all for free since we got media passes thanks to Ambitious Tracks. There, we met mind-blowing people, had the chance to interview huge startups—even a potential unicorn—and the best part; we found the meaning of what we were doing.
didn’t expect that world-class people would think that what we are doing is great as well. They saw the value in the project and were highly interested in following our journey. At this point, we saw the power of Ambitious Tracks. We are developing a great network in the most promising region of the world, we are getting to know the first innovators and startups of booming countries and we are making friends that could be the next Bill Gates or Jack Ma. Meeting entrepreneurs from all these countries and different ecosystems gave us priceless insights and perspectives that we could have never learnt otherwise. This is much better than any MBA I could have imagined! I realised that, because I had been focusing too much on the short-term goals and the little uncomfortable things of the journey, I had missed the whole picture, which is the fuel that will keep me moving forward in this challenging, but at the same time incredibly rewarding, journey. So the goal of this article, apart from letting you know about Ambitious Tracks (http://ambitioustracks. com/en/) ;) , is to highlight the importance of never ever losing the big picture of what you are doing. Don’t let little stones on the way make you quit and don’t complain—like I did some paragraphs above. Complaining brings negativity, negativity masks the big picture you have in mind and without that picture you end up quitting. So keep fighting, be perseverant and good luck on your journey!
PS: If you want to know more about what Sergio and Borja are doing, you can follow Ambitious Tracks on social media— Instagram, Twitter, Linkedin or Facebook—or subscribe to the newsletter, where they analyse their monthly performance and talk about the behind the scenes of the journey.
To be honest, we thought that travelling the world and meeting startups sounded pretty cool, but we 52nd issue - Innovation Management
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Employability of IEM Graduates Ulrich Bauer TU Graz
Employability is an important educational objective of a study programme. This article describes the main employability-attributes of IEM graduates, based on an Austrian Study. Significance and Definition of Employment and Employability For every national economy the two indicators employment and unemployment are of high significance but constitute a rather sensitive issue as well. On the one hand, they are an important measure for how a nation and its people are doing economically. On the other hand, employment is of utter importance for the single individual who not only makes their living, but whose employment constitutes an essential component of a meaningful and self-determined life. In detail, the term employability comprises two main ways of defining; it can either be employment-centred or competence-centred1. The employment-centred definition, which is used by the European Union with regard to ‘Education and Training 2020 (ET2020)’ as a benchmark for tertiary educational attainment by the year 2020 is the following: “ […] the share of employed graduates (20–34 year olds) having left education and training no more than three years before the reference year should be at least 82 %”. Following this, the Bologna Process [a set of agreements between European countries designed to ensure comparability of educational standards— ed.] defines employability as the graduate’s “ability to gain initial meaningful employment or become self-employed, to maintain employment, and to be able to move around within the labour market2. Thus finding employment and employment per se become the focus. In contrast to the employment-centred definition of
employability, the focus of the competence-centred concept lies on the skills and competences which higher education students gain during their studies. The Republic of Austria pursues the competenceoriented approach and particularly emphasises the role of employers. Employers and their organisations are involved in higher education programmes in a consulting role to provide insight into the labour market’s demands and consequently enhance the graduate’s employability3. The advantage of the competence-oriented approach of employability is its transferability to universities and higher education institutions’ study programmes and thus increasing the chances to ensure a market-compliant education and qualification. Competence Profile of IEM Graduates In order to find out what Industrial Engineering and Management (IEM) actually is, the following definition should provide clarification: “The focus of IEM studies lies in providing students valuable engineering knowledge as well as practical management experience. IEM integrates technological knowledge and management skills, helping students to cope with competitive business challenges while comprehending the underlying technology. Throughout Europe, IEM has many different names—and many different faces.” 4 One of the key questions is to what extent technical and economical subjects should be taught. In the context of a study5, IEM professionals and HR managers in Austria have, independently of one another, specified the ideal ratio as 2/3 technical and 1/3 economics subjects.
1) EUROPEAN COMMISSION (2014): Modernisation of Higher Education in Europa. Access, Retention and Employability. Eurydice Report. pp.61f. 2) WORKING GROUP ON EMPLOYABILITY (2009): Report to Ministers, Bologna Conference, Leuven/ Louvain-la-Neuve 28-29 April 2009, http:// www.ehea.info/Uploads/LEUVEN/2009_employability_WG_report.pdf, Pdf-online source, retrieved 15/11/2014. pp.5 3)EUROPEAN COMMISSION (2014): Modernisation of Higher Education in Europa. Access, Retention and Employability. Eurydice Report, pp.64f 4) www.estiem.org 5) cf. BAUER U.; SADEI C.; SOOS J.; ZUNK B. M.; (2014): Ausbildungslandschaft, Kompetenzprofil und Karriereweg von WirtschaftsingenieuerInnen – Studie 2014, BWL Schriftenreihe Nr. 17 des Institutes für Betriebswirtschaftslehre und Betriebssoziologie der Technischen Universität Graz, pp. 35 ff
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38.5 % Economy
61.5 % Technology
37.8 % Economy
62.2 % Technology
Industiral Engineers with professional experience
HR Managers
Figure 1: Ideal ratio technical to economical subjects
It is sensible to distinguish between professional competence/expertise, methodological competence and social competence. Professional competence/expertise is specialised knowledge that an individual gains through a respective qualification and education, postgraduate/ advanced training, and experience. Methodological competence designates the ability to apply this knowledge and experience, and to master supporting skills. Methodological competence can be gained through formal training—e.g. in seminars, in order to understand principles and theories— practical training and experience.
With regard to these three competences, each graduate’s individual competence profile will show different emphases in these areas. Furthermore, the profile will develop significantly in the course of the academic education. In terms of individual employability, it is decisive how well the competence profile fits the requirements of the future employment. The job market for graduates of technological universities can mainly be found in the economic sector. In the Austrian study from 20145, a balanced and worthwhile ideal ratio of the three competencies was presented.
Industiral Engineers with professional experience
HR Managers n=124
n=431
Social competence 35.4 %
Expertise 31.0 %
Methodological competence 33.6 %
Social competence 34.3 %
Expertise 33.8 %
Methodological competence 31.9 %
Figure 1: Ideal ratio technical to economical subjects
Social competence is understood as a person’s ability to deal with people as well as personal character traits, values and moral concepts6.
In a second study7, employers and HR managers were asked for their assessment of the required competence profile and the actual, existing competency profile of graduates. The results (see figure 3) show that the competences present in the areas of professional
6) cf. BAUER U.; GANGL B.(2005): Qualifikationsprofil und Berufsbild von Wirtschaftsingenieuren, BWL Schriftenreihe Nr. 9 des Institutes für Betriebswirtschaftslehre und Betriebssoziologie der Technischen Universität Graz, pp. 35 7) cf. BAUER U.; SADEI C. (2015): Studie zur Employability der TU Graz Absolvent/innen 2015, BWL Schriftenreihe Nr. 18 des Institutes für Betriebswirtschaftslehre und Betriebssoziologie der Technischen Universität Graz, pp. 80
52nd issue - Innovation Management
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Neither nor (3)
Rather important (4)
Very important (5)
Professional competency/ expertise Methodological competence
Social competence Required competency profile Existing competency profile Figure 3: Required and existing competence profile of graduates
and methodological competences are slightly below the requirements, yet still within the tolerance limits. However, tertiary education faces a pressing backlog demand concerning social competences. Outlook and Professional Opportunities for IEM Graduates Both graduates and HR managers assess professional career opportunities for IEM graduates in the 2014 study positively. Furthermore, the results show that Industrial Engineer Managers show excellent compliance with prerequisites necessary for leadership positions and are capable of putting them into practice. A fact that proves this statement is that three out of four Industrial Engineer Managers gain a leading position after their fourth occupational change (see figure 4).
All in all it can be said that the education of IEM graduates has been successful and that it is of importance to continue the qualitative development of education and its qualification. Surely this is the best investment into Europe’s future and its people. About the Author: Univ.-Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Dr. Ulrich Bauer is Professor at TU Graz since 1997 and Head of the Institute for Business Economics and Industrial Sociology. His main fields in teaching are Business Economics, Cost Management and Industrial Sociology. In research he is interested in how to control enterprises, operations and strategy and how to develop and handle human resources. He has long lasting management and consulting experience in industry and at the university, where he was vice rector for Human Resources, Finance and Portfolio Management for twelve years.
Figure 4: Career pathway of IEMs: functional areas at position
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The Factory of 400 Smiles Jasper van Ooijen TU Eindhoven Pactics Campus Ambassador
Ever thought about working in a low-cost garment factory in Southeast Asia? Doesn’t sound too appealing, does it? You have the right to believe that. Southeast Asia’s garment industry has a bad reputation when it comes to fair wages, labour rights and environmental responsibility. The Human Rights Watch documented labour rights abuses such as forced overtime, lack of breaks, denial of sick leave and use of child labour in Cambodia’s garment industry in 2015. My confrontation with this distressing reality came when I was looking for an internship to conduct my Bachelor’s Thesis. I met Piet Holten, Founder and President of Pactics Co. Ltd, who passionately explained me the mission and vision of his organisation in Cambodia. The story of his organisation doing things differently made me realise I wanted to contribute to this company. Six months after the meeting I am back in the Netherlands again. What a great experience it is to have been part of an organisation that contradicts all the negative beliefs about the garment industry in Southeast Asia. Founded in 2004, Pactics Co. Ltd is a company that engages in the design and manufacturing of cloths and pouches for luxury eyewear brands. Its mission is simple, yet strong; “to create a decent company that offers competitively priced, high-quality microfiber products in an environmentally and socially responsible way.” Though this sounds simple, Pactics’ business model is innovative in a low-cost
focused industry. Pactics performs as the ultimate NGO; without governmental sponsors it manages to make a profit in a competitive world, whilst making a ‘sustainable difference’ for its employees and the environment. So what does this sustainable difference mean? Let’s zoom in on social responsibility. First comes the location of the factory. Pactics is located in Siem Reap, which is the small and lively version of its big brother Phnom Penh. Whereas Siem Reap is famous for the Angkor Temples, Phnom Penh is the capital and the industrial heart of Cambodia. Observing this difference, Holten came to understanding loads of people have to leave their families on the countryside to make a living in the factories in Phnom Penh. This made him decide to open a factory in Siem Reap, which was one of the first large scale industrial projects in the Siem Reap Province. “Bringing the factory to the people, instead of the people to the factory”, is the thought that currently creates work 52nd issue - Innovation Management
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for over 350 Cambodian employees near their homes. Pactics’ most important compliance in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is obtaining and maintaining the SA8000-certificate. This is an internationally recognised standard for decent workplaces that sets eight strict performance criteria including child labour, forced and compulsory labour, health and safety, freedom of association and right to collective bargaining, discrimination, disciplinary practices, working hours and remuneration. Complementary to the SA8000 principles, Pactics offers its employees an extensive program of trainings, subsidised lunch, subsidised motorcycle helmets, a daycare for the employee’s young children, annual company trips and scholarships among employees for Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees. “Pactics is the factory with 400 smiles. Pactics teaches people to share kindness and to volunteer in society. This is what I found important”, says production manager Sony. From an environmental point of view, there are three main components that aim to minimise impact on the climate. The production facility in Siem Reap has its own water purification system which cleans rain and groundwater for own usage. Additionally, usage of electricity is minimised by the open design of the buildings and by generating electricity through solar panels. Lastly, scrap projects such as crochet and recycling initiatives aim to minimise waste. Pactics’ partner organisation SCRAP siemreap uses scrap microfiber strips to produce crochet baskets, placemats, wine holders and carpets to be distributed throughout the world. No scrap stays untouched, since the rest of the scrap material is bought by a plastic producer who processes the microfiber into recycled plastic goods. More information Pactics: http://pactics.com/ SCRAP siemreap: http://www.kingdom-of-kow. com/scrapsiemreap
Human Rights Watch: https://www.hrw.org/report/2015/03/11/work-faster-or-get-out/ labor-rights-abuses-cambodias-garment-industry SA8000® Standard and Documents: http://www.sa-intl.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=Page. ViewPage&PageID=937 ISO9001 certificate: http://www.iso.org/iso/home/standards/management-standards/ iso_9000.htm
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Living in Cambodia made me realise our European ‘standards’ are not standard at all. I have seen workers being pushed into trucks like cattle, knowing they will be transported to their filthy factories where they have to work twelve hours a day for less than minimum wage. Pactics’ way of business may seem normal to us, yet it is extraordinary in its context. The secret of how it’s done? It is the people that do it. I have never experienced employees so proud to work for their organisation as here. Employees refer to their colleagues as Pactics family, no motorbike can be found without a Pactics sticker and every week multiple football teams are battling to become Pactics’ number one football team. Investing in human capital enables you to prosper in a highly competitive market. In my Bachelor’s thesis I examined how Pactics succeeds in facilitating its employees to continuously improve themselves and the organisation. The activities that I evaluated include trainings, process optimisation and human performance measurement. Training employees and improving processes recently led to earning the ISO9001 certificate, which is an international norm for quality management. My thesis got graded with a 8.5, which is out of 10! A future challenge for Pactics lays in inspiring others to do business in a responsible way too. Direct influence is realised through supply chain management in which only like-minded suppliers are chosen to deliver under zero-tolerance policies. Indirectly, Pactics leads by example and hopes to create change in the garment industry. Working in Cambodia showed me that it is really possible to improve people’s lives, take care of the planet and still make a good living. It also convinced me to prioritise these values in any of my future challenges. Not convinced? Go off the beaten tracks and see for yourself.
