The Kent Business School recently welcomed partners from Santander Corporate Banking to its Canterbury campus to take part in its now well-established Pitch It challenge.
Pitch it! is an innovative initiative developed at the Business School and is based on a simple premise. An organisation provides a ‘brief’ to student teams who research and analyse a set challenge and pitch back innovative and practical solutions to a panel of representatives from the company and the School.
Santander Corporate Banking seeks to be the No1 lender of choice particularly for SME businesses in the region and in the UK. With this in mind, Santander asked Kent Business School marketing students to consider how the bank might develop its marketing message and communication channels to new prospects, to further position itself as an immediate choice for SME’s based in the South East
“It is always interesting and important from a bank’s point of view to get as many different sources of insight and information. And today the information we received in terms of how we’re perceived, what we could do better, and how we can improve on what we do, has been really useful. I think there are a lot of ideas we can take back and look to implement courtesy of the students. It has been brilliant”.
Alistair Aird, Business Development Director, Santander Corporate Banking
Working under the direction of Lisa Wood, Lecturer in Marketing and the Kent Business School, the students looked for regional and local rather than national solutions which required analysis, creative thinking and practical solutions that could be implemented by the bank. Five groups of students took up the challenge and undertook an in depth analysis of competitor offerings, communications messages, local and regional marketing channels, exploring the value to existing customers whilst providing solutions for improved market profile with new customers.
“We get really excited when doing something competitive outside of our traditional academic work, and it was a great opportunity to present today”.
Megan Marshall, BBA Marketing
“It’s been a fantastic experience having exposure to such a huge and prestigious company as Santander, and just having this kind of one-to-one experience with such a big company has been very useful ”.
James Standing, BBA Year in Industry
All the teams were commended on the interesting range of ideas put forward, their analysis of social media, their use of online research tools, as well as their focus on empathy, humour and personality to convey communication messages.
“It’s been fantastic working with the students here today; we’ve been really impressed with their attitude and some of their deep insights that they’ve given us into our world.”
Gareth Anderson, Relationship Manager, Santander Corporate Banking
Pitch it! is a great way to get new ideas, both highly innovative and practical for organisations to consider back at base. In the past, business pitches have looked at branding, market segmentation analysis, media & communication plans. Broader management themes for consideration include strategy, finance and human resources.
 |
 |
Click here to view the latest Pitch it video
For more details about Pitch it! and other student projects and opportunities to partner with Kent Business School, visit the Pitch it! web page.
Visit the Kent Business School Facebook page to see more pictures of this event.