During our first company excursion of the summer semester 2018, we visited 1&1 Internet SE in Karlsruhe and SAP in Walldorf.

Don’t just sell a product, sell a piece of your brand experience

We were warmly welcomed at 1&1 by a team of MBA alumni: Adriana Rotaru, Senior Product Manager, Class of 2015; Paritosh Sharma, Product Manager, Class of 2016, and Nirmal Joseph, Product Manager, Class of 2016. After brief introductions of the current MBA students, Paritosh gave an overview of 1&1 as a Web Hoster to an eBusiness Solution Provider. He enjoys working at 1&1 because “the team here is very international.”

A team of seven experts presented their individual responsibilities in the company to give students a broad understanding of the business. A business analyst “ask[s] potential customers for new ideas,” analyzes data, and creates solutions for invoicing, accounting, HR practices, and many more. The head of Base Management spoke about the go-to-market strategy, acquiring new and retaining existing customers by increasing “touchpoints,” creating traffic, and communicating concise messages. One product manager stated how crucial it is to align product offers with a brand story like “yin and yang.” Another emphasized the importance of finding who the customers are and understanding their needs. An expert in integrated services described the entire process of planning to launching products. Finally, two members of an agile project management team in the User Experience (UX) chapter explained how they “unveil the UX magic.”

After an entire morning of presentations and Q&A session, the current MBA students had the opportunity to mingle with alumni.

Sustainable investment on the rise

After a campus tour of SAP, students learned about investor relations from James Dymond, an MBA alumnus, Class of 2004. Investor relations combines finance, communication, marketing, and securities law compliance. Mr. Dymond earned his certification (CIRO) for investor relations in Frankfurt, at the only school in Germany that offers this certification. His role is to have an effective “two-way communication” between the company and its shareholders and stakeholders. He expressed the importance of transparency and maintaining good relations with investors and shareholders. Discussing how investors decide on their investments, Dymond showed how sustainable investment rose up to more than 11% recently.

We ended the day with a brief presentation from Dr. Michle Weynandt, Senior Project Consultant at SAP. She spoke about her role in a Learning and Development project. She stated that “4.0 hits us all” and we need to “keep on innovating.” When asked about programming language, Dr. Weynandt responded that while coding is useful, “reading and interpreting data is important.”