CAREER CAREER
ESTIEM, a First Step to your Career Tarik Rihani Alpine Regional Coordinator, 2016 Local Group Grenoble
“So… tell me a little bit more about yourself ”. As IEM students who are heavily involved in our organisation, we can use our background in ESTIEM to get the job we want. Being an ESTIEMer has helped me a lot in getting my past internships and will hopefully help me to get my first job. Companies are interested in ESTIEM, for instance, the last interview I did with Schneider Electric lasted around two hours. During those two hours, we spent a whole hour talking about the work I did within ESTIEM. It turns out that companies are looking for profiles like ours. Why, you might ask? ESTIEM gives us a general overview on how an organisation works. Within ESTIEM, we face many organisational issues that we try to solve. With a structure that resembles more or less a structure of a business, we tend to face the same issues, such as the interaction between Committees, Board, Projects, Local Groups and others. Critical thinking. Although our organisation stands on its feet, we still question it a lot. We do ask a lot of questions—yes, mainly the Eindhoven people. What is the purpose of this? Why did we implement it this way and not
that way? Is it necessary to have this? The 5W1H— who, what, when, why, where and how—are quite present in how we deal with our organisation and therefore how we might deal with our future one. The maturity we acquire as ESTIEMers. Having to constantly work with people from a different background, different culture, people you might not necessary agree with, that have a different mind-set than you, accelerates the maturity process. We do a lot of growing in a short time when we’re involved enough in ESTIEM. Moreover, ESTIEM does force you to get out of your comfort zone or as we like to call it: “Aim High”. 52nd issue - Innovation Management
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You might agree with me now on why ESTIEMers can be great targets for companies, but the goal here is to make the other side of the table understand that. That is why it is important to lead the interview. At the beginning of the interview, interviewers usually give you some time to summarise briefly the experiences you put on your CV. The rest of the interview will often be based on that. Make sure you highlight the experience you had in ESTIEM.
In my case, I talk about ESTIEM as the organisation that has helped me implement many concepts that I’ve studied and has opened my eyes on new ones that I haven’t encountered sitting on the university bench. Do not shy away from examples. Being a Regional Coordinator, I often describe how I had to stand up in front of 250 people and tell them that one of the associations I’m in charge of, with which I collaborate deeply, should not get to the next level. It is necessary to adapt your speech to the company and position you’re applying for, something you might be used to if you’ve ever applied for a position in ESTIEM. I tend to apply to international companies, that is why I mainly talk about my role within central ESTIEM, rather than my work on the local level. Moreover, ESTIEM is a big subject that you can talk about for
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hours. Therefore, it is important to choose which part of ESTIEM you’d like to talk about. For example, you can pick that part based on what you think is more valuable to your interviewer. I personally tend to describe the organisational part of ESTIEM, because it shows my potential in; seeing the big picture, working with and managing people, my ability to understand how organisations work, and what is the best way to optimise them.
Another thing: words have meanings and the meaning of a word can change depending on its context. Be careful of the words you choose to use. Stick to the basics, use words that are commonly used like Task force or Team responsible. Words like Local Group, Projects or Initiatives might seem obvious to you, but they have other meanings outside of the ESTIEM borders and it might confuse your interviewer.
It’s all about selling ESTIEM simply by telling the truth. And if you think I am not going to tell my next interviewers that I’ve written an article in our magazine that is on its way to become the IEM magazine of Europe—you might as well be dreaming.
CAREER
Importance of Soft Skills for the Next Generation of Leaders
Claudio Codispoti BrainTrainer Project Leader 2016/2017 Local Group Calabria
Imagine you’re looking at two different CVs on the desk in front of you, a recent one from 2017, and another one from twenty years ago. The technical knowledge required in the first one is, of course, more evolved but somehow very similar to the old one. What is the difference? In the new one, the candidate will include not only the qualities he or she has, to perform a particular task, but also some interpersonal traits he or she has that are very valuable for the position they’re applying for. Those are the well-known soft skills; desirable qualities for certain forms of employments that do not depend on acquired knowledge. They include common sense, the ability to deal with people and a positive and flexible attitude. But they are not so restricted, the list is very long and not really quantifiable. During the last years, more and more companies started to include these traits in the job requirements because they are very important for the internal environment. An employee with a high level of Emotional Intelligence, the kind of intelligence that all the soft skills come from, knows how to articulate
goals and how to work in a team. He or she knows when it’s the moment to take a leadership position and when is the moment to sit back. He or she knows when to speak, when to listen and when to suggest a compromise. With these possible advantages between two candidates with the same technical skills, the one with more soft skills will always have a higher chance to be recruited. So it’s normal that a large part of the most innovative companies of the world started to look for these kind of traits, giving them a lot of importance. When hiring candidates with an IEM background, the companies make an initial selection based on the previous experiences of the candidates and their competencies, but the final choice on the right people 52nd issue - Innovation Management
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to hire are usually based on the soft skills. They want to hire the most suitable person for the open position, and that’s something that can’t be described by the hard skills. This means that having competences in a field and previous professional experiences is the basis for success in a job interview, but this is no longer sufficient. If you limit your selection to these criteria, you will be left with several almost identical applications. Your judgement and decision need to rely on comparing the applicants’ soft skills. Now they are widely used by recruiters as the criteria that make the difference. Looking at the latest trends in this field, here are some of the most important traits requested by companies: ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■
Problem-solving and analytical skills Communication skills Leadership skills Team-building (for leadership positions) Team-working Work ethic Flexibility Time management Detail-oriented skills Reliability Resilience
Of course, some of them are more required for a given job, and the importance of each one of these is always related to the nature of the work and the company. But all of them are relevant, and it is important to develop these skills step by step in your education to be more competitive on the job market in the future.
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Unfortunately, not all the universities in Europe are working to implement these objectives in their courses for the IEM students and often those students have to learn them through different paths. Here comes the importance of European students networks like ESTIEM as complementary experiences for the students. Travelling, meeting new people, sharing knowledge and being confronted with different cultures allows them to indirectly learn some of the above-mentioned skills and become more experienced for their future work. Even the European Pharmaceutical Students’ Association has released a position paper on the inclusion of soft skills in pharmacy curricula. All this information together clearly says, from the companies to the job applicants, that studying and developing our technical skills as much as possible is essential, but at the same time it is necessary to also include some personal development. The biggest companies in the world, and not just them, have employees from tens of different countries with different backgrounds, languages and cultures. The reason why they give a lot of importance to the soft skills is related to their role inside the companies; people with more skills are able to work with different teams because they are flexible, it doesn’t matter if they don’t have the same native language or if they come from different cultures. They will be able to work as a team because they know the impact of their actions and that’s something related to the soft skills—the hidden driver of excellence.
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INSIDE ESTIEM
Months in Review
Frantic. That’s what these eight months have been.
Our Board year started quite some months before the mandate, as soon after being elected we started having our first chats, getting to know each other, sharing expectations, sorting out our communication, distributing PCIs, devising a code of conduct, selecting a collaborative platform—which we didn’t end up using—and sharing and compromising on our goals. We are the first Board following the new summer-to-summer mandate, so there were many novelties in terms of timing ahead of us. We soon had our first Board Meeting in Hamburg, where we had an amazing training by Arjan Rooyens. We discovered that, apart from being quite young, we were also a very diverse board personality-wise. This was definitely a major asset, which allowed us to assign tasks easily and approach issues from different perspectives. It was the first time with just the six of us, and the teambuilding and more personal experiences were essential for us to become a closely-knit and highly-performing squad. Then came goal-setting. It was definitely one of the biggest struggles for us, because we really wanted to hit the nail on the head and focus on what is really critical for ESTIEM. We found a lack of clear guidelines from which to draw our goals—the introduction of long-term planning in ESTIEM seemed like the way to go. Another problem that quickly came up was the lack of alignment between all the entities in ESTIEM. Our second Board Meeting took place in the northernmost Local Group of ESTIEM; Lulea. We gathered at 1º south of the arctic circle to finally define our goals and set up an action plan. We came up with the phrase that would later orient the rest of our year—Modernisation of ESTIEM. The CRC’s momentum of the last year gave us confidence in a budget that was big even under a
conservative approach. One night we sat around a table, drinking FAXE and playing some sort of personal questions game. At one moment, we realised how lucky we were with the Leaders we had. We had spoken about having ESTIEM Leaders, not just P/C/I leaders, but this generation was quick to take action by itself in shaping the whole of ESTIEM, not just their own box, exceeding all expectations we had set. Time flew by and we found ourselves in Serbia, in the city of Nis, to prepare our first Council Meeting as Board. We had a very warm Leader’s Workshop, finally being able to experience a family feeling with our leaders and tell them all about our goals. Soon enough, we were trembling in our suits, green ties and scarves on the stage in Novi Sad. Organising a Council Meeting from the Board’s perspective is very process-heavy, and due to the lack of standardisation, we were somewhat below our expectations. Apart from that, this CM was record-breaking when it came to motions. Nevertheless, we had tons of fun and learned even more. We implemented a new system for awarding LGs and people. We introduced a new concept of Regional Working Groups, which turned out to be successful. After the post-CM depression, it was time to get our hands dirty with what we set out to do. With the Grants Strategy, the PR Strategy, an intent on changing the structure, and several other motions voted, those hands were quite full. We were told 52nd issue - Innovation Management
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that the Board does most of its work between the two CMs, which is probably true. One of our most ambitious designs is the Structure Change Proposal. Clustering ESTIEM’s activities in Departments and redefining the Board and Committee structure is a result of thorough research of previous discussions, documents, involvement and input from previous Boards, current Leaders, active members, and our reflection as well. Even though it was a cautious process, it still is the biggest structural change ESTIEM has seen since its foundation. In the beginning of 2017 we conducted a needs analysis to assess the needs of IEM students. We used the input to compile a long-term plan, also using the two previous drafts from the previous Boards. To facilitate its implementation, the plan shall be voted upon in the General Assembly and a visualisation tool will be used—the Balanced Scorecard. Alongside the strategy, we believe that the Mission, Vision and Values of ESTIEM should also be voted on by the Council. A Task Group was formed in order to propose alternatives to the current Vision statement, which did not gather extensive support, neither did a Vision statement under the technical point of view. During our fourth Board Meeting, we were approached by some Alumni to start an IT project to renew our Portal. Moreover, we saw the current movement of bringing analytics into ESTIEM as having strategic value, installing the Analysis Committee. ESTIEM now has its own Wiki Page, which will facilitate the creation and update of knowledge. During this Board Meeting, we prepared the College, which is now in winter. There, we gathered essential input for the completion of our proposals, and it was probably the peak moment of our year so far. Another one of our goals is to develop ESTIEM’s organisational culture. We are working towards increasing the quality and quantity of teambuilding at our events, as well as making them healthier. Discord is a platform we are trying to implement for people to get some of the benefits of ESTIEM without having to attend events. As to external relations, we evaluated the current ones and facilitated discussions on how general guidelines would look depending on the type of organisation. BEST is a strong partner, and we are applying for a grant together in digital competencies. We are working on a structured way to support 38
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LGs in their relations with universities as it is more sustainable and empowering to focus on supporting the LGs instead of Central ESTIEM having relations with individual professors. All in all, it’s been a mandate rich with learning experiences. ESTIEM is a very unique organisation. Its culture and spirit is what has kept it going for over 25 years. It provides us with all with memorable experiences, real-life skills and lasting friendships. It is our feeling of belonging to something greater than ourselves that also motivates us to shape ESTIEM in a way that it can better fulfill its mission in the future. In high ESTIEM, Taavi, Tiago, Pedro, Milena, Rebekka and Aytac
INSIDE ESTIEM
Aytaç Işık - Vice President of Education To be on the Board of ESTIEM really brings a new perspective on both your personal and soon-to-be professional life. You realise you have to really use that complicated management theory model your professor was talking about last year, how tough decision-making can be and how important the people you are working with are. It becomes usual to leave your home, your country, your friends for four weeks trips. You see what is there waiting for you at those events and what is there when you get back. You also realise the value of your hours in the day when you start using
all of them, and how good it feels to use it for something that you believe in. Being Vice President of Education also makes you look at what you learn differently, as you keep working with different people in different places, on how to make us, the IEMers better. Being a VP in the team has been more fulfilling than I have expected and I surely will make the most out of the remaining time as we pass the half-term mark and start seeing the line at which our successors are waiting to take the flag we proudly carry, literally. In high ESTIEM, for higher ESTIEM!
