Looking Back: Block Seminar 2024 with Asahi
As part of the students’ compulsory CEMS MIM curriculum, this year’s Block Seminar’s topic “How Can a Beer Brand (Like Kozel) Combat Loneliness by Bringing People From Digital to Real Life” was prepared in cooperation with CEMS Corporate Partner, Asahi, for a group of 40 students of 12 nationalities coming from 11 CEMS partner universities.
The whole seminar has been supervised by Ladislav Tyll, MBA, PhD, CEMS Academic Director, Karolina Kania, PhD, Design Anthropologist, who introduced students to the principles of Design Thinking, Jan Wegert, PhD, eCommerce Manager CEE & Middle East at Colgate-Palmolive, and Serhiy Bobrytskyy, Business Development Manager for CEE & Middle East at Colgate-Palmolive, CEMS alumnus and Ph.D. student at the Department of Marketing. For Asahi, they were Catalin Cirstea, Global Brand Manager (Kozel), Irina Lajevskaja, Head of Global Brand Kozel, Georgiana Bercu, Senior Global Brand Manager, Veronika Žáčková, Trade Marketing Manager Global Brands.
Programme expectations
- The goal of the block seminar was to come up with a creative idea fit with Kozel that can bring people together and create relationships (concept, activation idea) by combating loneliness, transform the concept & activation idea into a business model that can be self-sustained and come up with a communication plan to spread the idea.
- By taking part in this seminar, students are now able to:
Effectively use different research methods & secondary data (such as reports) to understand the social issues. Conduct qualitative research to generate actionable insights to solve the challenge from the project brief. Develop an impactful and creative concept/activation idea for an international brand from FMCG industry. Develop a business model to fund the idea. Develop and present a compelling story & idea presentation.
During the Block Seminar students visited Pilsner Urquell: The Original Beer Experience (a unique experiential exhibition where the latest technologies are used to tell the story of Czech beer); and the Kozel Brewery in Velké Popovice.
From then on, the students attended lectures, workshops, and get-togethers intensively collaborating in teams on their projects to get ready for the presentation day.
Final presentations and winner announcement
On the last day of the seminar, 6 student teams turned their week-long efforts into final presentations that they delivered before a jury made of Asahi and VŠE representatives, who then announced the winner at the gala dinner.
The jury’s pick went to team #1, whose members were David Bartoš, Alessandra Calvi, Ana Regina Cardoso, Matteo Vannucchi, Cheng Chi, Francisco Maria Clemente Bacelar de Begonha and Elisabeth Cornu.
VŠE representatives would hereby like to extend their gratitude to Asahi and all stakeholders for their contribution to this successful seminar.
>>> Applying to CEMS School of the Year 2022 <<<
The admission procedure for the CEMS/Master in Management Programme at VSE offers 2 intakes.
Please note that admissions for the AY 2025/26 will open in November 2024.
The 1st intake deadline is on February 28, 2025, upon which selected students have to pass the assessment centre.
The 2nd intake is subject to available spots, the deadline is on April 30, 2025.
Students have to submit the required documents before the application deadline.
