Principal of the Project

During the second semester of the foundation year at the “Fontys International School of Business Economics” the International Marketing students receive a final assignment; to pre-pare a report with the subject “Business Communications in the International Enterprise” (PLA 14). The objectives of the subject “Business Communication in the International Enter-prise II” are to increase the meeting and analysing skills of the students First, the students created several groups of 8 members each.

Every group received a case study with its own assignments. All of these cases dealt with problems of a company which asked the students for advice.

These students had taken on the role of management consult-ants. The case studies and the assignments are shown by the PLA 14 reader “Business Com-munication in the International Enterprise”. The group of students discussed the topics during two meetings and based on their results, the assignment is finalized by creating an individual report, presenting their advice to the company in question.

The core objective of the advisory report in hand is to present the entrepreneur an advice in combination to a best course of action.

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The evaluation of the students is executed mainly by the report, which is restricted to the maximum of 10 pages of Kerntext. The script “Report Writing” provides the basis of the structure.

Problem Definition

The first group got the assignment to adopt the role of management consultants of a consul-tancy agency for further education in the Netherlands, who had to assess the current situation at the Fontys International School of Business Economics (FIHE).

During two meetings the management consultants held, they had to discuss in the first meet-ing the major problem areas in the FIHE study content and context, the major opportunities and threats for FIHE, strengths and weaknesses such as possible solutions. Based on these results the second meeting had the core objective to decide on the best course of action to solve FIHE’s major problems.

Structure of the Project

The report is based on the facts and findings of the two meetings.

Within the next chapter the reader is informed about the FIHE’s background such as the location, available study courses and competitors in the surrounding area. The hard facts are described, in general. In the following, the internal analysis with the strengths and weaknesses of the FIHE are mentioned (3rd chapter). The external analysis is part of chapter 4, which includes the STEP-Analysis and the opportunities and weaknesses. Chapter 5 consists of the filtering criteria which are necessary to decide on the best course of action.

The last chapter presents the con-clusions and recommendations to FIHE. Within this scope the reader receives the definite advice of the students in the role of the management consultants.

The current Study Content and Context

This chapter gives the reader the necessary background information about the FIHE to under-stand the following chapters better. Part of this are general information about FIHE, the loca-tion in the city Venlo, the available study courses and competitors in the surrounding area of the Netherlands and Germany.

General Information

The Fontys University of Applied Sciences is the second largest educational institute in the Netherlands and well known there and also abroad. 37 Universities are located in 22 different locations in the entire country, most of them in the south of the Netherlands http://www. fontys. de/uber. fontys. 19012. htm). More than 36,000 students and 3,900 staff members counts the Fontys all in all (https://www. fontys. nl/organisatie. en. bestuur/de- fault. aspx). The Fontys International School of Business Economics is one of the 37 Universities and lo-cated in the city Venlo.

The FIHE, which is the shortcut for Fontys International School of Business Economics is part of the report in hand.

Location

As mentioned before, Venlo is the location of the FIHE, which is in the south of the Nether-lands. The FIHE is located right next to Germany and the autobahn A40 as well as the A61 are close-by. Not only by car but also by cycle it is possible to get to the FIHE, because a lot of cycle tracks are available in the surrounding area. A five-minute drive away, right in the downtown area of Venlo, the train station is located.

Study Courses

The Fontys International School of Business Economics is, as the name implies, specialized in business studies such as International Business and Management Studies (IBMS), Interna-tional Business Economics (IBE), International Marketing (IM) and Food & Flower Man-agement. Most of the courses can be taken in German language, except of the IBMS course, which is completely in English. IBE encompasses various subjects such as the understanding of (international) organisations, cost controlling and calculations, logistics, analytical and problem solving skills as well as management skills (http://www. fontys.nl/fihe/default. asp? idsitestructurenode=62506). IM covers a variety of topics concerning marketing such as Market Research, Marketing Plan-ning, Marketing Concepts, Marketing as well as Marketing Controlling (http://www. fontys. nl/fihe/default. asp? idsitestructurenode=62504) IBMS combines the main themes of IBE and IM. The first two semesters are in Dutch, Ger-man or English and the last six semesters are totally in English. The IBMS course is targeted at the skills required to perform a management function in an international company. To acquire these skills the following subjects are lectured

International Accounting and Law, international Marketing, Business Management and Eth-ics as well (http://www. fontys. nl/fihe/default. asp? idsitestructurenode=62503). Food & Flower Management is the newest course and encompasses a variety of subjects like International Marketing, Logistic and Economy (http://www. fontys. nl/fihe/default. asp? idsite- structurenode=230645).

Competitors

Most of public universities and universities of applied sciences (UAS) in Germany offer the study course Business Economics which equates most likely to the FIHE course IBE.