Milena Popovic - Vice President of Public Relations Almost a year has passed and never could I have thought to myself that this journey would’ve been such an amazing one. I always like to say that I love challenges, but being challenged every day, pushed out of your comfort zone and constantly trying out something new, is truly an unforgettable experience. From the experience of sleeping at bus stations and airports on occasion to being hosted by so many great people and meeting even more on all the different events, it’s all something worth writing a novel about. And after all these experiences, I must say it’s worth it. The best
parts of this job are exactly these people, the cheerful laughs, heated discussions and smiles at the end of an exhausting day of work. It has truly been an honor, travelling around Europe, working with many on shaping the network, being backed up by amazing team and striving forward with incredible pace and ideas. I can’t wait to see the future generations of ESTIEM grow like we have, and the development that will follow. Thank you for this amazing experience!
Taavi Valgerist - President What a ride this has been, it feels like yesterday that I was standing on stage at Council Meeting Porto applying. In a blink of an eye it was already time for CM Novi Sad and we were presenting ourselves as the Board and what we wish to do during the upcoming year. Now looking back to the countless hours of travels, the great number of new friends and acquaintances made, as well as all the online meetings we have had, it’s hard to believe that it’s already time for the new Board to be elected. I couldn’t have been luckier with my position, surrounded with such an amazing team of five very ambitious but also very different people. All of whom have enabled us to already achieve most of the goals we set in the beginning of our mandate, while keeping us from
making serious mistakes in the process. With the support of the leadership, we have managed to reach a concrete Structure Change proposal, as well as a Long-Term Strategic Plan proposal to improve the sustainability and efficiency of the network so even more IEM students can benefit from what we do. Of course, it hasn’t always been easy, it’s been a process of learning from our own and others’ mistakes and successes. Diversity is one of the greatest strengths of the network, but it also comes with the necessity to learn how to deal with it and being aware of how and where to use it. All-in-all, it has been a very concentrated experience, which has passed in a rush and I have never regretted taking the leap of faith a year ago. I encourage everyone to aim high and make the most out of their student life! 52nd issue - Innovation Management
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Rebekka Nagel - Vice President of Activities From my first ESTIEM event until today, I have always been amazed at how much effort, without getting paid, ESTIEMers are putting into this organisation, creating value for IEM students all over Europe. At the same time, I started asking myself what the purpose is for which we are working so hard? Why do we want to foster relations between European IEM students and support them in their personal and professional development? These are the questions that should be answered by the Mission, Vision and Values of an organisation. Together with the Purpose Task Group and building up on the work of Board 2015, we evaluated ESTIEM’s Mission, Vision and Values in order to have them voted upon in Council Meeting Poznan. After several long chats about the purpose of
ESTIEM and where our organisation could or should go in the future, five different Vision statements were defined to be proposed to actives to express their feedback and preferences. What I enjoyed most during my mandate is to see ESTIEMers grow and develop. I discovered my passion for training, and besides our board goals it became important for me to focus on developing ESTIEM’s Trainer Community. Delivering at a Training new Trainers event was probably the most challenging experience for me so far. Position-I wise am working on improving the quality of services that ESTIEM offers and ensuring that they meet the needs of IEM students. To analyse the needs of ESTIEMers I set up an elaborate survey together with the Leaders. Over 300 answers now need to be evaluated, and conclusions need to be drawn and implemented.
Pedro Schuller - Vice President of Finance It has been a privilege to have been leading this unique organisation, witnessing first-hand the growth of our leaders, team members and local groups. I was tremendously lucky to be given a team of smart and fearless young people, that put ESTIEM first on their list for this year of their lives. I too have grown a lot this year. I have more than 140h of flight time so far, I had to learn how to travel for long periods on my own, to manage my time, to work in a team, to manage conflict and to shape an organisation. In the Board, I have been responsible for improving accounting procedures, ESTIEM’s internal regulations and, most importantly for me,
leading the transformation process known as the Structure Change. All this work has taught me incomparably more than many university subjects, because the impact of our actions is real. I’m prouder than ever of the collective impact of our beloved organisation, and would like to see it go on after my mandate, fulfilling its Mission and developing our students for a better World. See you somewhere in Europe!
Tiago Carvalho - Vice President of Administration Nine months is enough time to make a baby. Even though I haven’t become a dad yet I can say that I had another life-changing experience. Being an ESTIEM Board member has been super fulfilling because the options to improve the network and its members are as big as you make them and you can really see the seeds you plant grow before your eyes. I was lucky to have never been 40
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trapped in a loop of countless portal breakdowns which enabled me to steer our infrastructure to a path of improvements rather than one of just maintenance. I spent some of my time improving the efficiency and up-to-dateness of the e-mailing lists and the portal, the linkage of the latter with the Google Drive platform, the development of the Wiki Pages and the creation of the IT Project. I also had a hand in all the Council Meeting related issues and my main task was supporting my leaders and coboardies towards the Modernisation of ESTIEM.
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Local Targu Group Mures Flavius Ardelean Local Group Targu Mures Our contact with the companies from our area
We try to help students to contact companies through different workshops we organise. Face to Face with Employers is the most widely spread event, which takes place every year in April for two days and during which more than twenty companies visit the campus to contact students of the Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management. During the event, the companies present the latest technologies in their professional area, recruitment offers, and paid summer internship opportunities. Each company is given a stand of their own where students are able to contact the representatives and meet their possible future employers. This is also a huge opportunity for Local Group Targu Mures, as the companies present at the event can also be future partners. Such financial partners support our activities and local magazine financially, as well as local and international ESTIEM events. We want to establish a more structured promotion of ESTIEM with the help of our partners, aiming towards having visibility and being known, and therefore offering the opportunity to join ESTIEM to a big number of students. Moreover, we have the support from our university, Petru Maior, and from the professors, helping in our development as a Local Group. Publishing a magazine is another challenge for our Local Group, because we have to find partners and interesting articles. It has been of special importance for our university and simultaneously it captivates the students’ attention towards the knowledge being offered for free.
Mihnea Bloj Local Group Targu Mures The event begins with a short presentation of ESTIEM every year, and after this year’s edition, a lot of feedback was given both from students in ESTIEM and outside of ESTIEM, indicating that lots of employment opportunities were created. White Week 2016 is the second year of the initiative White Week, which has the aim to help disadvantaged children with less possibilities. Through ESTIEM we collected a lot of clothes, toys and food. This year, we gathered goods for more than 400 people and we were in four different places, not only in centers for underprivileged children but also in hospitals. To our surprise, this activity had an excellent impact in our city, dozens of volunteers showed their interest and were involved in our act. In the future we want to extend this event to help even more children. In the near future, more events will be organised with the help of two or three companies with reference to CV achievement, errors in technical drawing and adaptation to a new working environment. Our support Locally, we have partnerships with four to five companies, as well as a pub, which support and help us. These partnerships are beneficial for Local Group Mures because they help us improve and believe in us and in our group. From the beginning, we had a teacher who supports and motivates us, she is trying to make our LG more prominent in our university. We really appreciate this want to thank her specifically, her name is Dr. ing Mihaela Bucur!
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“An Alumnus is never LATE, nor is he early, he arrives precisely when he means to” Gregor Herr Vice President of Activities, 2012 Local Group Munich & Hamburg
Sebastian Geese Vice President of Finance, 2010 Local Group Siegen
Last summer, the first edition of the Leadership Alumni Training Event (LATE) took place. In this article, the Alumni trainers of the event take you through a general view on leadership, we take a look at how the idea of LATE developed, and we conclude by looking at how participants experienced the event. Naturally, the meaning of the purposefully vague title of this article will be explained as well. A Thought on Leadership Leadership has become a tremendously common word nowadays, it seems worth to spend a thought on what it actually means. Many associate leadership with a set of skills necessary to influence people to do what they want them to do. There are certainly skills such as facilitation, empathetic listening or feedback-giving involved, but leadership is way more and in its true sense is something entirely different from influencing people towards your interests. In a nutshell, the meaning of leadership is twofold. Firstly, you need to lead yourself, give yourself a purpose and direction. Secondly, you can lead others once you reached a certain maturity, empower them and give them a sense of purpose and engagement. Here lays the difference to management, which is about efficiency—doing things right—while leadership is about effectiveness—doing the right thing. Leadership is not about controlling people and making sure they do it your way, but about knowing 42
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where to go and making it a meaningful direction for yourself and others. Consequently, good leaders need four qualities: Vision - Vision describes the ability to see what is possible, even if it may not be imaginable yet. Thinking about visionary people, we probably instantly think about names such as Elon Musk, Steve Jobs or Richard Branson. Many of the ideas of great minds may seems unrealistic at one point while later they become part of everyday life; no one would have imagined a smartphone 50 years ago. Back then it was just as visionary as some of Elon Musk’s ideas appear nowadays. Discipline - Discipline is paying the price that it takes to make things happen. There is no such thing as a shortcut to putting great ideas into reality, it takes a lot of hard work, patience and discipline. It therefore rests at the point where vision meets commitment. Passion - In order to create the discipline you need,
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you need to be passionate about the topic. If you are truly passionate about something it becomes way easier to indulge in the hard and exhausting reality until you reach your ultimate goals. It is one of the greater challenges of a leader to uncover the passions of others in order to engage them. Conscience - It is the inner voice of what is right or wrong. As such it is the guiding force to vision, discipline and passion. Conscience gives you the cornerstone to do what needs to be done, in a stark contrast to ‘ego’ which drives you do what you believe makes you look great. Can one be a good leader in the absence of any of these? Think about two people and how they couldn’t have been any more different—Adolf Hitler on the one hand and Steve Jobs on the other. Presumably, many readers are now shocked about having those two individuals in one sentence. However, they had three out of four things in common. They both had a vision, they both possessed the discipline to make happen what they wanted to happen and they were both really passionate about what they were doing. However, the one thing that makes the difference is conscience. We don’t need to discuss the different outcomes of their guidance, do we?
Stephanie Riffo Rodriguez Vice President of Education, 2016 Local Group Eindhoven
Sebastian Hummel Training Committee Leader, 2015 Local Group Eindhoven LATE—From Idea to Event Rebekka Nagel, supporting trainer of the event, talks with Stephanie Riffo Rodriguez and Sebastian Hummel about the formation of the ideas behind LATE and how they were transformed into a real event.
idea to approach Alumni to deliver a Training event which largely includes TNT’s topics, without calling it TNT to get ESTIEMers more enthusiastic about training. ESTIEM already offers different soft-skill and personal development events. Why did you feel ESTIEM needed an event like LATE? Stephanie: Next to the things mentioned earlier, we wanted to bring Alumni closer to ESTIEMers. LATE has turned out to be a great example of how Alumni can support ESTIEMers in their development. At what point did you get involved? Sebastian: When Steph told me about this concept in early 2016, I was immediately enthusiastic. There is immense value in what Alumni can offer for ESTIEMers, especially in the area of knowledge transfer. I got on board at once. Stephanie was in close contact with some Alumni who are skilled trainers or leaders, the time had come to reap the benefits of that. What is the role of the Alumni in this concept? Stephanie: The role of the Alumni is to inspire ESTIEMers based on their own ESTIEM training experiences and to motivate ESTIEMers to pursue a training career based on high quality training. The alumni involved in this event have, thanks to their training experience in ESTIEM, become professional trainers or benefit from their training experience it in their daily consultant life, or just miss delivering trainings. When we started with this event, there were few experienced trainers in ESTIEM left from whom we could learn, we saw that the Alumni could not only fulfill their task as a role model, but more importantly inspire ESTIEMers with their stories of how attending a TNT or being an ESTIEM trainer influenced their work life. Sebastian: That’s exactly where I see the beauty in this two-way contribution; ESTIEM develops ESTIEMers, who then become Alumni, gather experience, and use this to give back to ESTIEM by developing its people. It really is as the title says; once an Alumni is ready to give back, they should have the opportunity to do so. I’m glad that we can provide that.
