The first day of the excursion started at 7am, when IBM students together with Senior Researcher Melanie Krenn, Senior Lecturer Katarina Fürst and Research Project Assistant Evelyn Stele met in Villach. After a coffee stop on the way to Italy, the first company visit was at Roncadin S.p.A. in Meduno.
Roncadin is an international manufacturer of frozen pizza, with its main markets in Italy and other countries of Europe, such as Austria, Germany, and the UK as well as in the USA. After the arrival at the company, managers of different departments, Mr. Congregalli, Mr. Martignago, Mr. De Conti, Mr. Buzzino and Mr. De Mattio started off with a company presentation. After a lively Q&A session, the students visited the production facility and learned what it takes to produce pizza on a large scale. In the end, Roncadin generously provided the students with pizza and concluded the company visit in the most delicious way possible.
In the afternoon, the students continued their journey towards Trieste, where they visited illycaffè S.p.A. illycaffè is a coffee company famous for their blend made of nine types of pure Arabica beans. After being greeted with a cup of coffee, the group learned about the journey, value and preparation of coffee from Moreno Faina and David Brussa. After getting to know the company, students joined Mr. Faina and Mr. Brussa to the Quality Lab and Università del Caffè, where they were shown how the quality of coffee is assessed and how illycaffè shares knowledge with partners, employees and the community. In the end of the visit, illycaffè generously provided the students with samples of their coffee. Afterwards, the students headed to the center of Trieste, where they had a joint dinner and enjoyed their evening.
“To be honest this excursion was the most practical thing I ever experienced during my studies. To not just see how departments of a business align, but to understand their challenges and understand their daily life is invaluable.” Kristóf Dudás, IBM 1st semester student
On the second day of the excursion, the group headed to Ljubljana, Slovenia for their next company visits. First, they were welcomed at KPMG Slovenia by Boštjan Malus, Luka Kralj and Maja Langerholc who started the meeting with a short presentation about KPMG, their services and functions. With their focus on due diligence, restructuring projects and advisory on M&A, KPMG is one of the big four consulting firms. The students learned about the consulting process, the daily life of a consultant at KPMG, the requirements for potential new hires and the relationship with clients. Last but not least, the group profited from the first-hand experience of Mr. Malus and Mr. Kralj, which they shared by telling stories about real-life projects.
After a joint lunch, the IBM students visited HTTPOOL, an Aleph Group company, which has more than 800 employees in 41 international offices. HTTPOOL is a large global partner of major media platforms, such as Meta, Snapchat and TikTok, supporting them in their growth and driving business results by being the bridge between the media platforms and local agencies and advertisers who want to place ads. Students were fascinated as they learned about HTTPOOL’s business model and global growth strategy, presented by Eva Škedelj and deputy CEO Timotej Gala, who joined online from Dubai. “They prepared the meeting room carefully with all kind of cookies, fruits, tea, coffee, and water. I found the visit super-interesting as I'm a big fan of marketing and I would love to work in digital marketing in the future.”, said IBM student Hadia Sultan about the visit at HTTPOOL.
Eventually, the excursion had come to an end and the group returned to the CUAS campus in Villach. Overall, the students were happy to not only having learned about pizza production, coffee, consultancy and the work with social media platforms but also to be enriched with experiences they have made together and the bond they were able to create with each other thanks to the trip.
