The practically oriented seminar ‘Problem Solving and Communication’ in particular allows us, as a corporate cooperation partner, to actively shape the development of students. The bachelor students independently develop solutions for a question or problem from practice that we provide. The seminar was supervised by our consultants Jasmin Neamtu and Patrick Streit, both from Nuremberg and former FAU students themselves. This makes them ideal contacts for both the students and the university team.
The Seminar
As part of the Problem Solving and Communication seminar of the Chair of Corporate Management, the students were tasked with analyzing the possibilities of expanding digatus’ business field towards strategic management consulting and outlining implementation plans for the desired path. To support the seminar participants during the project work, the project is divided into three phases: initial kick-off, Q&A session, and final presentation.
The milestones during the course of the seminar
A total of 96 students found their way to our kick-off event at Friedrich Alexander University in Nuremberg on April 12th. After a brief company presentation by Stephan Bals and Patrick Streit, the initial skepticism towards a supposedly ‘purely technical IT company’ quickly dissipated, and the students showed great interest in digatus and the project. Many professional and career-oriented questions and conversations after the event rounded off this successful kick-off event.
A supervisor from the chair was available to the student teams for feedback in the sense of a steering committee. The groups themselves conducted these conversations in terms of content and prepared accordingly. They took on the role of a consulting team and viewed the supervisor as the client to be advised, who had commissioned them with the problem-solving task. About halfway through the project time, the digatus team was available to the participants for an extensive Q session, which was intensively used by the students.
To maintain close contact with the groups and to be able to respond to inquiries in parallel with daily business outside of the official Q sessions, the students were integrated into our internal collaboration solution. This uncomplicated and quick method of cooperation was very positively received by the teams.
A successful conclusion
On July 12th, we welcomed the best teams, consisting of 17 students, to our Munich office, where they presented their results to our leadership. The students impressed us with their professional demeanor, thorough research work, and particularly detailed elaborations that in some cases even went far beyond the required level. Especially during the Q sessions, it became clear how deeply the teams had immersed themselves in and engaged with the topic.
The ‘top management attention’ proved to be another success factor for this practical cooperation. The presence of the CEO, managing directors, and department heads, who took an entire afternoon for the final presentations, greatly impressed the students.
“With digatus, our students had an exceptionally committed practice partner this semester with an exciting task. We thank the entire digatus team for the great cooperation!
Moritz Hagen – Research Associate, FAU Nuremberg
We found it particularly interesting how impartially the students approached the topic of business field expansion and came up with sometimes very different solution approaches. In the coming weeks, we will analyze the various group concepts in more detail and thus develop individual recommendations for action and strategies for digatus.
We thank the students for their commitment, would like to stay in touch with them, and hope that perhaps one or the other will find their way to us. We would also like to thank the university for the good cooperation and this completely successful start of our collaboration! We look forward to many more exciting projects and seminars!