How did the idea of LATE come into being? Stephanie: Last year the popularity of training in ESTIEM had dropped, while ESTIEM was and still is in need of great trainers. But many of the people who have valuable knowledge within ESTIEM were not attracted to join a Training New Trainers (TNT) event. With the 26th board, we came up with the
How do you see the development of this concept in the future? Sebastian: We have high hopes that this cooperation with Alumni will continue, not only through LATE, but also with concepts such as the Career Event. The values we can get from Alumni should be harnessed. 52nd issue - Innovation Management
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Specifically for LATE, we have the next edition planned for May in Siegen. Other than that, the concept will develop by our active feedback culture, this is highly important to us.
Participants’ Views Irem Gündüz Grants Committee Leader, 2016/17 Local Group Ankara-METU
Irem Gündüz about how LATE helped her in leadership
Carina Almeida on her experience of the event’s leadership case
LATE was one of the best events that I have participated in ESTIEM. I am really inspired by trainers as well as participants. At the time of the event, I was a newly elected committee leader. Thanks to the topic, the event was very helpful for my leadership mandate.
Case studies are like condensed action films—full of characters, plot and conflict—during the leadership case activity, it is exactly what happened. Each group had a real controversial topic and had to unanimous solve its dilemma situations. What we didn´t know is that each member of the group had a role to play in order to make the challenge more engaging. Facilitating the group, being against others’ opinions or not changing your mind were some of the roles we had to play.
I have learned from the event that being a leader is not only about leading a team. Leaders should first define their own position, only afterwards they can lead and motivate their teams.
Especially in ESTIEM, where we are working with so many people from different countries and backgrounds. After the event, I now understand the different personalities and how to benefit from them to better succeed. Finally, the event really supported my mandate in regards to conflict management as it is one of the most important skills in leadership. What I experienced and learned from the event was a great advantage for me when discovering my leadership style, not only in my mandate as an ESTIEM leader, but also in real life. Moreover, I think that we, the participants, really bonded and formed new friendships.
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Carina Almeida Local Group Aveiro
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This training was very interesting, not only because a case-based approach is a useful method to develop key skills that include group work, individual study skills, information gathering and analysis, time management and presentation skills, but also because of the reflection of the activity and the sharing of our difficulties. For example, I had to be an objective facilitator, so I tried to guide the group to answer the questions without giving my personal thoughts about them and I felt really outside of my comfort zone because usually I am the one who doesn’t easily change her mind and can’t withhold her own opinion, especially when others have a different view. It was hard to handle but in the end I really felt having grown up, that is, left this activity with a fuller baggage.
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Club of 100 Frank Heffter Vice President of Finance, 1993 Founder of Club of 100
Martin Schönbeck Alumni President, 2012/13 IEM Caring Foundation founder
Marija Turanjanin Vice President of Finance, 2014 Treasurer of IEM Caring Foundation
The Club of 100 was established in 2014 with the aim to make a difference in ESTIEM and provide a stable source of income. We sat down with three key figures in the Club of 100 to learn more about the story behind it, the current situation and the future plans. How did you come up with the Club of 100 and what was your initial idea behind it? Frank: I was always of the opinion that the development of an organisation like ESTIEM should not be constrained by a lack of funds. The energy of engaged students should rather be spent on projects than on fundraising. Thus, I was continuously looking for ways of generating certain stable income. For years, I was, for example, fighting for a membership fee in ESTIEM Alumni. Since this did not materialise, I thought of other ways of raising money, predominantly from Alumni. As the concept of a limited number of spaces available—kind of an elite
group of donors—flies also in many other instances, the idea of the Club of 100 was born. Marija: All I knew was that Frank was fighting for a membership fee in ESTIEM Alumni. When we met with Frank at the Advisory Board Meeting in Bad Dürkheim, fundraising was—as presumably each year—one of the points on our agenda. Frank mentioned the idea that Alumni could donate on a regular basis, but I told him that it is really uncomfortable to go around and ask for money. You can’t imagine how puzzled we all were when the next day Frank walked up to Nuno and handed him a 500 Euro bill out of nowhere. By that, he founded 52nd issue - Innovation Management
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the Club of 100 and became its first member. As VP of Finance I was thrilled to see a source of income develop for ESTIEM which was independent from our fundraising activities. How long had the idea of the Club of 100 been on your mind before the Advisory Board Meeting in 2014? Frank: I actually don’t recall exactly, but I still remember a discussion I had had with Bart Jutte and a few others on the Bosphorus boat tour at the Alumni Meeting the year before. How did the Club of 100 become part of the IEM Foundation? Martin: The idea of a foundation building upon the collective power of ESTIEM, ESTIEM Alumni and EPIEM developed more or less in parallel with the idea of the Club of 100. Creating equal opportunities has been a core value of the IEM Caring Foundation right from the beginning. When ideas for shaping the foundation were collected, one of the ideas that came up was to support IEM students who cannot afford to be active in ESTIEM. Supporting innovation in ESTIEM also seemed a good fit. At the same time, the Club of 100 needed a formal structure to enable its success. Based on these synergies, the Club of 100 and the IEM Caring Foundation agreed to join forces and incorporate the Club of 100 in the IEM Caring Foundation. Marija: As you can imagine, I didn’t like the idea of the funds from the Club of 100 not going directly to ESTIEM. We had been super happy about having a new source of income for ESTIEM’s activities and we now saw it taken over by the IEM Caring Foundation. However, nowadays I see that it is helpful to have the Club of 100 being apart from the ESTIEM structure. I believe that this increases transparency of how the money is spent.
What are your thoughts on the current activities of the Club of 100? What plans do you have for the future? Martin: During the first two years since its official launch at Council Meeting Baltics in spring 2015, the Club of 100 has made a difference in ESTIEM by 46
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enabling a number of students who lack resources to be active in ESTIEM, as well as supporting a few initiatives by means of the Ad Fundum Award. Going forward, we aim to reach out to more IEM students who want to be active in ESTIEM, but lack the financial means to do so. We also want to stimulate innovation in ESTIEM and support breakthrough ideas that take the organisation to the next level. Obviously, we also need to recruit more members who donate money and we aim to have 100 members in 2020, each donating at least 500 € per year. Marija: As Martin says, we currently focus strongly on supporting individuals who take an active role in shaping ESTIEM. I agree with him that innovation in ESTIEM should take a bigger portion of our activities. However, the size of this chunk always depends on the creativity and commitment of the active ESTIEMers. Personally I would, of course, like to see in the future the Club of 100 supporting students who write their thesis as Impact Thesis.
What kind of support can ESTIEMers currently apply for? Marija: The Club of 100 offers three main areas of support: providing equal opportunities to ESTIEMers, supporting innovation in ESTIEM and supporting events in crisis. Providing equal opportunities in ESTIEM is done through event participation scholarships, for those who have a lack of funds to attend an ESTIEM event, and the leadership scholarships, aiming to support any ESTIEMer in a leadership position. This includes Committee, Project or Initiative Leaders, Regional Coordinators as well as Board members. The event participation scholarship grants up to 200 Euro per person and event, while the leadership scholarship can amount up to 2,000 Euro and is not tied to a specific event. In order to support innovation in ESTIEM, we sponsor the Ad Fundum Award: ESTIEMers who have developed great ideas and are committed to making them happen but at the same time lack funds can apply for this award prior to Council Meetings. Lastly, events in crisis is a tricky one as we only support events that came into crisis due to unforeseen external factors, without any fault of the organisers. That is sometimes rather hard to judge.
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Anyway, it’s probably easiest to check the Portal* for which benefit ESTIEM as a whole. If the Club of 100 the types of funding that are provided by the Club had funded the Ad Fundum Award back then already, of 100. the ESTIEM Book surely would have won it. What are the main criteria you consider in Martin: Another good example is when the ESTIEM the evaluation process? Ambassador won the award. It enabled twelve delegates from different NGOs to join the Council Marija: Applicants must clearly state their motivation Meeting. This resulted in several new memoranda of and point out the ways in which they see themselves understanding between ESTIEM and other student contributing to ESTIEM. They should explain why their organisations, providing mutual benefits to ESTIEM presence at an event or their leadership is significant. and these organisations. Also, the quality of the application itself is, of course, taken into account. Besides, it Any last words to ESTIEMers is very important to stress that as well as potential members the Club of 100 is the supporter of the Club of 100? Members: 17 of last resort. This means that Leadership scholarships: 14 an applicant must show that Martin: In a student organisation no other funding is possible for there should be plenty of great Participation scholarships: 23 ideas, but there might not be him or her. For example, it is expected to have exhausted all enough money to realise them. Ad Fundum Awards: 1 the possible opportunities to I sincerely hope that ESTIEMers finance their ESTIEM activities will use their creative minds and by asking their family members, come up with innovative ideas acquiring extra funds through a student job, or a in the spirit of ESTIEM—we are happy to support state, university or other type of scholarship. As for them financially. I also hope that IEM students who the Ad Fundum Award, it is important that an idea is would like to be active in ESTIEM, but lack the well-developed and quite some effort was put into financial means to do so, will not hesitate to apply developing it. for support. To all Alumni and professors I’d like to say: if you can afford to donate 500 Euro per year, you should definitely consider becoming a member As you’ve mentioned the Ad Fundum Award of the Club of 100. several times; there was some behind the scenes unrest about the ESTIEM video idea Frank: I feel more strongly about Martin’s last point: not winning the Ad Fundum Award. What today, almost three years after the start of the Club happened exactly? of 100, we have not even twenty members in the club out of more than a 1,000 registered Alumni and Martin: The main goal of the Ad Fundum Award is other potential participants. Also, in the IEM Caring to stimulate innovation in ESTIEM. For an idea to Foundation we talk a lot about sharing and giving back win the Ad Fundum Award, it has to be original and to ESTIEM, but when the rubber hits the road, things feasible, with a well-developed plan and a committed often seem to be more difficult. I find that rather sad. team. The award is not meant to simply outsource the development of a video or a website to a third Marija: Well, I think what has been achieved so far is party, but rather to support innovative ideas that very encouraging. In the current state, I don’t see a may lead to a new project or activity, or improve an lack of funds as our primary concern. Also, I believe existing one. when people become more aware of the impact the Club of 100 has, they will be very happy to join and Marija: Exactly! The Ad Fundum award is there to support ESTIEM and ESTIEMers. help a committed team realise its creative ideas,
*this information can be found at https://www.estiem.org/Internal/default.aspx?PageId=3754
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The Magic of Criticism and how to use it Tom Koolen President, 2016 Local Group Eindhoven
Have you ever felt the need to tell someone about his/her bad attitude during group assignments at your university, or had the feeling that something should go in a different direction, but you decided not to say it because you did not know how to tell them in a good way and did not want to seem like the ‘bad guy’? You might have heard of the sandwich approach to feedback, which tells you to sandwich the negative feedback between two slices of positive feedback. There are of course several reasons why someone would use that approach, but I very much dislike that method and I would not suggest to serve this sandwich. It is not transparent and honest—you are hiding the true meaning of your message between positive pieces, and you will likely fail at getting the key message across as you remove the focus from it. Therefore, another method will be introduced in this article.
difference in how this is regarded in different countries. Next to that, Hofstede’s Power distance index shows the extent to which less powerful people accept and expect that power is distributed in an unequal way. A higher number on that scale means that people in that country accept more power distance, which can also a cause for not criticising people who are somehow more highly ranked. Someone from the Netherlands, a confrontational country with a low power distance, is not likely to use the sandwich method. However, also they have something to learn here, as Dutch people can be perceived as too direct with their feedback by their European colleagues.
Figure 2
Figure 1
Criticism and giving feedback can be considered as confrontational and as Figure 1 shows, there is a large 48
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Let us now first define feedback and criticism, as there is not just one perception of these words and especially criticism has a negative association to many people. In this article we will use the same definition for both words, while still pointing out that there is a right and a wrong way to do it, and they can be used
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both for showing that you like or dislike something. The terms feedback and criticism we understand to mean the act of giving your opinion or judgment about the good or bad behaviour of something or someone, with the aim to improve and not to run the person into the ground. Respect also plays a very important aspect here; give criticism in the wrong way and you might end up losing a friend, while the other way around it can increase the trust of others. If you do not have those elements while you are giving criticism, you are just ventilating your own opinion without regard for whether or not it might change anything, so without a purpose. It is uncommon that this is useful for and appreciated by others. Now that we got that clear, we can move to the next point which shows where feedback can be used. If you take a few seconds to think about it, you will notice it is all around you. Some examples:
■■Talk about specific happenings and specific behaviour. It should be clear what it is about. ■■Time it right. The best moment is at the moment the behaviour is occurring or right afterwards. However, giving feedback when someone is really angry or sad might not be very effective. At such a time you should wait a bit, but this should not become days. ■■Focus on the most important thing—pick your battles. A long monologue about all the small things you do not like about something will not be perceived very well. ■■Give space for a response and check if the receiver understands what you mean. ■■And maybe the most important one: do not just give negative feedback, also give positive feedback. The three steps to giving feedback:
■■ At work to your boss to improve work condtions. ■■ At the university to fellow students who are not doing their job in a group project. ■■ In your relationship to your partner to show appreciation for the romantic evening he/she planned.
