MetroBiz April 2015 Issue 7

METROBIZ Issue 7/ April 2015

FROM BMC TO STARTUP CUP

INNOVATIVE & AMBITIOUS -

KAIJA HAAPASALO

JOB ATTITUDE IS EVERYTHING

OPPORTUNTIES IN DUBLIN

MetroBiz Magazine

IN THIS ISSUE NEWS 4

The text of the magazine has been written and edited by the Editor in Chief. All of the photographs originating from external sources have been added in accordance

MBS Ambassadors 2015

to the fair use concept and have been credited below.

EDITOR’S LETTER

EDITOR Grace Ndiritu grace.ndiritu@metropolia.fi

Dear readers MetroBiz Magazine is grateful for having more students willing to share their articles. This month's issue features a profile of our lecturer Kaija Haapasalo. Meanwhile evening IBL student Sami Lampinen shares his experiences in sales after changing his career path from engineering.

We are also glad to bring you in details about Startup Cup and what really happened in Wanha Satama. Jonathan Gaddis takes us on a reflecting journey about attitude. In addition, an exchange student from Universite Catholique de Lyon doing her exchange programme here at MBS tells us about her experiences in our school.

FEATURE 5

From BMC to Startup Cup

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Innovative & Ambitious Kaija Haapasalo

Interview

10 Attitude is Everything

EXCHANGE 12 Exchange in MBS

Interview with

Joeline Studer

14 ESC Rennes School of Business

Partner University Profile

WORK PLACEMENT 16 Working in Sales &

Job Opportunities in Dublin

STUDENT LIFESTYLE 20 Events Happening Now

This month MBS International Programmes conducted the entrance exam here in Myyrmäki. It was overwhelming to see such a large number of students willing to volunteer as tutors. In his closing address to the EBA applicants Michael Keaney shared an article about 'how PwC hired graduates who failed to achieve an upper second class British degree, but rather excelled in areas such as sport, charity work or as entrepreneurs’ - what an encouraging article to our tutors and it is definitely time for all of us to step up our game.

Metka has arranged an event for Vappu - May Day 1, a spring festival that is celebrated by workers and students. Alternatively, you could enjoy a picnic in Kaivopuisto Park or Ullanlinnanmäki. We hope you'll enjoy reading this edition and don't forget to check on Lorenzo's recipe!!

Happy Vappu!!

Grace Ndiritu Editor in Chief

TEXT Grace Ndiritu Jonathan Gaddis Mia E.Varis Sami Lampinen Jaana Paju Lorenzo Ciatto

SOURCES: www.studyinfinland.fi www.thedifferencebetween.com http://shakeoffthegrind.com/personal-success/ check-your-head-why-attitude-is-everything https://www.esc-rennes.fr/index.php http://wikitravel.org/en/Rennes

PHOTOS Louise Stansfield Kaija Haapasalo Daniel Hunt Ruby Nguyen Joeline Studer Sami Lampinen Lorenzo Ciatto

SPECIAL THANKS TO: Ola Sundell Kaija Haapasalo Ruby Nguyen Joeline Studer Sami Lampinen Liisa-Brett Sonnenberg

FEATURE

NEWS

MBS Ambassadors 2015!!

From BMC to STARTUP CUP What is Startup Cup and when was it started?

Run by HUB 13, Startup Cup is a skills program for students aimed at developing startup talent and matching students with innovate companies. It has been one year since we started and it used to be called Business Model Competition. It was harder to explain to ourselves and to other people as well, for instance, what is business model competition?

We don’t want just to create a competition, but build something of an ecosystem of it, so, the concept really needs to be clear and even the name has to speak clearly to the audience. It’s always a little bit harder to adjust somethings that, you take from abroad to here because it works so differently, it felt that it was easier to create something of our own, then make something big out of it and then link it to other international programs.

IMAGE COURTESY OF: Daniel Hunt

T

his month Metropolia Business School’s international degree programmes conducted the entrance exams here in Myyrmäki Campus. Being in charge of tutors, I started by sending a questionnaire to all students who were willing to volunteer. The response was great and almost all volunteers availed themselves of the briefing session and a vote of thanks was given by Michael Keaney.

The exams kicked off on 8th with all the tutors ready to help. Some of the tutors were already 7am at Myyrmäki train station and Leiritie bus stop to direct the applicants to the school. The two days ran smoothly with all the tutors guiding their respective groups. The final speech was given by Mr Keaney who also commented that employers are no longer looking solely for academic achievement. For example, PwC

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has reduced its focus on university qualification points as a recruitment criterion and instead hired graduates who failed to achieve an upper second class British degree, but have excelled in areas such as sport, charity work or as entrepreneurs.

