Swedish companies get help from JIBS students

On Friday 11 March, the winning teams of JIBS unique competition “Expanding Markets Award” were announced.

The award ceremony marked the end of the master course Advanced International Marketing, Trade and Export Management, which is unique in Sweden. Three student teams were rewarded for having presented the best export and marketing strategy for a Swedish company. The award is sponsored by Business Sweden, ALMI, EKN, SEK, and Swedfund.

“In this course you have to solve problems on your feet, without anyone telling you what to do”, said Assistant Professor Angelika Löfgren before giving the floor to Johannes Falkeström from Business Sweden, who announced the winners.

The winning team consisted of Fabian Rumpp, Matteo Betti, Do Gyoon Kim, Marc Lamhofer and Sara Nasciben. They have worked with Vox Tonus, a small company that produces high quality speakers. The company has put a lot of effort into developing the product but now needed help with a potential strategy to expand into the German market.

“Our group is diverse in terms of background, but we had a very good chemistry, a lot of fun and trusted each other”, said the winning team, and also mentioned the commitment and support from the company founder as another key to their success.

“The teams have had different assignments and different expectations from the companies”, said Assistant Professor Darko Pantelic.”A committed company certainly leads to a better result for the team. We would really like to have more companies involved in this course.”

70 students of 22 different nationalities have been working directly with 13 Swedish companies to assess and develop the marketing of their products to international markets. On March 10 to 11, all groups have presented their solutions to a jury, with representatives from the export promotion organizations and JIBS, and the jury then chose the winners.

The second place went to the team working with JG Metall; Nemanja Rajcevic, James Galbraith, Thomas Sabathier and Daniela Polziehn. The third place went to the team working with FormH17; Linnea Wiberg, Jolien van der Schee, Lisa Gageler, Ann Christiane Neubauer and Pontus Davidsson.

The master course Advanced International Marketing, Trade and Export Management aims to give students a better understanding of how international business can be conducted in practice. The course is done in collaboration between JIBS and Business Sweden, The Swedish Export Credit Agency (EKN), The Swedish Export Credit Corporation (SEK), Swedfund and ALMI, who give guest lectures and support the students during the course.