1) Describe the (observable) behaviour of the other person.
Unconsciously, you are already using it all the time and it really is of the essence in order to get things done and not crop everything up until you burst out against a person. This of course does not always go in the right way and below you will find tips and a method to make giving criticism more effective for both you and the receiver.
3) Explain your request; what would you like the other person to start doing? Make a suggestion for change.
To give proper feedback, you have to keep quite some things in mind. In some cases you might think that I am saying the obvious, but by explicitly mentioning it you will become more consciously aware of them. At the same time, things that seem to be normal for you are very different for others. Important things to keep in mind: ■■ Give feedback on behaviour, not on the person. Saying “I think you are a bad person” will not help your case. ■■ Talk for yourself (Use “I”). It is your observation and not necessarily something that can be generalised. ■■ Describe the behaviour in question in neutral termsand do not give an interpretation or judgement. So not “I hate you when you do this in public”, but “When you do this in public, I…”.
2) Elaborate which effect this behaviour has on you; what do you think, how do you feel, and what do you do because of that?
Even if you use this method it will not mean that the other person will appreciate your feedback or will do something with it. Receiving feedback also requires a certain attitude: ■■ See it as an opportunity to learn. ■■ Do not defend yourself. ■■ Ask for clarification if necessary. ■■ Check what you can or want to do with it. ■■ Let the other know if you are going to do something with it, and if so what. Now you have the tools to give feedback in the right way and you can start practising it, for example at home, the university, work and in ESTIEM. You can even use this approach to ask questions and give criticism at the General Assemblies of the ESTIEM Council Meetings. Lastly, do not forget that you can also give positive feedback to someone giving criticism in the right way!
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The future of External Relations Wout Biesheuvel ESTIEM Ambassador 2016/17 Local Group Eindhoven & Gothenburg
Roughly two years ago, the responsibility of external relations with other non-industrial engineering and management organisations was delegated by the ESTIEM board to the ESTIEM Ambassador. During these two years, bonds were tightened with students from a wide range of different study backgrounds from all over the world. With partners such as the Board of European Students of Technology (BEST), the Electrical Engineering Students’ European Association (EESTEC) within Europe, and the South African Institute of Industrial Engineering (SAIIE) we have partners that overlap with us either in geographical sense or in target group or both. We aim to ensure future collaboration, but why? The value of collaboration It has definitely proven valuable to have external input during our events; it allows us to see the problems we face from different angles. By attending the strategic events of other organisations, we learn from their achievements and problems and use these insights to improve our own projects, committees and initiatives. It is important to understand how the local groups benefit from these efforts, as in the end, they represent our network. Thanks to online meeting platforms, it is not difficult to stay in contact with other student organisations, which allows for the possibility of benchmarking and knowledge sharing throughout the year. The difficulties of crossing Europe’s borders Embarking on cross-continental collaboration comes with difficulties, as no clear form can be easily given to this type of collaboration. Physical distance means that meeting is expensive due to high travel costs, while further/other collaboration options seem less feasible at this stage due to differences in organisational maturity and interests. For now, 50
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collaboration with organisations outside of Europe seems one bridge too far, but should we take it a step further and start a worldwide organisation for Industrial Engineering and Management students? Understanding what we can and want to do Difficulties do not exclusively rise when working towards global collaboration, as any effort to work together holds its own difficulties. A critical aspect to any collaboration is that it should bring additional value for both parties; this benefit should outweigh the efforts and costs that are put into the collaboration. ESTIEM is quite a fluid organisation with a high turnover rate and a wide portfolio of activities that are not all in line with each other. Some things in the organisation can definitely be improved, as can be seen being discussed at every Council Meeting, College and Coordination Meeting. Collaboration is not the Holy Grail towards solving these issues. This means that we should think about how much effort we want and can afford to put in such collaboration projects and, most importantly, which direction do we want ESTIEM to go.
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European Master Thesis Award Stephanie Riffo Rodriguez Vice President of Education, 2016 Local Group Eindhoven About Madalina Madalina Gavrila was born in Constanța, Romania. After graduating from high school she started her IEM studies in Bucharest, where she first got to meet ESTIEM. During her time at “Politehnica” University, she was the Treasurer and then the President of Local Group Bucharest and she started getting more involved in central ESTIEM and VWI. After an exchange year in Darmstadt, she decided to switch studies and obtain her Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration / Mechanical Engineering from TU Darmstadt instead. Being closer to the core of ESTIEM, she also took on her first position in central ESTIEM in 2012, when she became Grants Committee Leader. After completing her Bachelor’s at TU Darmstadt, she began the MSc. Operations Management & Logistics at Eindhoven University of Technology, which she completed two years later after submitting her master’s thesis on the topic of “Postponement / delayed product differentiation in the lighting industry”. She continues to be very involved in ESTIEM, but mostly focuses on the Alumni network and grants-related support nowadays. What was the biggest challenge you faced? The biggest challenge during my thesis preparation was ensuring a proper mix of both scientific value and
Mandalina Gavrila
Casper van der Schaft EMTA Responsible, 2016 Local Group Eindhoven practical relevance. On the one side, my university supervisors wanted me to propose a theoretical framework that not only made sense, but was also quantitative and filled a gap in the existing literature on postponement. On the other side, the company I was working for was facing a decision that would fundamentally redesign their operations in Europe and would have meaningful implications at the Chinese headquarters as well. The model I was building for the Supply Chain and Operations team was going to facilitate the decision making process and would be the stepping stone of the change ahead. What advice can you give to students who are about to start their master’s thesis and are aspiring to apply for the EMTA? My advice might sound trivial, but I really think that the most important thing before starting a thesis project is to choose a topic that is interesting for the one working on it, there is nothing worse than struggling for so many months with a topic you hate; that it has some sense of novelty for the research world, otherwise why would you do it; and that it really solves an issue of the company you’re working for, no one wants another stack of paper to pile up in some closet. Secondly, one should never be afraid to ask for guidance from one’s supervisors or peer—I had 52nd issue - Innovation Management
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plenty of moments where I felt like I had no idea what I was doing—and should really spend as much time as possible discussing with them even if at times it feels like there isn’t any progress made. Finally, even when they think they might not have a chance at winning, they should still apply for the EMTA!
What are you doing now after your graduation? I have recently started working as a Senior Consultant for Oliver Wyman. Although for the time being I willingly chose to work on projects in a wider range of industries and covering more topics than the ones I feel comfortable with, in a few months I will surely start focusing again on projects related to Operations, Supply Chain Management and Logistics.
According to the jury In my experience, a large number of IEM theses are developed within a real life context—whether it is in an industrial or service company, a profit or non-profit organisation. In this type of work, the issue presented by the organisation to the student can be determinant to the success of the work. Of course, none of this matters if the student does not have a proactive approach and a critical spirit. A hard working student with the correct attitude can transform even a seemingly uninteresting topic into a relevant work, both from an academic and a practical perspective. An important aspect of the behavior of the student is to find an equilibrium between a critical mind, fresh and filled with new ideas, and the respect for the culture of a company so as to engage management and workers in the project, if needed. -Asst. Professor Ana Raquel Xambre, University of Aveiro-
Paulo G. Pereira
Mark van Someren
A Decision Support System for the Optimal Definition of Ship Packs: a Case Study in a Retail Company
Influence of Supply Chain Flexibility in a Capacitated Production-distribution Network for Slow Moving Capital Goods
Defining the Ship Pack, the transportation unit from supplier to distribution center and then to stores, is an underestimated process that has a large impact across the entire supply chain. The Ship Pack definition is a multiple variable problem that has to face linear and nonlinear cost expressions, which differently touch each piece of the supply chain. Hence, in order to properly define the impact of the Ship Pack in the supply chain, several cost components are needed to be modelled. Afterwards, the optimal quantity arose from the trade-off of the different costs. Alongside, seasonal and case/inners packaging products were also integrated in the developed model.
Last year I had the opportunity to study the supply chain of a crucial part for MR systems at Philips Healthcare. This supply chain of a slow moving capital good is characterised by long lead times and it reacts slowly to changes in forecasts. Therefore, they focus on a balance between available capacity and buffer stock in the supply chain in order to cope with volatility in customer demand and uncertainty in transportation. Additionally, costs of emergency shipments are included in the total cost calculation because these shipments are expensive. I conducted a simulation study to evaluate how the supply chain could become more flexible. Scenarios with a higher demand as forecasted—+5%, +10%— and multiple buffer methods were considered. The simulation showed that an alternative buffer method, the buffer stock level with an upper limit, achieved the lowest total cost, but with higher inventory cost. This leads to the following conclusion: a more flexible supply chain requires another buffer method, higher inventory, to avoid more expensive emergency shipments.
In order to keep the developed model up-to-date, a Decision Support System was integrated with the client’s database. This solution translated the developed cost model into an online optimisation service, which enabled a more reliable and effortless process to optimise the Ship Pack whenever negotiating with suppliers. 52
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The ESTIEM Spirit
“I know someone you don’t know, Yogi! Yogi! I know someone you don’t know, Yogi, Yogi bear!”
Beer Bear Local Group Yellowstone Dear ESTIEMers, My name is Bear…. Beer Bear. I am writing this message from a cold but sunny Yellowstone park where the first beams of motivating sunlight have touched the stouts, eeeh I mean snouts, of the bears of LG Yellowstone. We woke up after our winter sleep and are more than ready to get some energy from the ESTIEM spirit again. As you might know, LG Yellowstone was founded by our famous Local Irresponsible; Yogi Bear. She saw that the parts of the spirit that make the ESTIEM culture unique should be supported and fostered. This has led to various initiatives over the past years, like the who-is-who document or the Best-Singing ESTIEMer award, but my personal favourite has always been the Songbook. For every Council Meeting, one ESTIEMer gets chosen to become a member of LG Yellowstone. This ESTIEMer gets chosen based on their ESTIEM spirit sharing capabilities and makes sure that the network will keep on sharing, singing and being as lovely as we all know it to be. The new bear helps out with making a new Songbook which all participants of the CM receive so they can sing along.
know so well yet to play drinking games with you and, of course, it means singing songs (and writing new ones) together with people from all over Europe. One of the best things is that it doesn’t matter if you are an experienced ESTIEMer or if it is your first event; everyone is welcome. This spirit pints, I mean, binds all of us and makes us ESTIEMers. Remember to beer, eeh, be open-minded, participative, take the song book and join in! Cheers and beers, Beer Bear Do YOU have a good idea to spread the ESTIEM spirit? Or do you want to add a song or drinking game to the songbook? Send us an email on yellowstone@ estiem.org
This ESTIEM spirit we are talking about connects ale, ehrm sorry, all ESTIEMers during the wide range of events the network is rich. It is super hard to describe the ESTIEM spirit, but once you have felt it, you will know. Important parts are, for example; being nice and open minded to everyone, always talking English when there are other people around, always giving your most whether it is about attending seminars or it is about partying hard (but responsibly). It means you respect organisers and do not sleep through the things they organised, it means you don’t make a mess, it means you invite others that you might not 52nd issue - Innovation Management
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Analysis Committee ESTIEM’s Newest Committee
Selin Bekir Analysis Committee Leader, 2017 Local Group Istanbul-Bogazici
Pedro Schuller Vice President of Finance, 2016/17 Local Group Porto
The Analysis Committee’s mission is to support ESTIEM in carrying out the decision-making task in a more fact-based way in order to help the organisation move in the right direction. We started as three/four ESTIEMers who were providing the board with ad hoc analyses. We believe that conducting quantitative analysis is a skill that is essential for Industrial Engineers, which we see many ESTIEMers still lack. Therefore, we are aiming to train ESTIEMers in their analytical skills and to provide them with a platform where they can practise/ improve these skills. While doing so, we aim to be beneficial for the network by providing fact-based analyses. The Analysis Committee does the following: performance tracking, supporting strategic decisionmaking, training, and creating and collecting data. We track the performance of ESTIEM activities, Local Groups and the whole network by creating dashboards that are continuously updated. We support strategic decision-making by conducting one-off analyses and by providing facts in discussions. We train and support ESTIEMers in analytical and IT management skills by supporting the use of online courses and by one-on-one help from our Alumni mentors. We create and collect data from various ESTIEM data sources. We believe that it is important to have all relevant information available in high quality. Why Analysis Committee? Even though it started off as merely an interest group, a strategic value was quickly recognised in the 54
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potential activities to be developed in this area. In fact, having reliable and understandable data greatly helps ESTIEM in the process of decision-making. However, the measures used to track performance highly depend on the strategy of ESTIEM, which is why it is important to keep such a function under a committee, that reports to the Board and follows its indications. A committee status also helps recognise analysis and monitoring as an essential part of the organisation. However, although this is a new service provided in ESTIEM, we are aware of the possible overlapping with some committees in the future, which indicates a certain need for future rearrangement. How does the Analysis Committee Work? Our way of working is as follows: we collect ideas to be analysed from a variety of sources such as active ESTIEMers, Working Groups we had during previous Council Meetings, and the ESTIEM Board. We are trying to focus on the ideas that can be beneficial for the current issues in ESTIEM. Then, we check if we can find analysts (or analysts-to-be) who are interested and enthusiastic to work on that idea. We extract the data from the portal and use Tableau in our analyses. We are actively using Podio and we keep track of each action about each project by using Scrum Board. Our analyses’ main focus areas can be summarized generally as in the following chart:
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Analysis Committee Team Structure Our team consists of mentors, supporters and members. Members work actively on their respective projects. Mentors help those members in their projects and in their data analysis tool learning/ usage. Supporters support the committee with more conceptual related issues and give valuable input/ideas for us to improve our analyses and the committee as a whole.
year. In our Travelling Retention Project we analyse the path a newbie takes in ESTIEM by analysing which events they started with and to which events they went as their second and third event. Hence, we can see if there is a general pattern between event types. Moreover, by checking the last events and the total number of events of an ESTIEMer, we can see which events, in general, retain ESTIEMers the best. In our Supply/Demand Project, we want to detect and see the supply and demands of events, for instance whether there are seasonal effects of events, etc. Our next projects will be the following: The Activity Dashboard—where we can see how Local Groups are doing in general, compared to each other.