We couldn’t thank you enough for your cooperation.

Keep Up with the Good Work!!

- Grace Ndiritu

IMAGE COURTESY OF: Ruby Nguyen

If

you can remember, the MetroBiz September issue featured the Business Model Competition and the previous competition in which the Metropolia Business School’s team, MobileQue came second and the most favourite presentation voted by the crowd. Well, it has been several months now and the name has changed from BMC to Startup Cup. I visited their office in Kaisaniemenkatu 13 to catch up with their latest activities and especially, to learn more about their recent Startup Cup challenge which was held last month in Wanhasatama. I interviewed Ola Sundell who is the CEO at HUB 13 and also the Executive Producer for Startup Cup and Ruby, who is one of our IBL students and currently doing the Digital Marketing and Coordination for the Startup Cup during her internship, and this is what they said.

Which Methods and Approaches do you use?

We use the lean startup methodology and we have mentors who are familiar with that. We also need to have very clear ideas and rules of how mentoring and coaching are done. Startup cup consists of intensive hack days, student competition and summer camp, which involves intensive challenges, learning how to innovate and further training and development of the most successful teams.

How can Students benefit from Startup Cup? Students benefit from a number of reasons; first of all, this is an opportunity to acquire skills most employers look for today when recruiting talent. I believe that students willing to build a career have to build an image or brand for themselves. For example, if you are applying for a job, what does it says; If it just says, you

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FEATURE there is a bunch of problems that nobody is really at the moment dealing with and its a big humongous international problem. It’s a problem in Finland but it’s also for everybody. If I would move to London today, it would be a problem for me just like for anybody else since in a new country, you have zero history and your networks don’t exist. When I was a youth, I studied in England, I lived four years abroad, and when I came back, I had to build my profession network like from zero and its kind of still affecting me in many ways. If you study at home, it’s so much easier. Student life is so valuable

IMAGE COURTESY OF: Ruby Nguyen are the student and these are the courses, and majors and so on, it doesn’t say a lot because everybody is on the same level. I don’t think that you know, you are placing your future on luck pretty much. This is more of a program where students take their future in their own hands, they start creating an active image of themselves, and they start understanding the fundamental business problems or businesses face these days, I think businesses are more and more looking for people who posses a certain mind and skill set. This set is something that we want to develop and also give students a lot of room to build teams, test their ideas and try launching something challenging, and once they realize how hard it is, then they understand studying is easy, but business is really hard and that’s in many ways a major gap between going from student life to professional life. And the gap is even getting wider because the pace of business climate is changing and there are a lot of disruptions going on. Also, understand how companies struggle these days and that kind of environment, students aren’t very strong in the job market.

Startup Cup Event at WanhaSatama What was the idea? And who were the participants?

There’s a general kind of perception that to enter into a startup game, you need to have a good idea. But we start with the problems, so we were not pitching the ideas but the problems. We are teaching first of all, being a successful entrepreneur, startup or even have a successful business; is not necessarily about who’s

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got the best ideas, but, it is who identifies the right problem and together with their customers, design a solution to it. However, most of the time businesses work in a very old fashioned way where they analyse, build a solution and then start marketing and selling.

With the Startup Program, we wanted to keep it just for students, since it was a cross campus program, we tried to connect a lot like even in larger scale not just from Metropolia, but also from other schools like Haaga Helia, Arcada, and Laurea. We built the website and tried to send the message out to schools, social media platforms, so it could reach the students.

There were many students who registered.

In Metropolia we have a lot of projects with business students working together and we have not yet had kind of real project between business students and engineering students. What we tried to aim, was to connect all students and work together; because you might have group work in Metropolia but when you go out there and focus on students from other school, it might not be the same, but you may need to convince them in some other way.

The day started with a half day session. At first we had 3 teams of four students There was complete freedom for everybody to pitch problems and the problems they pitched one was chosen for all the teams to work on. We got them working on problems and designing or rather building a vision for their team. The problem was about moving to a new country, how difficult it is to integrate and build professional networks as

The beauty of the event like that normally is that startups come with ready answers, have ready solutions and they pitch their solutions. It was a nice small event where we could really see how it was working and how we had to deal with it. One team signed up for a later follow up session, which is still active and we are following up their progress.

