Hello there Hanketeers et. friends,
You might remember having read about Academic Business Consulting last year in Marco Eckhardt’s blog “ The Layover”, well, we are #backinblack, to tell you a bit about this year’s ABC adventures. As you might remember, ABC is both, a course in Hanken and a student-run consultancy company that sells consulting services to real customers. The best type of course for those who enjoy learning while doing, I became this year’s CEO and the amount of learnings from a business and people management perspective is unimaginable.
This year was full of very exciting projects, customers and host companies. The background of our consultants varied from entrepreneurship, finance, economics, and legal and the projects ranged from our regular market research, academic research for white papers to developing the internal operations of ABC. So if you’re interested in participating do not be discouraged by your background, in fact many of our consultants have their own companies so their expertise while executing their projects was very valuable. We had a total of 24 consultants engaged in 7 different projects and we landed the biggest ABC project ever!
For the ones not familiar with ABC, the company pays for an educational trip for the consultants with the profits of the year. The aim of the trip is to meet with companies and learn more about their business strategies, good practices and also to create a network for the future entrepreneurs. This year the chosen destination was New York #thecitythatneversleeps. NYC has been named the world’s tech capital by the media, and it is not surprising to think that it would attract entrepreneurship students. Nevertheless, we cannot leave out the impressive skyscrapers, the city vibe, the recognizable places from the movies, the different hipsterish and artistic Brooklyn views and the Manhattan fancy style, it was breathtaking. No wonder why NYC is the capital of the world, you can find everything in the city, a concrete jungle and a contrasting beautiful central park that will remind you of green Helsinki.
We were about 18 consultants and spent roughly a week in New York, where we had the chance to visit the Consulate General of Finland, the New York University where we had the chance to hear the final pitch of startups looking for funding in the $300k Entrepreneurs Challenge, which is one of the largest and most innovative accelerator programs and startup competitions in the world. Also, during our visit we met with the CEO and VP of hospitality at Brooklyn Brewery where they explained how their business evolved and revolutionized the craft beer industry in the US. Finally, we had a day trip to Boston where we had the chance to meet the Dean of the Division of Continuing Education at Harvard Extension School and a Senior executive from Education First. The main message from the host companies was around “networking” and the importance of creating partnerships and connections in order to achieve a goal.
Have you ever heard the expression “the more the merrier”? Well, we lived up to it. The 18 of us stayed at a very nice and cozy 4 story house in Brooklyn, and if you have ever wondered what is like to live in a sorority/frat house, well so did we but now we know! It was a lot of fun, but can you imagine how challenging it is to organize 18 people to be ready at 6 am to take a bus to Boston? Well, believe it or not, we made it. In our free time, we visited Manhattan, walked the Brooklyn bridge, explored Central Park, tried all the different restaurants in the center, went for brunch – the fluffiest pancakes I have ever seen in my life! We had team building activities, one of those was a cooking contest where the #guyz cooked some Asian type of food and the #girlz made taco tortillas from scratch (mind blowing right?). Another one was to watch Game of Thrones altogether in the living room and #spoileralert be shocked by Dany and Drogon go rogue …whoops, I warned you about the spoiler.
All in all, the trip was a great experience, many of us had never been to New York, while the ones who had already been there enjoyed coming back. The trip helped us to create bonds that will last for life, and to create the great experiences and memories together about our Hanken days! Personally, I developed my people managing skills. Once I started the position as a CEO, and as #MichaelScott would say, “I knew exactly what to do. But in a much more real sense, I had no idea what to do”, but now I can say that I have survived and learned a lot!
This year’s ABC course will begin in October 2019, so if you are interested in a life changing learning experience, I fully recommend ABC 10/10 Hanken course. For more information on our previous customers and projects, please visit our webpage (www.academicbusinessconsulting.fi) and for more pics of our NYC trip check out the @Hankenofficial Instagram account. Also, our new ABC newsletter is out and live, so go and check it out from ABC Newsletter
Now #ourwatchhasended and we wish the new consultants the best of lucks in their projects!
xoxo
Damarys