HR490 – Special Topics in Management

This course is a project-type course that introduces students to a real-life marketing challenge. Recent trends in business education emphasize the importance of “learning by doing”. As Benjamin Franklin famously wrote: “Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.” Leading business schools abroad increasingly include real-life company projects into their academic curriculum to enrich the experience of their Master-level students and thus prepare them for a successful career in the challenging and dynamic business environment of today. Partnerships between corporations and business schools are of multipurpose nature and are highly beneficial to both sides. CIIM Business School has built many successful corporate partnership relationships – which are now used to the mutual benefit of the partners. This course is the result of such a collaboration: a joint Live Case Project between CIIM MBM programme and Zorbas Group, one of the leading companies in Cyprus. During this course, the students will have an opportunity to work in teams on a “live” marketing challenge, which is currently under consideration by Zorbas Group. The students will prepare a business consultancy report and will present it to the company at the end of the course. The Live Case Project is a great practical opportunity since it involves solving a real problem for a real company. The students will work under the guidance of the academic advisor Dr Olga Kandinskaia and in cooperation with the company’s HR Manager Mr Emilios Rotsides. The topic for the Live Case Project 2019 is “WHY Zorbas?” Students will need to read the following books by Simon Sinek to understand the concept “Start with WHY” and then apply it to Zorbas, i.e. make their live research for Zorbas and come up with their answer. Start With Why Find Your Why The main goal is to find what really differentiates Zorbas (in terms of products, customer service, culture, or something else) from the competition and what will ensure its continuing success story. (See also a slide on the last page.)