About our Projects During the previous years, we had three projects: IEM vs. Non IEM in ESTIEM, the ESTIEM Structural Diagram and the Effect of the Regional Concept in ESTIEM. One of our first projects was the Local Group Dashboard; we created a dashboard where we can see the number and the type of events organised, first time travellers, total travels made, number of ESTIEMers hosted, etc. for every Local Group per
The Project Dashboard—in which we want to see how each project is performing by analysing their events, waiting/registered participants information, location of events, diversity of participants, coordination meetings, etc. We will also improve the Local Group Dashboard, in which we want to analyse each Local Group in a more detailed way by analysing their events organised, attended Council Meetings, portal logins, new members, travellers, activities on central level, frequencies of travels, total active members, and more!
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IEM Education Forum Amani Ahaouari Academic Team Leader 2017 Local Group Grenoble
Hanna Kammering Local Group Aachen
The IEM Education Forum’s mission is to bring all stakeholders of IEM education together and create a platform of diversity in order to share experiences and best practices to gain new insights for participants and encourage the improvement of IEM studies on local level. Why do we need it? If you were asked to name one thing that unites all ESTIEMers, in comparison to other European students, what would you say? Probably the most obvious thing; the study programme Industrial Engineering and Management—IEM—that we all share.
that some things work better or worse in universities elsewhere and that we are missing some aspects in our education that others have—or are proud of some unique aspects that others are missing
But how much have you actually discussed this topic with other ESTIEMers? Do you know what it means to study IEM in their countries?
Concept and definition The key objective of the IEM Education Forum was to encourage the improvement of IEM studies on a local level. This should be achieved by bringing together different stakeholders of IEM education to share experiences and best practices in teaching and studying IEM. Participants should learn from each other and take these new insights and ideas back to their home universities to be able to talk to the
As it turns out, our common study programme is hardly ever a topic in ESTIEM. To change this fact, a new event was created where IEM is the center of our discussions and which should encourage students to actively participate in its improvement. Because even if we don’t talk about it, we all know 56
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Thus, in October 2016, eleven ESTIEMers, four IEM professors and one IEM alumni met in Karlsruhe for the first edition of the IEM Education Forum.
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people in charge for their study programme. The initial idea for this type of event was derived from another student organisation. Jelle Dikker had attended a BEST academic event where they discussed education in Europe. The IEM Education Initiative was created in October 2014 to also bring these kind of discussions to ESTIEM, and from the beginning one of the purposes was to organise an event like the IEM Education Forum, initially called Summer Education Forum. Outline and main topics Out of the four working days in Karlsruhe, the first and the last one were reserved for students as preparation and follow-up days, while during the other two, professionals were invited as well. In separate sessions, interesting discussions on various matters around the focus topic of Skills Integration of IEM Education evolved. The aim of these were not to get to a concrete conclusion or to find the one best practise that can be applied without restrictions to all European universities, but to get an understanding on the meaning of IEM around Europe and on what could be important for the improvement of the education of one’s university.
Understanding of administration, market and economy
■■ Understand organisational systems ■■ Know about processes ■■ Do analyses ■■ Identify problems
Understanding of technology
■■ Understand certain technical areas ■■ Know about operating processes ■■ Identify problems ■■ Have the ability of deep learning
To give an idea on what the sessions contained and what was discussed, what follows is a short summary of the session on Core Skills of IEM Students. Core skills of IEM Students The goal of this Working Group was a relatively concrete one; to find and define skills that all graduated IEM students have or should have in common—thus, find out what we called core skills of IEM students. The participants first discussed openly about what academic skills, soft skill or knowledge should be
gained by IEM students. Among others, it was remarked that: “It is hard to say to what extent and in which fields IEM students should have knowledge” “The academic skills of IEM students should, above all, help them to connect different fields and work in an interdisciplinary environment” “Having more soft skills is very important, however, they cannot always be taught by the universities”. Another session during the event concentrated more on this question and on Practical and Soft Skills of IEM Students in general. However, the group then tried and succeeded to find different pillars for skills they saw as crucial for graduated IEM students to have. Certainly, this list does not portrait all IEM students around Europe, but it can give a first idea on what links European IEM students. This was particularly interesting since in a previous session, the students had compared their curricula and found out that they were very different, between countries as well as within a country. The core skills that were found could then be arranged in four pillars:
Interdisciplinary skills and integration
Ability to change the status quo
■■ Self-learning ■■ Adaptiveness ■■ Communication ■■ Connect different perspectives
■■ Designing ■■ Implementing ■■ Anticipation of consequences ■■ Decision making ■■ Project management ■■ Problem solving
In a concluding discussion, the issue was raised that universities and industry don’t seem to see the benefit of having IEM as a study programme in some countries because it is not a requirement to study IEM for working as an Industrial Engineer. This question was a main aspect of a following session on Philosophies of IEM Studies; what is the added value of having an IEM background? What makes it special compared to other study programmes and where did it come from in the first place? Concluding One thing that all participants learned during the Forum was that the ‘other side’—whether it might be 52nd issue - Innovation Management
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the professors or the students—is in fact interested in their thoughts about their education and that we as students do have a say in it. This does actually already happen, for example by Student Unions that represent the views of their students towards universities. If you have one at your university, it is definitely worth having a look at what they are doing concretely—and if there is none, it might be time to change this!
We have heard that LG Karlsruhe was actively involved in shaping the event together with the central team of the Education Initiative. What was the added value to your LG by organising the IEM Education Forum? As Local Group we were able to gain a lot of insights about our university in general. As it is quite a big university, there have been many new connections to professors and other parts of our university we were able to add. Also, we were able to motivate new people to join in serious topics and events like the IEM Education Forum. All in all, I think we gained a more professional image at our university, boosting our general attractivity as a student organisation. Yingkai Yang Project Leader from LG Karlsruhe
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The next edition is planned to be held around October 2017 by Local Group Aveiro around the topic IEM Education perceived by industries, with the involvement of Prof. Carina Pimentel that has participated in the first edition in Karlsruhe. For more information about the content and the outcomes of the first IEM Education Forum, have a look at the report that is available online on the Portal. As a second year Bachelor student, what was your motivation to attend this event and to participate to these discussions about IEM Education? Where your expectations fulfilled? I attended the IEM Education Forum because when I was in my first year of the Bachelor, i didn’t like the subjects that I had. They were very technical. I wanted to know what the curriculum is like in other universities as well as to understand if everything that we study is actually required in professional life. This event exceeded all my expectations because I realised that the subjects are basically the same in terms of management and engineering, however in other universities there are more opportunities for exchanges and studying in another faculties than in, for example, Portugal, where we only have Erasmus. Bruno Macedo Participant from LG Aveiro
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Tomas Riberio businessbooster Project Leader 2016/17 Local Group Porto
After becoming an ESTIEM Project, businessbooster’s aim was to promote and stimulate the entrepreneurial spirit among IEM students, providing them with a great opportunity to develop their personal network and share business ideas, knowledge and professional experiences. However, low revenue streams to financially support projects and difficulties providing professional counseling lead businessbooster to focus mainly on organising events targeting the different stages of an entrepreneur’s development. Consequently, building a community that would gather entrepreneurship enthusiasts was put on the back burner. Nevertheless, in the beginning of 2017, the ESTIEMpreneurs Community was created. This community aims to be a platform where all entrepreneurial minds, enthusiasts and experts can meet, exchange their knowledge and spread their passion through the whole network. ESTIEMers can join the community as Startups if they have an idea or prototype they want to develop, seeking for mentoring or consultancy. ESTIEM Alumni can apply as mentors if they want to be deeply involved in the development of a Startup or as consultants, sharing knowledge to help others to succeed.
In the second stage, the community will function as a love platform where Startups find a matching profile of a mentor or consultant, or a matching profile of an ESTIEMer trying to enter this fastmoving entrepreneurial world. The aim is that, like in a romantic relationship, everyone can grow together. When we say ‘love’, we mean love for the game of being an entrepreneur, for the thrill of every choice and decision made to scale your business, love for this noble role of not accepting the status quo and creating something from zero to greatness. Even though no match was done by the time this article was written, the team already has mentors and consultants available if a Startup applies. The businessbooster team felt that the community had more potential besides only pairing up Startups with mentors. It was possible for the team to acquire a license to create and develop online courses through a partnership with the IEM Caring Foundation. After 52nd issue - Innovation Management
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The main learning objectives of the course are the following:
will always have the support of our mentors and consultants to decrease the inevitable probability of failing.
■■ generate business ideas ■■ develop and validate a business model for your idea ■■ apply different growth strategies to your startup ■■ make money and finance your startup ■■ build a winning team ■■ take the social aspects of your startup into account
The Lean Startup Entrepreneurship course teaches the ESTIEMpreneur how to develop his/her own business idea and turn it into a successful startup. Together with fellow students you learn what it takes to succeed as an entrepreneur. The best participants receive coaching from a mentor to develop their startup. Eight live webinars held by experts and entrepreneurs give the ESTIEMpreneur the opportunity to gain unique insights and find answers to the startup questions that you face.
gaining some experience with this new resource in businessbooster - The Competition, it was possible to create the Lean Startup Online Course which aims to stimulate and improve ESTIEMers’ entrepreneurial skills and provide a more sustainable basis for them so that they can start-up better, faster and with more confidence. Later on, if the participants feel like it is time to launch themselves into the market, they
“No matter how brilliant your mind or strategy, if you are playing a solo game, you will always lose out to a team”. Do you want to lose or to be part of a team? Scan it. Boost it.”
Interested? Check out our portal page and click the “join us” button or scan the QR code on the left to apply as Startup, mentor or consultant and start developing your entrepreneurial mindset! For questions or doubts don’t hesitate to approach Andreia, our community responsible, at andreia. araujo@estiem.org.
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Sustainable Business Days Noémie Lachman Local Group Brussels
From the 16th to the 22nd of october, fifteen ESTIEMers took part in the Sustainable Business Days in LG Milan. Here is an overview of what happened. The aim of this event was to show ESTIEMers how to respond to the new societal and environmental challenges that are transforming the business world today. When scarcity of resources and the prominent social needs are taken into account, it is clear that the current value creation models are not effective anymore. These two elements need to be considered when developing profitable businesses. Therefore there is a need for new business models and new strategies. Sustainability is sometimes perceived as a utopian conception of society. Many people are still skeptical about the importance of implementing sustainable models in the way we do business. This event, however, showed to participants how the concept of sustainable development can be implemented in actual firms. Showing concrete applications of the principles of sustainable development in businesses was a way to put an end to the misconceptions about sustainability. Five specific topics were covered during this event. To allow a comprehensive understanding of these topics, a balance between the theoretical part and practical part was kept, allowing participants to adopt different perspectives on these issues. Participants had lectures and practical sessions about Corporate Social responsibility, Life Cycle Assessment, Social Enterprise, and Wellbeing Challenges. Another topic tackled during this event was Circular Economy. Circular economy is an industrial model that consists in designing waste out of the life cycle of a product and promoting resource efficiency. As opposed to linear economy, it is inspired by nature.
