Postgraduate business applied projects: industry partner information

Provide students with a real-life business case and share an issue your industry is facing through our postgraduate applied business projects.

These projects are at the core of our applied postgraduate programmes, and our students are excited and motivated to collaborate with industry professionals on real-life business challenges. You could work with students in management, marketing and supply chain management, and draw on their strategy development, project management, communication and consulting skills.

Tap into our students’ knowledge to solve a business challenge

As the culmination of their studies, our postgraduate business students engage in a consultancy-style applied business project where they tackle a problem or opportunity identified by a participating business. These projects offer an excellent opportunity to tap into our talented students' knowledge, skills and fresh perspectives to achieve tangible outcomes.

How it works

Participating businesses present a specific problem or challenge to the students
Students work individually to address the identified issue, employing appropriate methods to analyse the problem and develop recommendations
Each student produces a comprehensive report, highlighting their findings, insights, and actionable recommendations

What you can expect

Foundation meeting: We meet with you to discuss the project's learning outcomes, students' capabilities, and the required information and resources
Initial class appearance: Present to the students, sharing key aspects of your business/industry, as well as the challenges, problems and opportunities you face
Second class appearance: A Q&A session may be scheduled depending on the project. Students can submit questions in advance, and you can provide live answers or prepare responses beforehand
Final class appearance: After internal evaluation, the top-performing students present their findings and recommendations to you in a class forum

Time commitment required

As a business professional, your time commitment is approximately 4 to 5 hours, including class visits across a 12-week timeframe.

Past participants

Feedback from past business participants"We thought all the students did a very good job grasping the subject matter and gave us some ideas or thoughts we hadn’t already considered. However, I thought one, in particular, was outstanding and had really taken the time to analyse our data and took the transport/site location recommendations to another level, especially in the short time and limited amount of knowledge of our industry. Very impressed."

FujiFilm

"We thought all the students did a very good job grasping the subject matter and gave us some ideas or thoughts we hadn’t already considered. However, I thought one, in particular, was outstanding and had really taken the time to analyse our data and took the transport/site location recommendations to another level, especially in the short time and limited amount of knowledge of our industry. Very impressed."

FujiFilm

Feedback from past business participants"All the hard work has gone into producing quality reports. Please pass on our thanks to the students. It was our pleasure to work with AUT on this, and it was a mutually beneficial project. We, too, really enjoyed and valued the engagement."

Netlogix

"All the hard work has gone into producing quality reports. Please pass on our thanks to the students. It was our pleasure to work with AUT on this, and it was a mutually beneficial project. We, too, really enjoyed and valued the engagement."

Netlogix

Contact us

We are dedicated to supporting a mutually rewarding experience for students and businesses. For information on how to get involved, contact:

Melanie Barr
Partnerships Director
Email: melanie.barr@aut.ac.nz
Phone: +64 9 921 9999 ext 9336