CEMS Block Seminar 2015

The academic year 2015/2016 for new CEMS class at the University of Economics, Prague has been kicked-off with the Block Seminar, which was held between August 31 – September 7, 2015. The Block Seminar is a complusory part of CEMS MIM curriculum.

Based on the very successfull concept from the last three years, the Block Seminar has been organised again in cooperation with our corporate partner SKODA AUTO. An attractive topic “Marketing in the automotive industry” has been prepared for a group of 37 CEMS students of 20 nationalities coming from 13 different CEMS universities.

The academic part has been supervised by Petr Král, Ph.D., Head of the Department of International Business at the University of Economics, Prague and the CEMS teacher of International Marketing course. The diverse team of teachers from partner CEMS universities, Krisztina Kolos from Corvinus University Budapest and Moritz Putzhammer from WU Wien, Tomáš Lukáč – Product Manager at SKODA AUTO and Petra Meliška – HR Marketing Manager at SKODA AUTO, contributed to the rich program of the Block Seminar.

The main students’ task was a cooperation on projects on the given topics, which were chosen by SKODA AUTO. Three teams were working on the marketing topic “Communication platform development for action model(s)“ and three teams were working on the HR topic “HR Marketing in automotive sector – new ways and trends in communication with millennials (Generation Y)“.

Student teams with 6 – 7 members were created at the beginning of the seminar and presented the results of their whole-week effort during the last day of the seminar. A jury of VSE, Corvinus University Budapest and SKODA AUTO representatives decided on the 2 winning teams, whose members were Jasmin – Maria Hopp, Jan Belinger, Kwaku Kusi Mensah, Josef Stehno and Emanuele Centofanti (marketing topic) and Darya Hvížďalová, Haizea Fidalgo Juaristi, Karmela Yelemessova, Aleksandra Dennier, Olga Baranska, Marcin Grabowski a Shameen Abbasy (HR topic).

The Block Seminar was closed by a gala diner and awarding the winning teams. The rector of VSE, Prof. Hana Machková, also participated in this ceremony. Prof. Machková is a member of the CEMS Strategic Board. VSE representatives would like to thank to SKODA AUTO representatives, guest teachers and CEMS Club Prague for their effort with this succesful seminar.

The overall impression of this Block Seminar can be illustrated by the statement of the student of the CEMS/International Management Programme at VSE Daniel Felipe Loaiza Perez from Colombia:

 “This year’s Block Seminar at VSE with collaboration of SKODA AUTO was an amazing experience, which I will never forget. It was very enriching to get the fresh approach of the international marketing strategies being used in Europe, with lectures of the professors from WU Wien, Corvinus University Budapest and VSE; and even better was getting hands on developing a marketing strategy for SKODA AUTO while working with CEMSies from all over the world. Apart from the lectures we also visited the SKODA MUZEUM and the factory in Mladá Boleslav to get new insights from the automotive industry.

But of course, the CEMS Block Seminar experience wouldn’t be complete without the social and teambuilding activities. Students from the CEMS Club Prague prepared a game, whose aim was to discover sights in Prague, and the Academic Director, Ladislav Tyll, organized for us a biketrip.

The peak of the Block seminar were group presentations, where professionalism and insightful ideas were shared from all students, making it really hard for judges to decide the winner. Thanks to SKODA AUTO, VSE and CEMS Club Prague for a wonderful experience.”

In case of your interest, see the photogalery.

The application deadline is on February 29, 2016. One criterion is an excellent level of English approved by a certificate: CAE (A, B), CPE, BEC Higher (A, B), TOEFL ibT ≥ 100, IELST ≥ 7.0 or Bachelor’s studies in English at completed at particular universities. VSE students can complete the CAE, CPE or BEC Higher certificate in the Department of English Language and get 50 % of the fee back.