Circular Economy is also a new economic paradigm that consists in reducing consumption, reusing products and finally, recycling products. The practical activity regarding this topic was a visit to a company called Relight that is specialised in collecting, recycling and treating what is called ‘Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment’. This company was founded in 1999 in cooperation with Philips in order to create a network for the collection and recovery of fluorescent lamps in italy. Later on they started taking care of cathode ray tube devices—TVs and monitors. The components of the waste that arrives at Relight is first separated, then treated, and last but not least recycled. The participants had a guided visit of the plant and were able to see all the different steps for the treatment of these wastes. While participants acquired useful knowledge for their studies, or future professional lives, they also gave some of their time to help others. One afternoon of their stay in Milan was dedicated to a volunteering activity in Casa Suraya, a reception centre for refugees named after a Syrian baby that was born in Milan. The participants were divided into groups and had different tasks to do. Some of them helped to sort out the donations made to Casa Suraya, others helped to clean the garden from its dead autumn leaves. Even though it was a modest contribution to the cause, it is important to note that it created discussion. As this event revolved around building a more sustainable society through businesses, it is also necessary to think critically about the other factors that influence the sustainability of a society.
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How did you feel during the activity? I was happy to be able to contribute in a concrete way, it was a very rewarding experience that made me feel much more useful than sending money or making a materialistic donation. How did it influence your perception of volunteering ? I realised that NGOs get a lot of materials as donations. It is often the easiest way for us to help, but I understood that it is not the best way to do so. What they lack is workforce to help them do some manual work. Also, they don’t ask for commitment from your side. If you are able to come on a frequent basis it is great but if you are only able to come and lend a hand every once in while, it is also a very valuable help. How did it influence your perception of refugees ? Everybody sees a lot of things in the media about the refugee crisis, but we were able to see it from our own eyes. We saw what is the actual life of refugees when they are ‘lucky’ enough to be accepted in a reception center. I think calling them refugees creates a distance, but they are people like us, except they were separated from their families, which is extremely sad. However, going to this reception center and seeing how some people try to help them, and how easily we can contribute ourselves, made me feel very hopeful. To conclude, the core of this event was really to go from concepts to their applications and really do something. It was about showing that it is not that hard to do and that all of us can actually contribute. Why does ESTIEM focus on environmental responsibility?
social
and
The Vision of ESTIEM is to develop the future leaders of society. As a matter of fact, it is highly likely that many ESTIEMers will reach a point in their career when they are in a position to make important decisions and to take action for change. As climate change and many societal challenges take place in today’s society, it is important that these future
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decision-makers act responsibly towards people and the planet. A natural support to this vision of ESTIEM, is the Social and Environmental Responsibility Committee— SERC—with its purpose of Developing ethical leaders of society. SERC’s focus is on three areas, which are Equal Opportunities & Ethical Behavior, Health & Safety, and Environment. SERC approaches its purpose by educating ESTIEMers about sustainable and responsible behaviour and by raising awareness for the social and environmental challenges that we face in society. The aim of this unique Committee is certainly not to push its vision on ESTIEMers, but to promote conversation, inspire action and support initiative. One tool to inspire action is SERC’s Event Guide that is created to support event organisers to provide them with recommendations and ideas to implement during their event, in order to make their event more socially and environmentally responsible. There are many directions that SERC could decide to take to support its purpose, but to be more productive and to ensure the Committee is not separating itself from organisational aims, the team created clearer long-term goals for the Committee. These goals encompass Zero net CO2 emissions— ESTIEM’s emissions compensated Sustainability as a fundamental feature of ESTIEM Equal opportunities and ethical behaviour as a showcase of ESTIEM events do not negatively affect ESTIEMers’ health. To support reaching its goals, SERC has recently been developing a Measurement System. By measuring how ESTIEM is performing in social and environmental responsibility over the years, we can monitor our progress. One important component of the Measurement System is the SER Survey, which will show us how different aspects of SERC’s focus areas are perceived in ESTIEM. We will find out, for example, if we are really as open-minded as we think we are. We will also know, if ESTIEMers are generally ready to take action towards being more sustainable organisation.
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Project/Committee/Initiative Updates Academic Days has had two editions lately: Milan and Porto, both receiving very good feedback from participants. The general focus was on high quality content and the proper target group of participants. This was mainly conducted by encouraging the use of learning goals by organising LGs to create a good basis for discussion with their mentoring professors and set the right expectations to, in this way, target the right participants. An IEM Mapping survey will also be sent to LGs so that we get an overview on the opportunities there are in our network to be able to offer high quality and interesting IEM related events. Academic Days events are now coordinated by the Academic Team, that is working closely with Local Groups. They give them guidance, but let them shape their own events and encourage them to actively involve their university professors and representatives, since they are the ones that know the most about what’s the best that can be gotten out of a one week academic event at their universities. The next editions will be announced soon! The Academic Team is the Educational department of ESTIEM that has been established around November 2016 by the merge of the Education Initiative and the Academic Days Project. The department gathers activities that are striving for the common goal of Supporting the Educational Formation of IEM Students. It has started by combining all the services that were offered by either the Education Initiative and Academic Days, but is not limited to this in the long term and is open to any new suggestions coming either from ESTIEMers or ESTIEM Local Groups. The Academic Team was also created in the context of the structure change in ESTIEM, to serve as a pilot to evaluate the feasibility of the structure change and provide first sample results.Since its creation after CM Novi Sad, the main focus was on finding the proper ways and dealing with the challenges to work as a team, avoiding task redundancy and ensuring efficiency, while maintaining the quality of the current activities. This was challenging since it required specific people, profiles and abilities, but the general outcome is satisfying. An effort also has been made to work closely together with ESTIEM Committees and contribute to ensuring their supportive function. We are convinced by the relevance of the department and the way it is structured for ESTIEM, and the next step would be to decide upon they way in which the team will be managed in the long term.
2016 was a good year for the BrainTrainer Project; successful events, with BrainTrainer Creativity in Projects in Calabria winning the Best Event of the Season at the LIII Council Meeting Novi Sad; more people active inside the central team; and four events planned for the first half of the upcoming year. We were working very hard and after several months, we saw the results! But we want more. We want to be more useful for all the ESTIEMers and be the referral for the personal development of this network, give all ESTIEMers the opportunity to develop themselves and be more skilled and competitive in their future professional careers. That’s why we started an internal renovation that resulted in a new structure, a new logo and new services that will be available soon after the LIV Council Meeting in Poznan. Of course this didn’t stop us to support the event organisers; IstanbulITU, Minho and Ankara-Bilkent realised great events where people learned new skills and were fascinated by the potential of this event concept. The new year brought us a new spirit and a lot of people ready to work hard and make this Project more suitable for all ESTIEMers who want to challenge themselves more—that’s what we want to improve this year, that’s why we worked so hard during the previous months. But still, there is space for more active members and several skills are needed! Yes, I’m talking directly to you, what are you waiting for? Contact the Leader and become part of the new BrainTrainer! Since the last Council Meeting, the Language Programme has been focusing on standardising and improving its current offerings. It concretely defined the concept of its biggest asset, Language Courses, and standardised one of the services offered to Local Groups during events, the Language Sessions, with a template to allow every session to have its deserved quality. Moreover, Language Dictionaries became one of the project’s services, by allowing each event to have linguistic support for its participants. The Online Language School (OLS), the next big idea of ELP, began its slow implementation, with trial sessions for its three main activities: Online Language Lessons, Conversation Clubs and Pen-Pal activities. In the future, OLS is expected to become one of the biggest assets of the Project. 52nd issue - Innovation Management
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ESTIEMers also had the opportunity to learn German, at a joint event organised in Braunschweig and Hamburg! The ESTIEM Summer Academy aims to bring a group of ten to fifteen international students together during the summer holidays to engage in open discussions, group work, debate and private study under a senior Academic Leader. During a period of one to two weeks, the students deepen their knowledge about leadership skills while receiving education on topics relevant for Industrial Engineering. One of the most unique characteristics of Summer Academy events are the tight bonds formed between the participants, due to the environment of sharing and deep, focused learning. Through the Summer Academy project, ESTIEM recognises the importance of and takes responsibility for providing knowledge about ethics and sound practices among future leaders of society. After Council Meeting Novi Sad, the project went through a roller coaster of emotions after we unfortunately had to cancel the 2017 Winter Academy Edition due to external reasons. Still, that has made the team focus on working really hard in order to deliver three high quality Summer Academy events this year. Also, we recently came up with a new initiative called Summer Academy Diary, which will promote the contact between SAC alumni and other ESTIEMers, in order to exchange memories and knowledge related to the Project. Still, there are big things coming in Summer Academy’s short-term future, so stay tuned! 2017 had a great start for the Vision Project. Our series started and we managed to implement two major goals. We used the flight readers to inform the future participants about the knowledge they will gain during the events, the companies they will visit and the culture they will experience. This was a big achievement, as in the past years we struggled to bring back to life this idea that previous leaders had once. As a second goal, we implemented the Vision Channel—a portal section filled with video sessions from the events which aims to offer an overview of each subtopic by showing fragments from the lectures and the visits. The Channel welcomes all ESTIEMers interested in the current Vision topic Renewable Energy—the Power of our Future! Establishing new mutual beneficial partnerships has always been the goal of the Corporate Relations Committee (CRC). Where the main focus of the CRC was on establishing new partnership for 64
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the central organization, it has shifted towards supporting all the services of the network. Thanks to great work of the support team in the committee, the CRC now has the opportunity to offer support to each Project or Initiative of ESTIEM. Over the next months the CRC will try to incorporate the Sales team in the support process and create a complete offer overview of all the projects. Next to that, we have created a more efficient way of keeping track of the current ESTIEM partners. In this way, we hope to maintain more sustainable collaborations for ESTIEM. All in all, this should lead to a situation in which the CRC is able to offer many more ESTIEMers the opportunity to develop themselves in a professional way and support them in starting their future careers. The Grants Committee searched for EYF (European Youth Foundation) grants and applied for an EYF grant for the first of October deadline in order to be eligible for the structural grant. However, the application has been rejected. The structural grant application of ESTIEM to EYF is no longer possible. Two Local Groups’ grant applications have been rejected for the third round of Erasmus+; the fourth of October deadline. Two other Local Groups have submitted their applications for the second of February deadline. The Coordination Meeting of the cash cow committee took place in Brussels. In addition to spreading grants knowledge within the network and taking strategic decisions, we met EPSA and benchmarked with them in the fields of grants. Moreover, we worked on the ESTIEM Grants Strategy which was initiated by the 26th Board of ESTIEM and voted upon and accepted during the Council Meeting in Novi Sad. Currently, the committee is working on the creation of a Grants Library within the network, updating the PIC number database and reporting on the previously conducted research. For the upcoming months, the focus of the committee will be on the structural grant of Erasmus+ and the ESTIEM Grants Strategy. Any IEM student will need basic knowledge in IT to be successfull in their future career because Information Technology is the subject of the future.. For this aspect, I find IT Committee a place to learn and practice, a try out area for getting ready for our future life. As Information Technology Committee during the 6 months we have worked for providing better services for all the network. We have focused on improving the sustainability of the Committee, assuring the knowledge and experience transfer between the old and new members. Our main purpose was to create a new IT generation in
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ESTIEM, which will maintain the quality of the IT infrastructure in the future. We have organized several Webmaster Trainings especially focused on the portal and now we are working on Webmaster Training videos which may aid ESTIEMers all the time. We have successfully arranged a Coordination Meeting, where we have worked on a new platform ESTIEM Wiki and thelong term IT strategy of ESTIEM. Now we are working on ESTIEM aims to make ESTIEMers life easier providing a searching option for the documents. And also, we are developing the long term IT Strategy of ESTIEM, including the requirements of a new portal, making a system design and development of the idea. The Knowledge Management Committee had a fruitful Coordination Meeting in December. The team has been working on the improvement points taken during the CoM. Standardised feedback forms have been created for all kind of events, this will increase the credibility of the reports and the annual quality report. ESTIEM Wiki pages are being created continuously to create a comprehensive knowledge library for ESTIEM. The Members Committee is changing. Over the past months, we have decided to set our focus on finding new opportunities in support for Local Groups. We have been trying out different things, for example a more personal approach to LRs by motivated and experienced people who will help them to create an action plan and make it happen. We have also worked hard on improving the Local Responsible Forum, studying the needs of the network in this sense. Last but not least, we are more than happy to have achieved one of our goals and shaped a draft for the change of the membership process. We hope this is just the beginning of it and all new Local Groups will benefit from it in the future. Let’s make our network sustainable! The Public Relations Committee’s main goal this year is to improve the image and brand of ESTIEM as a whole (i.e. LGs, PCIs and Central ESTIEM), not just to focus on the Central ESTIEM image. To achieve this, we have created a big and strong team of people and trained them to be able to work at the highest level on the design of all the CM printing materials of ESTIEM (t-shirts, posters, stickers, brochures, etc.) and to support and create materials for the PCIs and LGs that need it. To train our members and all the PR people of LGs and other PCIs, we have created a series of PR video trainings where experienced PRC members show how to create ESTIEM PR materials. We are still creating more videos for the series. We also implemented the PR Mentoring Program, where
experienced members teach all the secrets of PR to the newbies, and with this we will make the PR of ESTIEM sustainable. We also had the training event Media School in Moscow and will have the PR-CR School in Aachen to train all the people interested in the PR of ESTIEM. In the Online PR Team we are now focusing more on LinkedIn, since this is a network with a huge potential for ESTIEMers to enhance their professional network, for ESTIEM to be more known to potential sponsors and for improving our professional image. We are also pursuing an interactive strategy on Facebook and Instagram to engage our followers by posting pictures, asking questions and making them participate, as well as posting gifs and videos—the future of the Social Media. We are creating a video for ESTIEM with material recorded by ESTIEMers during events. We are also creating posts about ESTIEM Alumni experiences to show how ESTIEM can improve your life and career. The last implementation was the PR Sharing Platform, where experienced designers upload the editable files of their designs and we organise and share them with the PR people. We also created templates to easily create all kind of designs. Moreover, we created the new visual Best Practice Documents and Corporate Image Guidelines, that can be followed easily and also have some PR advice. With this we will solve the problem of LGs and PCIs that don’t follow the guidelines of the ESTIEM brand. It has been a full year and a bit over since the Social and Environmental Responsibility Initiative (SERI) was installed as the ninth Committee of ESTIEM. Some of us are still struggling with the new abbreviation (SERC), but meanwhile there have been major changes, other than the name, in the work SERC does. During the first half of 2015, a new strategy was established, which has been taking SERC into a new direction. While struggling to find continuity in the work and to set up a good team structure during the latter half of 2015, we could define clear long-term goals that will help the Committee to focus. This and other important work was done during the Coordination Meeting in Berlin, at the end of January 2017. What is next? A survey on ESTIEM’s social and environmental responsibility will be given out and results will be analysed and reported. The survey is part of our aim to measure ESTIEM’s performance on SER areas and to conclude how far we are from our ideal organisation that is socially and environmentally responsible.
