Kent Business School recently launched a new initiative providing our students with valuable practical experience while enabling organisations to benefit from their fresh ideas. The Student Business Pitch took place at the Business School’s Canterbury campus at the University of Kent.
Video: KBS Student Business Pitch – Shepherd Neame
The idea is simple. The organisation provides a ‘brief’ to student teams who then research and analyse the issue, looking at practical innovative solutions. The student team then pitches to a panel of representatives highlighting their findings and recommendations for consideration.
David Williamson, Director of External Services at the Business School explains, ‘This type of enterprising approach provides external organisations with a number of fresh ideas that can be taken back in-house for discussion and further development. The pitch also provides students the opportunity to work on a real business ‘brief’, allowing them to put their learning into practice and enhancing their future employability skill. A win-win for all involved’
Kent brewery Shepherd Neame set this month’s challenge asking students to focus on brand development and retail operations.
Graeme Craig, Sales and Marketing Director at Shepherd Neame was highly impressed. ‘This is a fantastic experience for students… and great for us too. We certainly have some new ideas to consider and the standard was very high – just the sort of thing as a business that we would like to see more of.’
The winning pitch was presented to Jack Moss and Jessica Foster. Jessica reacted to the award, ‘We really enjoyed the business pitch today, receiving some valuable feedback and found the experience of pitching to a real business very exciting. The opportunity will certainly help us in our future careers.’
Jack Moss added, ‘It will definitely help us going forward and it was very beneficial in terms of pitching to a business such as Shepherd Neame.’
Dr Dan Petrovici, the student’s tutor in Marketing said, ‘This partnership with Shepherd Neame provided our students with a chance to experience a hands-on assignment to work on a real-life business challenge with a particular focus on marketing communications. Many creative, exciting ideas were presented during the Business Pitch. The Pitch aims to further enhance participating students’ employability, providing them with valuable transferable skills.’
Gurnisha Gill achieved second place for her pitch and described the experience as a ‘fantastic opportunity that Dan and the Directors at Shepherd Neame gave us today’. She went on to say ‘I would like thank all involved for creating this opportunity – I have learnt a lot and the feedback was invaluable.’
For information about Kent Business School and how we can help your organisation please contact David Williamson at kbsbusiness@kent.ac.uk or on 01227 82 7192.