Cultural Knowledge and different market areas - Study trip to Umeå

Throughout this semester, we have had a course in Cultural Knowledge and different market areas where we have learned about a variety of similarities and differences between our cultures using various learning methods and approaches. One part of the course content was an excursion to Umeå which took place on the 22nd of February. We were going to visit several different companies and learn about their work processes as well as how they strive to implement and embrace various cultures in their companies and industries.

Below, you can read about our experience in the city of Umeå.

Our excursion in brief

Our trip began at 7:00 am when we arrived at the harbour in Vasa. Before this we had some small setbacks on our way there. One of the group members cars was stuck in the snow so we went to the rescue, and everyone arrived on time at last.

When we boarded the ship, we went straight to the breakfast buffe since Novia had paid for everyone to have breakfast on the ship. The breakfast was very delicious, and we had a wonderful time even though it was really early in the morning.

After breakfast we all gathered in the bar area where one of the MBA students had planned an activity for everyone. It was a cooperation task where we were divided into smaller groups and were supposed to guide one group member through a track, while they were blindfolded. The task was very fun and educational. At first, we thought it would be very easy, but we soon recognized that everyone interprets things differently, and you had to be very precise when telling the instructions to the one who was blindfolded.

While waiting the rest of the time to get to Umeå, we went to see the newly renovated Tax free shop, played some card games, talked about the companies we were about to visit in Umeå and planned on what we wanted to do during our free time there.

When we arrived in Umeå harbor we went straight to out first company visit, which was Visit Umeå. There we were listening to an introduction about the company and what they do. The focus of Visit Umeå’s presentation was about how they work together with different companies and municipalities around Umeå to achieve their common goals. It was very interesting to get an overview of how they work together to make Umeå nice both for tourists, citizens, and business owners.

The next company visit was to Kvarken Council. We went to their beautiful office building which was an old building with a lot of history that they shared with us. Kvarken Council served us a “Swedish fika” and after that, they presented what Kvarken Council is about and what they do. We learned that they have a lot of different projects going on and that they work to enable different types of cross-border cooperation in the Kvarken region.

At Kvarken Councils office building, RISE also held a presentation that was held by Oskar Riby. We learned that RISE is the Research Institution of Sweden, and that they are Sweden's foremost research institute and innovation collaborator. By fostering international partnerships with industry, academia, and the public sector, they strengthen business competitiveness and drive progress towards a sustainable society.

RISE- workshop

After the RISE presentation, we had a short workshop where we worked with the business model canvas, SWOT analysis, and AI in our business.
We started working on the business model canvas which we chose to do for the restaurant HEJM. We filled out as much as we had time for in the business model canvas. The point of it was to familiarize us with the model.

After that we got to do a SWOT analysis for HEJM and their competitors, we chose the restaurant 1h+k. We did unfortunately not have that much time to go deeper into these analyses, but the idea again was to familiarize ourselves with the analysis and use it in practice.

Lastly, the most interesting part was figuring out how HEJM could use AI in their business. This was hard since there was a lot to think about, but we thought about for example a service robot and a 3D-printed vegetarian meat. Both of these could be done but since HEJM is a high-quality restaurant both of these ideas would lower the value of the restaurant.

We also analysed Raniplast with the same methods and discussed the possibilities to integrate more robots and ai into the manufacturing process of haybalewrap. Although this might be effective from a manufacturing point of view it will lead to a lot of money spent on robots instead of employees and will result in having to let go a lot of employees just to put the same amount if not more towards robots.

Outcome

In our opinion, the RISE presentation and workshop were the best and most giving company visit during our trip. Oskar Riby who held the presentation and workshop, was pleasing to listen to and the workshop was fun while we learned something new. Learning by doing is one of the most efficient ways to understand a subject, and this was done in the RISE workshop.

Freetime

After we had completed all of our company visits, we had a couple of hours to spend in the beautiful city of Umeå. This time was spent shopping at Utopia mall, eating dinner, bowling, and throwing darts at O’learys. Umeå had lots to offer including great company visits.

18.40 we headed back to the harbour and once again boarded Aurora Bothnia to start our four-hour journey back home to Vasa. On the boat trip we had the pleasure of enjoying music from the paid artist but there was also a hijacking of the stage that led to us listening to everything Pakistani melodies to Indian love songs and the latest country hit songs, all performed by our fellow students on this studytrip.

Business administrtation students: Alfred Böling, Ellen Nordlund, Fanny Sand, Emilia Backman, Linn Liljeberg