We believe in, you have to start small. There was a lot of learning that we got from the program. So many times it’s just like we teach in methodologies that, the idea is not to keep the project in house as as a project team, but it’s better to launch it, even it is a little bit early, and only by doing, it together with customers do you actually learn, what needs to be done Do you have any plans for future events?

because it is a valuable experience for students to have an understanding of the teams. So, if a student could find a team of which She/he could keep in touch with, and start building ideas for the future, maybe the startup source, that’s a very valuable thing. But we are also hoping for students to experience and see how most ideas fail and also offer networking value. You don’t just go to school just for knowledge, but also to network with other people, it might be that maybe in future you may work together for some bigger things.

So, trying to offer the networking value where students meet other students from other campuses, see if they have any interests in common and maybe in future working on something else. We have some companies that might be interested in what teams are doing and then we could offer the network value between the students and companies so that they meet each other and discuss the ideas of the problems that are going on the real startup life.

What advice would you give to the students?

I would say, the school gives you something, but it’s all about how you build your own future, it’s really about cultivating a mind and skill set. But, also being able to prove and show track records to future employers. You should try to hack your way to a career or a job since it is getting more and more competitive. My fear is that students aren’t prepared for what’s really out. They are naïve, think everything is right about the future and that good grades in their courses have a significance.

It’s all about what kind of paths and networks you can build to companies. For the 3-4 years in school, build paths and networks for companies and one way is through start-up company. I think that’s a brilliant way to differentiate yourself as a student. The profession is all about differentiating yourself and very few achieve that. Startup companies are designed for students who want to differentiate themselves.

We are planning to have four events every year at different campuses; Metropolia, Haaga Helia, University of Helsinki and Arcada or Laurea. It’s kind of a new program and we are trying to attract a mainstream audience and that brings challenges.

Because the mainstream audience are not necessarily like entrepreneurs in the sense, they might have difficulties coming up with ideas and problems to solve. And with those issues we are thinking of having companies and startups reverse speech: for companies, If you have visioned your career in a startup problems and to startup, ideas so as to get creative and environment, join the Startup Cup and get training innovation going on amongst the teams. with Lean Startup Method and become the talents that any company will want to hire. Registration link: What are your Future targets? www.startupcup.fi/register We are planning to achieve a nationwide national - Grace Ndiritu & Ola Sundell program. We also hope to achieve a lot of new teams

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FEATURE

INNOVATIVE & AMBITIOUS KAIJA HAAPASALO INTERVIEW Hi Kaija, could you briefly introduce yourself, when did you become a lecturer in MBS and which courses are you teaching?

I

am Kaija Haapasalo, a senior lecturer and have been teaching logistics and supply chain management related courses in Metropolia Business School since May 2008 when the International Business and Logistics Programme started.I teach both in the International and Finnish programmes and I’m also a thesis supervisor for both Bachelor´s and Master´s Degree programmes in our school. Last but not least of my tasks is to be a tutor teacher for the IBL students, which I find very rewarding.

Have you had other careers apart from teaching? And what drove you to teaching career?

Before starting in Metropolia Business School, I spent over 12 years in business, mainly in chemical industry. I have worked as a Logistics Manager, Business Controller and Analyst , Procurement Manager and Project Manager of Datawarehouse and ERP projects. Working in an international company has taken me to many countries and I have enjoyed working in multicultural teams and projects and with suppliers and customers worldwide. I also enjoyed working with the engineers at the production site of Kemira Group in UusiKaupunki, Finland and with the sales and finance people at the Helsinki Head Office and in the sales offices and factories abroad. Working in a logistics team has enabled me to see how important and also difficult the integration of different business functions in the company can be.

As a small girl my dream profession was a teacher and I even started at the University of Turku to study to become an English teacher but then decided to switch to business instead. Now I am happy being able to combine these two here in Metropolia Business School. So when I saw that this position of a logistics lecturer was open seven years ago, I decided to apply and here I am still

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IMAGE COURTESY OF: Kaija Haapasalo IMAGE COURTESY OF: Kaija Haapasalo enjoying my work which is very challenging but also rewarding when you see young people to succeed and gain more confidence and also because I have such great colleagues.

Which other projects are you involved in? Are students involved in some of these projects?

I’m an active member of LOGY; Finland’s Logistics and Purchasing Association. Some of our students have participated already several years in the LOGY’s Annual Conference and also in their projects together with Arcada students. One of our students was chosen to LOGY´s mentoring program and another one is an active student member in the LOGY Helsinki and Uusimaa district. We have also co-operation with the Finnish Freight Forwarding Association and our students have won several of their case and video competitions during the past few years. Even though we have company visits and business simulations, we really need to develop our co-operation with the companies to gain more projects for our students. This is what I hope to be able to do more in the future. I have also started to build and manage

the IBL Alumni subgroup of EM/EBA/IBL Alumni of Metropolia UAS. As an alumni of my former school, Turku School of Economics and Business Administration, I hope to be involved in developing also this part in MBS, since networking gives us all so much.

reasons and customer service needs.

