Company Project Work | BBS Bologna Business Management – Food and Wine

15 June 2022

Company Project Work is the flagship of BBS Professional Masters Business Management under the direction of Professor Angelo Manaresi. Three four-week projects in May, June and July take students on a journey away from traditional university lectures and into the world of work and business. Students are invited by prestigious companies to work on a real task. Four weeks later, the results of the group work are presented in front of company executives.

This means giving them the opportunity to get to grips with the world of work, to come into contact with leading companies, possible future partners or internship locations; to test their skills in practice, handling real problems and planning efficient solutions to submit to companies. Three Project Works in three months, three teams and three presentations, means developing work skills already while studying, talking to executives of top companies, touching reality as well as theory. BBS has created, in the words of Professor Barbara Lorenzini, marketing teacher at the Master in Business Management, ‘a protected incubator where students develop methodological and soft skills useful for entering the working world’.

The very high placement rate (more than 90% six months after the end of the Master) and the equally high participation in the Master’s program (classes from 20 to 50 students) prove the success of the idea. Alongside the Company Project Work, there are other extracurricular initiatives such as the MGIncontri, another activity organized by Professor Lorenzini and provided for Master’s students: informal meetings with executives from enterprises, alumni presenting their start-ups, and companies telling their stories. In a face-to-face conversation, virtually far from the lecture halls and the University approach, students can exchange views with the managers and professionals invited to the meetings, with a focus on enhancing personal skills.

For the FOOD AND WINE track, the kick-off of the II Company Project Work (June) was given by Altromercato, a leading Fairtrade company in Italy, growing by 13% per year, with over 80 employees and a sell turnover of 90-100 million to the customer. The challenge: to find a trade marketing brand strategy for the Altromercato chocolate line. On-line, together with the students and professor Carlo Caranza, management consultant and retail expert, Valeria Calamaro, Head of Marketing and Sustainability Altromercato, and Silvia Nulli, Category Manager Altromercato, after introducing the company and, specifically, the chocolate sector, illustrated the request to the students: to create a trade marketing strategy for the GDO in order to develop the Altromercato brand in the chocolate line, increasing distribution and sales volumes. The students are asked to redefine the positioning of Altromercato’s offer in terms of values and advantages to be communicated; compare the brand with competitors on assortments, packaging, prices, etc.; carry out a store check on the GDO’s main chains and formats to then define a trade marketing strategy, a commercial plan (distribution network, shelf analysis, strategic range proposal, pricing, etc.). A real four-week immersion in the retail of a major company for the students of the BBS Professional Master Gestione d’Impresa – Business Management track Food and Wine; a way to put into practice the topics studied: management, marketing, strategies for the distribution of Italian food and wine excellence.

As for all tracks of the Master in Gestione d’Impresa – Business Management, students are provided with frontal lectures, Company Project Work workshops, and examples from the business world through the MGIncontri: a path that naturally leads to an internship and that, in addition to curricular activities, ensures the learning of fundamental soft skills such as public speaking, negotiation, strategy formulation and their presentation. All of this, moreover, is enriched by an individual transversal Project Work, which lasts the entire year, and which simulates the creation of a start-up whose Business Plan is presented at the end of the course.

Master in Gestione d’Impresa – Business Management is the beginning of a journey to enhance one’s individual capabilities aimed, in all respects, at a fast entry into the world of work to which one aspires.