IE IMBA Corporate challenge: The Business Impact Lab x Siemens

The Business Impact Lab in collaboration with Siemens Mobility revealed this year’s corporate challenge to the International MBA students who will be working with the company for five weeks.

This year, the Business Impact Lab’s partner company is Siemens Mobility. Students will be conducting business analysis of mobility as a service and present their recommendations on July 22 to a board including Agustin Escobar, CEO of Siemens Mobility Southwest Europe, and an alum of IE Business School.

During the kick-off event, the CEO presented the company and Karolina Joanna Korth, the Chief Digitalization Officer & Head of Strategy of Southwest Europe, explained this year’s challenge. Students learned about the innovative and creative solutions Siemens Mobility offered in several cities around the world. They asked questions about the challenge and were encouraged by Siemens Mobility to trust their instincts and make use of the resources available to them.

“This opportunity will allow the students not only to get to know more about the mobility sector but also to think ahead and propose new business ideas and increase their competitiveness in the world of business, as during the next weeks they will be working on defining the future of intermodal solutions,” further explained Escobar.

The event finished with a networking cocktail that immersed the students in an interactive talk with the team from Siemens Mobility about today’s business world. Many candidates, including Amir Hossein Dehghanazad, said they appreciated the conversation with the executive team and shared their excitement about the challenge.

Some students highlighted one of the main reasons they chose to study the IMBA at IE Business School specifically for this kind of experience– to widen their network and engage with real professionals.

“I look forward to gaining a very niche knowledge about the mobility business, and Siemens´core business model in this area, since mobility, sustainability, and FinTech, all together, will be the next big thing in the world.”
Amir Hossein Dehghanazad

The lab period is a totally customizable and practical experience where the students develop skills in a real world context. Each year, a different multinational company brings in a current business problem to the teams that hand over their solutions in a final presentation after five weeks of work. Caroline Mahler, associate executive director at IE Business School, said “the labs, in general, are very important because the students can customise them.”

Students can choose one of four labs: Startup Lab, Social Impact Lab, Tech Lab, Business Impact Lab.

Mahler said the labs target different types of students depending on what they are looking for after the IMBA, career-wise. In the Business Impact Lab, IMBA candidates develop integrative skills and cross-disciplinary management stances, as the challenge is a hands-on opportunity to interconnect everything they have learned in the terms.

“It is something they really look forward to when they come to the MBA program,” commented Pacheco.