On 22 March 2017, the BCom Honours (Marketing Management) class was privileged to receive the opportunity to work on their first client challenge given to them by the research company, Consulta.

Consulta has strong ties with the Department of Marketing Management, and has always taken the time to invest in the Marketing Management Honours programme. The students were given background information by Consulta, as well as details of the assignment and the standard of the work they expect.

The class was divided into nine teams, allowing students the opportunity to meet and engage with their peers. With two weeks to complete the challenge, students were equipped with a dataset and instructed to analyse, interpret and visualise the data to formulate recommendations based on these insights. Students were then expected to present their findings and recommendations to the clients in an innovative and professional manner.

Nerves ran high on the day of the presentations, but students were prepared to take on the challenge and impress their clients, their lecturer Prof Van Heerden and the rest of the honours class. After each team presented their findings, the Consulta representatives decided on the winning team – one that they felt had best captured the expectations of the challenge. Team 7 impressed the client panel with the following quote: “The goal is to turn data into information and information into insight” by Carly Fiorina former CEO at HP as a critical guideline in their presentation.

The Department of Marketing Management wishes to convey its warmest appreciation to Consulta for taking the time to invest in the development of the students.

Back, from left: Dries Noeth (Consulta representative), Thabiso Phaledi, Bianca Friedman, Cassie Mayer (members of team 7) and Kobus Badenhorst (Consulta representative). Front, from left: Prof Gené van Heerden (lecturer), Mari van Straaten and Sasha Anderson (members of the winning team).