Impact Project Provides Consulting Experience for MBA Students

The IE Business students involved in the Impact Project have concluded their 2-month partnership with Gympass, a corporate wellness platform used by companies worldwide to improve their employees’ health and wellbeing.

The Impact Project takes place twice a year and allows International MBA students the opportunity to provide consulting for real-life challenges facing an organization. Teams of 2-5 IMBA students collaborate with a company, start up or NGO that has been registered or operational for at least 1 year to solve challenges. Teams work on the project for two months to come up with innovative and feasible solutions.

Organizers said the project gives participants solid experience to show potential employers in the future.

“The Impact Project program is not only an opportunity to work with an IE partner but also, and perhaps the most important, an opportunity to bring a personal impact project from anywhere in the world in order to demonstrate to a company what and how IE talent profiles are able to contribute and create value within the professional arena.”
Constantino Zabala, leader of the process for the Impact Project

This year, the team worked on a project called the Gympass Marketplace Supply Strategic Development. The team developed a detailed business study for Gympass’ Fitness Partnership department, which focuses on creating partnerships with local gyms for their users to use. They were tasked with identifying drivers and roadblocks to reach an agreement with a gym that is not yet a Gympass partner. Additionally, they created a success case with existing Gympass partners to showcase the value added of being on Gympass platforms.

“We learned a lot about how to scale up a business, despite this difficult time. Thanks to the Gympass team and their professionalism, our work was fluid, dynamic and effective while having a lot of fun,” explained participant Saad Tazi. “It was also amazing to see how resilient this company is, and how agile and how fast Gympass has been able to adapt and respond to Covid crisis that hit the industry.”

This edition the project had a diverse team consisting of 5 International MBA students from different backgrounds and nationalities such as Canada, Romania, Spain, Australia and Brazil. They were guided and supported these past months by an IE Academic Mentor.

“The IMBA Impact Project immerses you into an existing business with a real problem to solve,” said participant Eliza Balazs. “And after a year of cases and discussions about theoretical problems, this project was an eye-opening experience, where we got to resolve a real-life problem.”

Gympass praised the team’s ideas and knowledge.

“It has been a great opportunity to share the experience with those amazing international students,” said Francisco Lopez, Gympass’ Director of Talent Acquisition.

“They worked side by side with our Operations team, facing a huge challenge with creative and data-driven ideas that could be easily implemented. They added an interesting external point of view to the project that helped us to acquire a different understanding. It was an incredible exchange of knowledge.”