Bachelor's students developed solutions to increase Posti's business opportunities

'A case competition is a great opportunity to apply and develop your own competence and create contacts with the business world,' says Teaching Development Specialist Christa Uusi-Rauva.

The company selected in the case competition presents a real problem from its own business activities and student teams develop solutions for that problem. Each team presents its own solution to a jury made up of company representatives and other experts, who then provide them with feedback.

A total of 28 students participated in the first Aalto Crossroads case event. They came from the School of Engineering, School of Business, School of Science, School of Electrical Engineering and the School of Arts, Design and Architecture. The aim of the multidisciplinary competition is to promote the Aalto spirit and cooperation between students from different schools, and also to learn new ways to approach problem-solving. Students could form teams of four students by themselves or to register alone, in which case Christa Uusi-Rauva made up the team. Each team included students from at least two Aalto schools.

Students received praise for their concrete proposals and outstanding presentation skills

The case company, which was only revealed at the start of the event, was Posti. The members of the winning team were Riikka Iivanainen from the School of Arts, Design and Architecture and Janni Lindgren, Henri Blomster and Johannes Peltonen from the School of Business. The team had developed Posti's business according to the idea of 'Everything delivered to your door'. They proposed that Posti expand its business to transport all necessary items, not just bills, newspapers and advertisements, to homes once a day. The team analysed how Posti could better take population ageing into consideration in its business and how delivering daily consumer goods and pharmacy products directly to homes would make people's lives easier, which is something they appreciate.

'I want to thank the winning team for their solution, which was very close to consultant-level problem-solving. Many of the proposals were concrete, and in fact we are already working on some of these ideas in our organisation,' said Vice President, Strategy & New Business Development at Posti Sami Finne.

'In return for the great work, we would like to invite you to have lunch at Posti's headquarters and meet our logistics management group. At the same time, you can learn more about our new storage facilities. We can also discuss summer job opportunities if you'd like to work on business cases on a more long-term basis,' continued Sami Finne.

The winning team was selected by a jury that included Sami Finne, Senior Development Manager Jouko Lehtonen and Head of Contract Logistics Ville Vuorisalo as well as Professor in Finance and Insurance Markku Kaustia, Professor of Practice in Logistics Katariina Kemppainen and Professor of Practice in Innovation Management Erkki Ormala from the School of Business, and Professor of Practice Esko Penttinen from Service Factory.

Further information:
Christa Uusi-Rauva
Specialist, Teaching Development
Tel. +358 40 3538 328
christa.uusi-rauva@aalto.fi