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Reference Projects
Here you can find detailed examples of past projects students worked on in our courses. Below, we introduce two recent example projects in cooperation with the Austrian National Bank and Festo.
Innovative Concepts For The Digital Euro: A Lead User Study
Executive Summary
As our world increasingly becomes more digitalised, individuals and societies are simultaneously embracing the growing trend of cashless payment solutions. This transformative shift brings forth a multitude of promising opportunities alongside potential risks. One of the primary concerns lies in the diminishing influence of central banks in terms of monetary policy due to the growing prevalence of cashless payments and private bank money within the economy. Moreover, with the ongoing global developments and inflationary pressures, navigating, responding to, mitigating, and stabilizing a digital economy without a digital currency is projected to pose increasing challenges in the future.
Goal
The goal of the project is to explore innovative solutions for the Digital Euro, identify key trends and user needs, and engage Lead Users from target and analogous markets in a collaborative effort, addressing concerns like data privacy, ensuring universal accessibility, and integrating it seamlessly into users' daily lives. The ultimate objective is to convene these experts in a panel discussion, fostering creativity and novel ideas, and subsequently, summarize the findings and solutions in a comprehensive final report.
Methodology
The project consists of four Phases and utilizes the framework and concept of the Lead User Method in order to identify individuals who possess an exceptionally high expertise within their field of competency and who themselves are actively working and developing solutions within their markets. Hereby we distinguish between two distinct markets: On the one hand our primary focus is target markets, which are markets with the focus on financial products, services and digital-/ cryptocurrencies. While on the other hand we also consider analogous markets, referring hereby to markets that may not be directly linked to the aforementioned ones.
Results
During a panel discussion in two rounds multiple concepts were mentioned. One of the key insights from this process was that concerns regarding data privacy could be reduced, for example, through Zero-Knowledge Proofs. Furthermore, it would be essential to promote the acceptance of the Digital Euro through incentive strategies. Gamification methods and tangible incentives for initial users could be used for this purpose.
Cooperation Partner
Oesterreichische Nationalbank
Otto-Wagner-Platz 3
1090 Wien
www.oenb.at
Contact Person
Erik Pipal
Student Team
Aiko Di Meglio
Carl Kucharik
Daniil Koliasko
Dobroslava Veleva
Joseph Damian Rainer
Karin Krizovska
Kate Esther Udvardi
Maximilian Ken Stein
Richard Stefan Prem Penaranda
Teodor Ivanov Vasilev
Valentin Linus Todt
Project Manager
Melina Mazzucato
Tina Marie Monelyon
Green Education. Integration of sustainability aspects into the value chain of the Festo LX platform
Executive Summary
FESTO didactic faces the challenge to integrate sustainable aspects into the value chain of their online learning platform, FESTO LX, to signalize that the venture is concerned with the rising challenge of sustainability and to potentially gain a competitive advantage over current and future competitors. The different activities for integration or optimization must be carefully evaluated so that no sub-optimal decision is made and the product remains valuable in the long run.
Goal
The project goal was the mapping of the FESTO LX value chain and the identification of activates that would create positive sustainable impact in it. Following the mapping and identification of activities, the team would compare them and choose two activities that are promising and in relation to costs create the highest sustainable impact. The last goal was the identification of an implementation strategy as well as the presentation of the found results to the project partner.
Methodology
Consisting of a Value chain framework adapted for online learning platforms method where the individual activities have been identified trough interviews with FESTO didactic employees and trough secondary research of managerial literature. Following, the identification of potential activities to be integrated or optimized, company analysis and interviews were conducted. Finally, for the identification of the two concrete solutions interviews, secondary research, brainstorming and a primitive cost-benefit analysis has been conducted.
Results
The extensive research has resulted in the identification of two viable and novel activities that are located in different segments of the primary activities within the value chain. In addition, the results lead to the conclusion that further activities can be integrated in the value chain and would allow for a long run competitive advantage and create a major sustainable impact in the future. Nonetheless the implementation costs of these activities must be closely monitored as a commitment to their integration could be costly and yield relatively low impact and thus yield low benefit for FEESTO didactic. Further the implementation strategy for individual activities varies so that cost minimization and sustainable impact maximization is ensured and gained competitive advantage is maintained in the long run.
Cooperation Partner
Festo Didactic SE
Rechbergstraße 3
D-73770 Denkendorf, Germany
www.festo-didactic.com
Contact Person
Dr. Ute Gebhard
Student Team
Maximilian Trentini
Val Vovk Petrovski
Florian Grill
Elias Germann
Jakub Janek
Project Manager
Caroline Fabian
Shtefi Mladenovska