Each year #NBSBright supports up to 50 businesses with 1,800 Nottingham Business School students working to solve their business challenges. Your business can tap into the talent and creative thinking of our final year students by setting them a real-life challenge to work on as a team project.
#NBSBright 2024
Do you need some fresh thinking, a bright idea, or some thoughtful research?
Set a team of final year Nottingham Business School (NBS) students a project challenge, become their ‘client’ and gain new insights as a step towards positive change.
The students will work from the University, acting as consultants for you over the course of about seven weeks, leading to a final presentation during late November. Better still, there’s no fee.
"It brought some fresh thinking and new ideas into our business. Sometimes people less connected to the business have the best ideas!"
How does it work?
Our students can offer a fresh perspective to help with a range of challenges. It’s easy to get involved and free of charge, and all we ask for in return is a few hours of your time - including an hour online meeting in October and an in-person presentation event on the week commencing 18 November 2024.
All you need to do is submit an #NBSBright business challenge, and a member of our team will be in touch with you to confirm that it has been accepted into the project and will be supported by our students.
We have several challenges that you can choose from on the Submission Form to make it nice and easy or you can set something of your own.
Groups of students, supported by NBS academics, will explore your challenge, and provide succinct analysis, findings, and recommendations in the form of a PowerPoint presentation and present to you at our presentation event in November.
"The quality of content from the students and thought put into the project was exceptional."
Your business challenge
We encourage submissions from organisations of all sizes. We recommend that you submit one challenge per organisation. Final year students from across our Business School courses will be taking part, meaning that you can submit a challenge related to any area of your operations. Here is a list of challenges to choose from on the submission form or you can suggest your own:
- Explore new market opportunities for your service or product and suggest ways to break into these markets (including international markets)
- Conduct a local or global competitor analysis of your business, service, or product
- Carry out a review of your current business plan, including sustainability and carbon management strategies
- Review viable and cost-effective ways your business might attract, recruit and retain staff and talent (especially young talent)
- Consider and critically evaluate ways your organisation might introduce or update its HR policies (e.g. staff wellbeing, appraisals, or recruitment strategy, etc.)
- Help you design a strategic marketing plan
- Help to plan your social cause campaign
- Research on economic issues affecting your business or sector (e.g. post-pandemic impacts, Brexit etc.)
- Explore strategic business issues or plans from a financial perspective
- Explore ways your business might increase its CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) profile and the benefits of doing so
- Explore ways your business might become more profitable
- How to develop a campaign promoting the importance of supporting local businesses
These challenges form an assessed part of our degree programmes and therefore this is a FREE opportunity for participating organisations.
If you are unsure if your challenge idea is suitable or would like help to develop a challenge, please email NBSStudentProjects@ntu.ac.uk to arrange an informal chat.
NBS also arranges consultancy projects for postgraduate students. If you have a business-related research challenge that doesn’t quite fit any of the above #NBSBright topics we’d still like to hear from you and we invite you to complete the application form.
#NBSBright FAQs
Our Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) should answer any questions you have about #NBSBright. If you have any further questions, please contact us at NBSStudentProjects@ntu.ac.uk.
The #NBSBright projects module will start the w/c 30 September 2024. This is when the student groups will get to see the challenge they’ve been assigned for the first time.
The projects end during the week commencing 18 November 2024, on the date the student groups present your report to you.
We know how busy you are, and so expect there to be only minimal involvement from you during the life of the project.
Before the projects start, once your challenge is accepted, we prepare a briefing pack for the student teams, we ask you to let us know where the students can find information about your company online.
When the project starts we’ll invite you to take part in one online meeting with team representatives and their tutor(s). You will have a choice of meeting dates for this, either 16 or 23 October. This meeting will allow the students to ask you additional questions and to make sure their research is on track.
When the project ends, during the week commencing 18 November 2024, you are invited to hear your teams’ presentations. We are planning this so that you will be able to attend all of your teams’ presentations over just one half-day (30mins per team). It is essential that you or a representative of your company can attend in person on the relevant day. You can enjoy a buffet lunch with us and other participating businesses, and discuss with each team the work they have done for you.
The students are being evaluated on their ability to work together professionally, to apply relevant knowledge and skills to the challenge they have been assigned, and to develop a quality presentation outlining their findings, analysis, and their recommendations. During the whole process they’ll have access to the resources of the University as well as an Academic Supervisor to guide them.
Your student teams will present back their research findings to you in a verbal presentation. The presentations will take place during office hours during the week commencing 18 November 2024. The exact date of your groups’ presentation will depend upon the subject of the Challenge they are working on. You will be sent the top graded presentations after the programme.
Apart from your time and any travel to the University, there is no cost to taking part.
For logistical reasons we recommend each business submit just one challenge per organisation. However, if you have a colleague willing to be the ‘client’ of a second challenge, and they are also free to attend the relevant Q&A and in person final presentations, then yes, please feel free to propose more than one challenge. Please complete a separate application for each of your challenges.
After you have submitted your challenge it will be checked by a member of the NBS team, and we’ll be in touch as soon as we can. If we feel that your challenge may need to be tweaked to suit the project we will discuss this with you.
Yes, of course. The categories suggested are commonly asked for projects and are topics we feel our students can do well at. We will, however, consider any reasonable suggestion for an #NBSBright student project, and we’re happy to help you refine a challenge idea.
Please complete the application form with as much information as you can and one of the team will be in touch. Or email us on NBSStudentProjects@ntu.ac.uk.
Our postgraduate students also work on projects and it may be possible for you to assign a project to them
The application deadline is Monday 9 September 2024.
If you have an idea for a challenge and would like to discuss with a member of our team, please email NBSStudentProjects@ntu.ac.uk with the subject 'NBS Bright' to arrange an informal chat. We can help you to draw out a challenge from any ideas you may have.