Business &
Entrepreneurship
The area of expertise Business & Entrepreneurship is the area that started developing the latest. At first it didn’t really gather my interest and therefore didn’t get much focus during the first year. Of course I then received the feedback at the end of this first year that this area is definitely important to creating a complete design. In the second year I slowly started to explore the field of B&E through the project and the different tools that the field has.
Own perspective
Due to an already full planning I only really got into courses for the B&E field in my third year. And it started immediately strongly with it being a big part of my internship. The main reason that I wanted to do an internship in the first place is to see how a sustainability focussed company develops, produces and sells her products, as sustainable products tend to be more expensive and thereby difficult to sell. In the end I learned various aspects that can make and break a company and should be taken into account when developing a design. The final assignment that I had there was to do a market research for the new product we had developed. The whole experience throughout developing the product, being aware of what is happening in the company and then exploring the possible market taught me the way the company approached and took the business perspective into account, but moreover taught me to develop my own perspective towards business as I personally thought there were some problems in the approach and strategy of the company.
(Green) business models
Afterwards I immediately followed with the B&E courses Design Innovation Methods and Green Business Models. With this new perspective and interest towards the field I went into the courses to find the tools and knowledge to become aware of the different problems and how to tackle them. The two courses really complemented each other as they both went into the same topic, but from a different perspective. Design Innovation Methods came from the design perspective and combined history and different success stories to explain how a business can thrive. Through analysing I then learned what steps they took to make them my own. Green Business Models however came from a sustainable perspective and rather than looking back, tried to look ahead. In this course different tools were presented to tackle it from the different sides of sustainability, but most importantly needed to be applied directly to a company. Therefore I learned simultaneously to analyse and apply the different skills in the area, which was definitely really valuable.
