Two student teams were named champions in the 2023 International Business Plan (IBP) Competition, embedded into work-integrated learning courses offered by The Australian National University (ANU) College of Business Economics (CBE).
The aim of the IBP is to allow students to work as consultants in teams of three or four, for Australian small-medium sized enterprises, supported by the University, TradeStart, Canberra Business Chamber, the ACT Government and the Canberra Innovation Network.
The overall winning team and recipient of the ACT Government Office of International Engagement Prize worked with HiveIQ – a business that creates insulated beehives – to develop a comprehensive and viable business strategy for entering global markets.
“Shifting from an academic approach to research and report writing, and putting myself in the shoes of a business owner was definitely a challenging component of the competition!” says team member Ella Brodie.
Fellow teammate Izzy Rigda believes that their plan’s ability to be easily implemented, while being feasible is what made it stand out.
“We looked at HiveIQ’s current business strategy, and realised that extending their market beyond the United States and into Canada was profitable and a logical next step for the business,” she says.
We also identified that the Canada market had a serious bee colony loss rate that HiveIQ’s products provide the perfect solution to. Our strategy then focused on forming feasible and logical recommendations.
When asked why they believed the team performed so well, the answer was simple: cohesion.
“The noteworthy element is the synergy between undergraduates and postgraduates that created unparallelled team coordination and knowledge sharing,” says teammate Samantha Johnson.
Meanwhile, the runner-up team worked with Nominal Systems – a digital engineering platform for complex systems.
The team proved that their own challenges could be turned into their greatest strengths.
“As an exchange student from France, I was lucky enough to work with a team that was aware of my challenges and found other ways I could contribute. For example: I could conduct the research into expansion into France for the client,” says Ronan Cuiffa.
The IPB provided the team with the opportunity for practical application of their theoretical learnings.
“Coming to ANU on exchange from the Netherlands, I had a comprised blend of psychology and business studies, but had never been able to apply them to a real-world scenario,” says Anique Dohmen.
“I possessed all the knowledge needed to generate ideas for Nominal Systems.”
The enthusiasm and knowledge brought by the IBP student teams was something of note from the client.
“As a deep tech start-up tackling big challenges in the space sector, we were continually impressed at Nominal with the enthusiasm and fresh perspectives that the teams brought to the table,” says Nominal Systems CEO Christopher Capon.
The teams were able to quickly take on board a technically complex product offering and help us distil down some core offerings, approaches and strategies that we could apply as we set our sights on international expansion in the coming months and years.
John Robinson, General Manager of HiveIQ, likewise was impressed by the calibre of students from ANU.
“Our experience with the IBP was exceptional and provided real, actionable insights for our company to use,” he says.
“The students were receptive to feedback, acted professionally and had a genuine interest in helping HiveIQ achieve goals in expanding internationally. We are, and continue to be grateful for the outstanding work done by the students and hope we can partner with ANU for future projects.”
The annual ANU International Business Plan will take place again in July 2024 under the convenorship of two award-winning academics in the Research School of Management – Alexander Tietge and Professor Vinh Lu.
“Six local businesses will participate as live industry clients for the 2024 competition. We look forward to welcoming the new cohort of undergraduate and postgraduate students across disciplines to engage in this meaningful learning experience,” says Professor Lu.
Students interested in participating in the IBP in Semester 2, 2024 can enrol in BUSI3024 Business Export Planning or MKTG8035 Global Business Project.
The ANU College of Business and Economics offers an extensive range of specialised programs. Click here for more details.