Business student consultancy projects
Develop your business and gain new insight through free consultancy from students specialising in a range of business subjects.
What are business student consultancy projects?
Business student consultancy projects involve students, from a range of business courses, offering local organisations free consultancy to investigate specific business challenges or opportunities. As a business, you are also helping to develop future talent.
Our students can help:
- inject new ideas into your chosen business need that might not otherwise have been reviewed
- provide you with additional resources at no extra cost
- produce tangible outcomes – the student(s) will make recommendations at the end of the project by producing an in-depth analysis, final written report and presentation.
Our student business projects work with students from the following Postgraduate and Undergraduate courses:
"In this particular case the timing was perfect, there was a specific piece of urgent work that needed to be done, with specific skills required to do it. The idea the student proposed to us was a perfect fit for the job. The student provided an excellent and very thorough piece of work, but more than that, became an integral part of the team in his short time with us. He needed to speak to partners, providers and stakeholders and did so with exceptional professionalism."
Ben Robinson, Policy Team Manager Bristol City Council
How does the project work?
The project is a three-way collaborative partnership between The Bristol Business School, the student(s) and your organisation.
Our group projects usually commence in late January and individual projects from May. They run between eight and 16 weeks, dependent on which course the student is registered on.
The student business project process
- Define an appropriate project for the student(s) to embark on.
- Agree with the student(s), the scope, requirement, outputs etc.
- Ensure the student has access to relevant company information, data and key stakeholders.
- Assign a member of staff to work with them, as their main point of contact throughout this project.
- Provide office space for them to conduct some of their research (dependent on the project).
- We recommend covering basic expenses if students have to travel outside of Bristol, agreed with yourself in advance.
Deciding on a project
The nature of the project will reflect opportunities and issues selected by your organisation and can relate to any function therein. Previous projects have covered most aspects of business and public sector activity. We suggest that highly technical projects are avoided unless we are able to field a student who has the necessary expertise (see list of example projects below). Students are supervised throughout the project by academics with commercial experience.
"As a result of the student's findings and recommendations, we saved time and money by not implementing expensive review software (process focused). Instead we invested our time and energy in developing Team Leader capability (people focused) which was more important to staff."
Nicola Rich, HR Manager and Wellbeing Coach Stride Treglown
Past project examples
View some examples of real life projects that our students have worked on with various clients.
Bristol Women in Business CIC - Accelerating progress towards greater gender equality in Bristol businesses
The Bristol Women in Business CIC was established in April 2020 to run the Bristol Women in Business Charter (launched March 2019). The Charter aims to recognise and support businesses in Bristol and the surrounding area that are making progress towards gender equality.
Project aim: Enhance the impact of the Charter.
PwC - Social mobility, diversity and inclusion
PwC have a number of initiatives that seek to improve social mobility and diversity and inclusion internally and in society.
Project aim: How can PwC extend their reach in this space and be greater advocates for change within themselves and society?
Enterprise - Enterprise Car Club Business Analysis
Enterprise Car Club offers a unique mobility solution to business, commuters and cities.
Project aim: How can we position this brand across digital and conventional marketing platforms to increase brand awareness?
Bristol Water - How to re-engage ‘survivors’
Bristol Water went through a companywide transformation project and unfortunately, part of this involved making some redundancies.
Project aim: What activities, programmes, initiatives can be implemented to support staff and re-engage them in the new world?
NMI - A research project exploring the importance of, and implementation process for, talent development programmes within a global technology organisation.
NMI offers full commerce through its flexible payment platform for business.
Project aim: How to improve and implement learning and development tools and courses with the aim of developing and retaining top talent.
Wincanton Research - companywide ‘Onboarding and Induction’ programme
Project aim: Design and make recommendations for a companywide ‘Onboarding and Induction’ programme at Wincanton Research which compliments local/contract procedures and is reflective of the changes to the new ways of working.
Project ideas for students on our Masters programmes
Gain ideas about the type of projects that students studying a range of our Masters courses could support with.
MSc Marketing and MSc Marketing Communications
Example project ideas may include:
- A marketing audit and marketing plan for a new product development
- Research into an organisation’s community engagement programme, and recommendations on how this may be improved
- The development, trial and evaluation of a company website
- An audit of a company’s brand portfolio
- The development of a marketing plan and associated marketing collateral for a new educational course
Masters of Business Administration (Executive) MBA
Example project ideas may include:
- A review of an industrial product range compared to competitors and recommendations for restructuring and new product development
- Research into the evidence-based claims made for VR and how these could be exploited in a new target market
- A study of the knowledge generated in a factory expansion project, and recommendations piloting a new approach to knowledge acquisition and sharing between sites in a multinational company
- Creating roadmaps for company to move into international markets
- Ethical use of innovative markets
MSc Business Management
Example project ideas may include:
- A review of an industrial product range compared to competitors and recommendations for restructuring and new product development
- Research into the evidence-based claims made for VR and how these could be exploited in a new target market
- A study of the knowledge generated in a factory expansion project, and recommendations piloting a new approach to knowledge acquisition and sharing between sites in a multinational company
MSc Human Resource Management
Example project ideas may include:
- The benefits and best practice of People Data – how to best influence an insight driven approach to HR
- An evaluation of the ROI of higher education courses for employees
- Increasing gender diversity and closing the gender pay gap
- Design and make recommendations for an Employee Recognition scheme
- Increasing the diversity of applicants and ensuring equitable recruitment practices
- Wellbeing in the workforce - a review of the wellbeing policy and offering to employees
- Review of Employment Engagement policy and practices
MSc International Management
Example project ideas may include:
- Analysis and planning towards entering new markets
- Undertaking a strategic review of business growth options
- Development of market communications strategy employing social media
- Exploring international expansion opportunities
- Company sustainability strategy
- New product market feasibility and opportunity study
Project ideas for students on our Undergraduate programmes
Gain ideas about the type of projects that students studying the following Undergraduate courses could support with.
BA(Hons) Business and Human Resource Management
Example project ideas may include:
- Design of a reward package
- Revision of HR policies
- Evaluating wellbeing with increased home working
- Increasing recruitment of students for summer work
- Evaluating the impact of the company’s presence at LGBT events
- Recommendations to improve a training process
BA(Hons) Business Management and Leadership
Example project ideas may include:
- A feasibility study for change in working practice
- Investigating the introduction of managerial learning contract
- Senior leadership team visioning exercise
- Design an evaluation process for a new management training programme
- Survey of employee’s engagement in a change process
- Study of employee/manager perceptions of an appraisal scheme
- Executive summary report providing insight and suggestions for staff recruitment and retention
Further information
To express an interest in taking part in the consultancy project, tell us about your project idea, or for further information and enquiries, please email the team at cbl.engagement@uwe.ac.uk.