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South Korea
the Country of Excesses
Thijmen Smith Local Group Eindhoven
South Korea is usually seen as a relatively unknown, but also wealthy and high-tech country. The connection with North Korea is easily made because of all the news related with the latest Kim-dynasty ruler; Kim-Jong-Un. However, South Korea has a lot to offer for an exchange student; good and cheap food, the many karaoke nights, sleeping in the library next to the Korean students, the neon-lighted streets of Seoul, and the chance to see North Korea closely—the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). Choosing South Korea
Being an active ESTIEMer for a couple of years, I have learned a great deal about European cultures by working in an international environment. Europe, however, is just a small part of the world and therefore I chose to explore some new parts of the world. At Eindhoven University of Technology it is common to do an exchange semester during your Master’s degree. Asia caught my attention due to its intriguing culture, the possibility to travel, the price level and its universities. I ended up at Korea Advanced University of Science and Technology (KAIST) in Daejeon. This is a prestigious university in Korea since only this university will exempt you from military service if you graduate with a PhD degree.
Student Life in Korea
Living on campus at KAIST means adjusting to a 58
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completely different schedule. Life itself happens mainly outside of your dorm since the rooms are small and have no kitchens. Luckily there are quite some cafeterias and small restaurants at the campus that provide cheap but delicious food such as bibimbap, gimbap, noodles and beef soup. The campus has everything else you can wish for; night shops, free fitness areas, coffee shops, and decent lecture halls. Studying is quite different in Korea and the Netherlands. Even though the lectures are not always difficult, attendance is always checked. The Korean students usually do not ask any questions because they are either too shy to ask in English or they do not want to question the higher authority—the professor in this case. This does not mean that the students are not eager to study, quite the contrary. The students prefer to study 24 hours per day and
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anywhere possible. It is not abnormal to get a meeting request at 3am to work on some project or to see some students sleeping on their desks in the library. The latter is a sign that the students are studying so much that they need to rest as well. However, people also do this if they are not sleepy just to show other students or colleagues that they are working very hard. The Korean people are usually very shy towards foreigners and you have to take the initiative to make contact with them. However, the Koreans are very helpful and kind if you ask for help. At night the Koreans usually behave very differently. It is not uncommon for them to go out eating and drinking after work with colleagues and their boss. Since there is a high power distance in Korea, the workers do not want to deny any request from their boss. This is also the case in the evening when they go out and drink with their boss. The alcohol makes the Koreans much more open and it is usually the start of many a fun evening. However, this also stimulates alcoholism in Korea and it is a big problem. I certainly hope that the Koreans can be more open and make their own decisions in the future.
South Korea Facts
Population: 50,801,405 Density: 507/km2 Currency: South Korean Won Capital: Seoul Population Seoul: 25,000,000 National dish: Kimchi National drink: Soju Companies: Samsung, Kia, Hyundai
The Jimjilbang Experience
After coming back to Incheon Airport from Taiwan we were surprised that all bus tickets to Daejeon were sold out. We also would not be in time for the last train so we needed to spend the night in Daejeon. My friend had heard of a 24-hour public bathhouse ( Jimjilbang) before, so at 1am we decided to go there. For about twelve euros we could enter and then the moment of realisation came—naked with drunk Koreans in some hot mineral bath at 2am. If you can picture it, you can imagine how crazy it must have been. Apparently the Jimjilbang is also some sort of open hotel in the upper floors where you can grab a mat and sleep on it. Finally at 5am we took the first train back to Daejeon to catch some proper sleep. second largest city of Korea, Busan, for example, with its beautiful beaches, mountains and the largest department store in the world. There are many more small cities and national parks to spend your time experiencing the Korean culture. There are also possibilities to go abroad. No, I did not go to North Korea, however that is actually possible if you want to. I went to Tokyo and Taiwan which are completely different from each other in terms of the people, culture, crowdedness, nature and atmosphere. Finally, I want to encourage everyone to go on an exchange semester to experience new cultures. It does not matter where you will go, I am sure that you will also find unique and fun experiences. Hopefully I can read your story in one of the next editions of the magazine!
Traveling Through South Korea and Asia
The location of South Korea makes it hard to travel to other countries during the semester, but the country has enough to offer to compensate for that. Korea mainly consists of highly packed cities due to a mountainous character and most of them are easy to reach due to good infrastructure. This makes the environment perfect to spend your weekends elsewhere than on campus. Seoul is the obvious place to start and it has quite something to offer; the old ‘Joseon’ dynasty palaces, Namsam Park, Hongik University area to party, free museums, fish markets, and baseball. You can definitely see the American influences in the Korean culture such as the popularity of baseball, pop artists, cinemas and nightlife. Besides Seoul there is much more to do. The 52nd issue - Innovation Managements
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The IEM Aspect of a World Tour Yorick Heidema Local Group Eindhoven
In October 2014, 24 students set out to do what was thought to be impossible a reality. They decided to create their own electric motorcycle and drive it around the world in 80 days. Why? To prove that technology has developed enough for us to create a vehicle that can fulfil the needs of the mass, if only one were to invest in it. This required a lot of skills taught to students who study IEM, this article lists the clearest ones. Project/team management The most obvious skill needed to be able to organise a world tour is team management. As IEM students, the first thing we learn is to define a goal and set up a path that will get us there. Of course, this is not something that is clear from the start, but part of a process that matches the interests and expectations of the team members. At first there were three founders that started with an idea: “To change how the world perceives electric vehicles”. As time progressed, 30 team members joined the team. After two years of the reality of hard work and expectations being met and changed, 23 members remained with the vision to “Ride an electric motorcycle around the world in 80 days by only using the existing electric infrastructure”. These 23 team members could be divided in four different groups: Strategy/Logistics, Engineering, Public Relations and General. Each had their own specialities.
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Planning Production Organising these 23 members and making sure that everyone made their deadlines was one of the biggest challenges. What you learn and experience at the university also applied in our situation. Whatever you plan, expect it to take twice as long, and that will be the closest you’ll get to the reality. Furthermore, you should always have a contingency plan. For each part of the motorcycle that we wanted to create, for every logistical operation that was on the critical path, there were at least two/three companies that we were in contact with to make sure that, if suddenly one of the companies did not have enough production capacity, we could still make sure we made our planning. Routing Another part of the planning is the planning of the actual world tour. Here, there are three aspects that need to be balanced: events/border crossings/sea
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transport, driving time, and slack. Below you can see how a random excerpt from our planning looked before we left: One would think that with 25% extra time on google maps, full days for border crossings and a whole day of slack every ten days, this would be a far too safe schedule. In the end, the opposite was true; with this schedule we barely made it. Relationship Management Fake it till you make it During a two-year project, it is crucial to keep the whole community involved. We defined our community as the team, our ambassadors, panel members and, of course, all our partners. To build such a community it is crucial to come with concrete results, even though they seem very stupid. For example, the first thing we showed our community was a styrofoam model of the motorcycle that had only a very vague resemblance to our final motorcycle. Nonetheless, I think it’s safe to say that about half of the community at some point sat on that model, which fuelled their willingness to help us even more. Keeping in contact—the key to finding solutions where you least expect them Before, during and after the tour, every team member had a list of contacts which they kept up to date of our progress and status. This made sure that everyone was following us and was involved in our progress. Thanks to that, we found solutions to problems from directions we least expected them. For example, before we entered china, we had no confirmation of whether or not we would even be able to ship out our batteries to the USA. Three days after shouting out to the community, a contact in Shenzhen (1600 km off route) mentioned that they could help us out. This way, a procedure that would usually take three months, was fixed in three days. This is only one of the many examples of how a good network can help
you out. Keep them involved, updated and thank them when needed. Human resources How to deal with 24 different people and not kill each other In the two years prior to the start of the world tour, the team had created a culture of openness and direct sharing of issues whenever they arise. Every week there was a team meeting where everything that happened was discussed. Some would consider that this would be a drag on productivity, but it actually saved the team during the tour. Because this practice was continued during the tour, small irritations could be handled before they festered and exploded. Where it almost went wrong During the world tour, the team had no problems dealing with most cultures. But somehow it almost went wrong in China. There the team had two tour guides, one who was very experienced with foreigners and one who was new to the skill, but that had a very strong opinion due to her past experience as English teacher. The mismatch in culture and way of working went so far, that at some point the guide threatened to blow up the rest of the events and let us arrange what we wanted ourselves—which is practically impossible in China. This situation was resolved by doing the opposite of what the team was used to: only sharing specific information with the guide and letting only a few people work with her. In the end, the project was mainly a success because of the crazy people who were willing to push through and look for help when needed. These were not only the students, but all the partners that were invested in the story. If anyone ever wants to take up a similar challenge, I would recommend finding some people that do not know the word impossible and that you can work well with.
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Event Calendar
May 2017 02.05-07.05 Dortmund visits Aveiro, Aveiro 03.05-07.05 Stockholm visits Munich, Munich 06.05-10.05 Mediterranean Regional
Coordination Meeting, Xanthi
08.05-14.05 Training New Trainers, Lisbon 14.05-18.05 Alpine Regional Coordination
Meeting, Munich
14.05-20.05 Vision Final Conference, Aveiro &
Coimbra
16.05-22.05 PR-CR School, Aachen 18.05-20.05 Utekravallen Activity Week,
Linkรถping
18.05-24.05 Europe3D 10th Anniversary
Germany, Dresden
22.05-28.05 Big Data Days, Istanbul-Yildiz 22.05-28.05 Leadership Alumni Training
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23.05-28.05 Ilmenau visits Novi Sad, Novi Sad 23.05-29.05 Lean Six Sigma Green Belt Training Event, Vienna 30.05-04.06 THE Activity Week, Paderborn 31.05-05.06 Career Event, Eindhoven June 2017 11.06-16.06 Novi Sad visits Ilmenau, Ilmenau 11.06-17.06 Europe3D Russia, Saint Petersburg 12.06-18.06 Sports Activity Week, Karlsruhe July 2017 05.07-10.07 EXIT Activity Week, Novi Sad 08.07-21.07 Summer Entrepreneurship
Training, Minho & Porto
25.07-30.07 Public Relations Committee
Coordination Meeting, Coimbra
Winners of the #bESTIEMphoto contest
1st place - @estiembudapestbme
2nd place - @i_amsimon
3nrd place - @dostiyarov
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