Award-winning digital product design company Shout Digital has announced a new partnership with Northumbria University’s Business Clinic scheme, which enables students to undertake real-life business projects as an alternative to the traditional dissertation.
Lamas Alasi, Jade Harsley, Jack Knight and Nihaarika Nambakkam will join forces with the Newcastle-headquartered business to help build a strategy enabling the successful launch of Shout’s new Canopy product to the US market. As part of this, they will review the US technologies market, carry out competitor analysis, devise a marketing strategy and launch plan.
The Business Clinic scheme, which has been running since 2013, is open to both final year undergraduate and masters students from the university’s Business School, who are supported by experienced academics from Northumbria University in Newcastle Upon Tyne.
Nicola Burnip, Northumbria University’s Business Clinic manager said since its inception the university has worked with more than 300 businesses and 1,200 students.
She added: “The scheme was initially set up to give our students additional experiential learning opportunities, by enabling them to work with a real business on specific projects and resolve a real issue they may be facing.
“It started off as a pilot with very small numbers of students and businesses back in 2013 and since then it has grown in popularity both with the student population and also with the businesses that we work with and support. We currently have 90 projects over the course of this academic year.
“We are delighted that Shout Digital has come on board and are looking forward to working with them and helping them move forward on to the next step of their project.”
The partnership was the idea of Shout digital account manager, Amy Czuba, who joined the Shout Digital team eight months ago.
Amy was one of a number of undergraduate students at Northumbria University in 2016 to find the scheme beneficial.
She said: “Having the Business Clinic on my CV was a great addition and I was thrilled to join Shout and open up a discussion with them about what I’d gained from my own experience of the Business Clinic scheme which was received really positively.
“We met with Nicola of the Business Clinic scheme in September to discuss our project to ensure both Shout and the students would get the most out of working together.”
Lamas Alasi, said: “We are looking forward to getting a chance to work with a real-life business which we see has the potential to grow and succeed further in the near future.
“We are a team of ambitious students who are up for a challenge outside our comfort zone and believe this will test everything we have learnt throughout university.
“We also aim to exceed Shout’s expectations and come up with some innovative new ideas to help boost the company’s awareness in the US. This experience will be amazing for our CVs and our future employment prospects.
Since launching in 2009, Shout’s unmatched experience has delivered work for industry-leading organisations in finance, property, leisure and tourism, education and retail. The company’s impressive portfolio includes major digital platform and app builds for the likes of Newcastle International Airport, Newcastle United, OK! Magazine, P&G, Parkdean Resorts, Northumbria University, CPP and many more.
Gary Boon, chief executive at Shout Digital, added: “We have received excellent feedback from Amy about the scheme and are very much looking forward to working with the team at Northumbria University.”
