Context and backgroundOur students read about multinational and international trade, but come across very few real-life examples in their direct environment or in the local economy. More and more students start out with little experience in international business and find their way to the job market with limited business capacities (such as sales skills, negotiating with clients and suppliers, business communication, making a business plan). A business orientated school should be able to fulfill this growing demand, but at the moment there is no ready-made guideline to follow and starting up an international project looks like an impossible big jump for many inexperienced schools.GoalThe project's main goal is to develop workable, sustainable and readymade methods for a school to transfer knowledge and experience about international trade from the actual work field to the student. By using these methods in the trial-and-error context of the project, we will find different ways to stimulate and reinforce student empowerment to take care of international business relations. We will find methods to motivate students to leave their comfort zone (friends, fools & family) at presentations and sales moments.The project includes local companies from the participating countries, who will be contacted by the students' own initiative. The basic idea is to make the students search innovative products or services in cooperation with the local entrepreneurs and learn to sell those in the other EU countries with help from groups of students from the other countries. Students from the other participating countries must be consultants in the matter of making contact with the local consumer (B2C) and as well as possible local entrepreneurs (B2B). For a successful end of the project goals, this includes marketing, distribution, branding and regional studies.Number of participantsAbout 4000 persons will benefit directly and indirectly from the project. These target groups involve the students of participating business schools, as well as the business schools who could follow the steps of this project as the local entrepreneurs, local authorities and the other local citizens.Activity description, method and outcomesIn year 1, the focus of the project will be on creating the business guideline for schools to conduct an international education project with a strong focus on B2C market. First of all, the participating schools will introduce the strategic partnership for internal and external stakeholders of the project partners and the business schools will start the selection of students.After installing an IT-platform for communication, evaluation of many activities, as well as for dissemination of the project processes and project aims, the students will search for the local products which will be carried out during the project in each participating country. In several workshops, local school preparational tasks and international meeting activities, the students will be prepared on international selling techniques and the implementation of marketing tools. During the exchanges in Gran Canaria and Denmark, the students will sell on the local B2C markets and will be testing the implementation of several marketing techniques by trying to sell their local products abroad. Evaluation and dissemination of the outcomes from the B2C market sales will be implemented in the lessons learned in the marketing process B2C and the whole process of selling abroad will be published in the project business guide.Where other international school projects stop on the B2C market, our project starts in year 2 with the preparations for setting up an B2B network for local products in the partner countries of the Single European Market. Again local school preparational tasks and international meeting activities will help the students to find the local entrepreneurs and logistic partners to create the first steps into an international B2B network. Therefore, the experience won on the B2C market will be used to test and adjust the B2B strategy in the exchange of Austria and Belgium. The local entrepreneurs will be linked with the national products by the students and the logistic partners will help to start the partnerships between the foreign made collaborations. Afterwise evaluation and dissemination of the outcomes from the B2B market sales will be implemented in the lessons learned in the marketing process B2B and the whole process of selling abroad will be published in the project business guide.SustainabilityAfter 2 project years, the schools will not only establish a long-term partnerships to work on transnational educational projects, but also have a business guide for schools to follow in their upcoming international cooperations. By publishing our business guide in each country, other schools will have info and experience needed to conduct a successful international project on both a B2C and B2B market from start until the end.
Context and background: Our students read about multinational and international trade, but come across very few real-life examples in their direct environment or in the local economy. More and more students start out with little experience in international business and find their way to the job market with limited business capacities (such as sales skills, negotiating with clients and suppliers, business communication, making a business plan etc.). A business-orientated school should be able to fulfill this growing demand, but at the moment there is no ready-made guideline to follow, and starting up an international project looks like a big jump for many inexperienced schools. Objectives: The project's main goal was to develop workable, sustainable and ready-made methods for a school to transfer knowledge and experience about the international trade from the actual work field to the student. By using these methods in the trial-and-error context of the project, we found different ways to stimulate and reinforce student empowerment to take care of international business relations. We came across methods to motivate students to leave their comfort zone (friends, fools & family) at presentations and sales moments. The project included local companies from the participating countries, which were contacted on the students' own initiative. The basic idea was to make the students search for innovative products or services in cooperation with the local entrepreneurs and learn to sell those in the other EU countries with help from groups of students from the other countries. All the students were consultants in the matter of making contact with the local consumer (B2C) and as well as possible local entrepreneurs (B2B). This included marketing, distribution, branding and regional studies. Number of participants: About 4,000 people have benefited directly and indirectly from the project. The target groups involved the students and the staff in the participating business schools, the partner companies, the local entrepreneurs (visitors of the B2B-market), the local authorities, other local citizens (visitors of the local B2C-markets), and the host families. Description of undertaken main activities: The main activities were the four short-term exchanges of students and the activities between the exchanges. During the exchanges, we had two local markets in Spain and Denmark (B2C) and one market for companies in Belgium (B2B). Furthermore, the students participated in the daily classes and they had lessons in business-related subjects e.g. business culture, social media and marketing, IT, and drawing a business plan. We also visited local companies in the countries, the city halls, the Chamber of Commerce in Austria and the European Parliament in Brussels. The preparation for the exchanges: First of all, we selected the students for the project and introduced them and their parents to the strategic partnership. Then we contacted internal and external stakeholders of the project. After that we found the companies to participate in the project. Once we had made contact with the companies, the students started to do the analysis of the companies’ products market opportunities in foreign markets. These analyses were done on a macro level. When the analyses were finished we started to plan the summits. We discussed the program and activities. The students "met" via Skype where they got to know each other. They also made a digitalized presentation of themselves and their schools. Shortly before the summit, the students prepared marketing materials to bring with them abroad. Furthermore, we installed an IT-platform for communication, evaluation of the activities, as well as for dissemination of the project processes and project aims. The students were searching for the local products which were carried out during the project in each participating country in several workshops, local school preparation tasks, and international meeting activities, the students were prepared for international selling techniques and the implementation of marketing tools. Results and impact attained: The reflections of the exchanges consisted e.g. of writing press releases, presentations of the students, the schools, the partner products and of our Erasmus+ project. Furthermore, we have been able to disseminate our project and our results on the homepage and the Facebook page of the project, on the schools’ Facebook pages, at parents’ meetings and at meetings with new students. Additionally, we succeeded in showing the results of the project in local newspapers and on radio and on local TV. Longer-term benefits: In the future management, teachers and students at business schools will be able to benefit from the results of the project and of the Business Guide.