CIIM-Medochemie student project: Learning by doing

Recent trends in education, and business education in particular, emphasise 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 reallife 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 been committed to the excellence in postgraduate business education for more than 25 years. As a non-for-profit management school, CIIM has built many successful corporate partnership relationships – which are now used to the mutual benefit of the partners. One recent example of such a collaboration is a joint Live Case Project between CIIM Master of Science in Management programme and Medochemie, the leading pharmaceutical company in Cyprus.

Medochemie is truly a role model for other companies and would-be entrepreneurs. Starting with just eight employees and three machines in 1976, Medochemie developed itself into a mighty manufacturer of quality pharmaceuticals for the global market that has received numerous awards from the Cyprus government and from the European Union for outstanding performance.

Medochemie has 13 manufacturing plants and facilities, mostly in Cyprus, one in the Netherlands, and several new ones in Vietnam. Nearly 200 million people have access to medicines and pharmaceutical treatment at affordable prices thanks to Medochemie. Its share in the Cyprus exports has reached 23%. This company and its enterprising founder and Chairman, Dr Andreas Pittas, have disproved the often heard excuse that Cyprus is too small and too isolated and costly to manufacture and export products to the world market.

CIIM MSc Management is a practically oriented postgraduate business degree designed to develop university graduates into professional managers. In the hypercompetitive job market of today a postgraduate degree in management has become a required qualification for employment in jobs that university graduates would find appealing and rewarding. Fields that were in high demand a few years ago are now saturated and many graduates are unable to secure the job they have targeted with their first degree. They are seeking to discover new opportunities in the private and public sector to secure gainful employment with good career prospects. CIIM MSc Management follows the “learning by doing” philosophy by organising career development seminars, company visits, real-life company projects and optional internships.

In spring this year, CIIM MSc Management students participated in a Live Case Project run by the Marketing department of Medochemie. It was a challenging practical experience to test the knowledge and skills gained during the MSc studies at CIIM. A total of 14 master students worked in four teams over the period of three months on a practical marketing project introduced to the students by the company’s management. The team’s tasks included substantial market research and strategy development for a certain product. The final presentations took place at one of the Medochemie’s facilities in Limassol. The Case Project has turned out as highly beneficial for both sides. The company issued recommendation letters to express appreciation of the active participation by all four teams, and each participant individually. We are proud to announce the names of the students of the winning team: Artemios Mallas, Ilias Feizidis, Ahmed Taghdi and Spyros Sofocleous.

CIIM would like to express sincere appreciation of the Medochemie’s active collaboration to support the business education process, which took many different forms, including the recent Case Project with the Marketing department, as well as the company visits which have been organised for the CIIM MSc Management students by the company’s HR department on a regular basis in the last five years.

CIIM currently runs the annual Full Scholarship campaign in partnership with MTN, a leading mobile telecommunications company in Cyprus and a long-time CIIM’s corporate partner. Applications deadline is July 15. More information at www.ciim.ac.cy .