How do you spend your free time?

As a mother of two football players I am often standing by the football field. I like sports myself too. Summer in the Turku archipelago by the sea or cross-country How would you describe Logistics Culture in Finland? skiing in winter are my favourite ways of relaxing. I Whataretheopportunitiesandwhatarethechallenges? have always enjoyed learning different languages and meeting people from other cultures and therefore I The logistics culture in Finland is changing. The like to travel whenever possible. When I retire, I can importance of managing information and increased imagine myself of doing more voluntary work abroad automatization and more advanced material handling as well. technology has changed the jobs available and also skills needed from the employees. Nowadays you are What advice could you give to Metropolia Business able to find also more women in logistics positions. Students?

In the coming 5-10 years there is high demand for Don´t be too modest but try to think how to stand out new workers in the logistics field in Finland and in in the crowd. We all have some strengths and special other European countries since the older generation skills or features. Be active and dare to challenge is retiring. Even though logistics is very international yourself. field it is not necessarily easy for our international students to find job opportunities in logistics because of the lack of Finnish language skills. The Finnish - Kaija Haapasalo &Grace Ndiritu language requirement is often justified with safety

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FEATURE ATTITUDES ABOUT MBS Around the campus as of lately I have heard petty complaining and grumbling about the effectiveness of Metropolia as a business school.

The first being something along the line of: “Metropolia Business School (MBS) is not as prestigious as the University of Helsinki or Aalto and so, our education is not as good or worth as much.”

And the second being: “If our lecturers were competent, why aren’t they out in their fields making money, or in other words, those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.”

IMAGE CREDITS: Wikipedia

ATTITUDE is EVERYTHING!!

W

hen we are tired and busy, we struggle with motivation and tend to think negatively. Attitude is defined as a manner, disposition, feeling, position, etc., with regard to a person or thing; tendency or orientation, especially of the mind. It is the sum of our beliefs, experiences, opinions and judgments, surrounding a specific thing, place or person. This article addresses a few things about attitude.

I suggest that when it comes to what we do have control over, attitude often influences our behaviour and I imagine that the opposite is also true. Personally, I can be very stubborn, especially if I have already had a poor or positive experience with whatever the situation is. It is as if I am naturally biased in my attitude based on my experience. However, being stubborn in attitude, particularly a negative attitude, can inhibit us from making a clear conscious effort to change the situation.

For instance, suppose you have a class that you really don’t like or the lecturer seems boring, insecure, unengaging and repetitive. Let’s say for the first three lectures you have had a poor experience and it has influenced your attitude to be genuinely negative towards the course as a whole (I think in this situation we would all have a crappy attitude). So you skip a

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few classes, half-ass the assignments, basically, do enough to get the points and pass. Sometimes we all have annoying classes and we just have to get through it and forget it. However, we can still learn from a poor class, if we are willing to change our attitude and approach towards it.

Let’s say you decided you want to get all you can from the class, the shortcomings of the class are something you cannot control but your attitude is. So you tell yourself “I don’t like this class, but I am going to show up; exercise patience and try to engage with the subject matter of this course.” The person that takes this approach will be more accomplished. I know this is hard, but can make a significant difference.

I want to use this article about attitude to talk about larger issues and perhaps challenge some of my peers.

Normally, I consider complaining as trivial and harmless, we all do it. Right after we get a less than favourable grade or after some disagreement with a lecturer, nothing is better than a good bitching session. However, in this instance I feel that these two cases go beyond just passing annoyances that are a part of everyday school life and go into the realm of poor attitude and an immature sense of perspective.

Let’s deconstruct these complaints and have ourselves a reality check.

REALITY CHECK Firstly, in Finland there are both universities and polytechnics. Universities provide academic education based on research and promote research on the other hand, Polytechnics provide professional higher education and promote hands on training and learning. Universities’ emphasize theoretical learning, a few projects and lab-based work. Polytechnics take a more practical approach and try to have smaller courses that are more industry specific. Often the universities are seen as more prestigious because they are much older and have a long history of education sometimes stretching back hundreds of years.

Polytechnics are relatively new, emerging in the 60’s and 70’s to meet the expanding educational demands of the ever-modernizing and globalizing world.

What we can see that prestige is a matter of history and branding, which makes it hard to compare MBS to the University of Helsinki.

I think we can also note that MBS as a polytechnic operates in a different way than the universities, by definition "MBS is trying to take a different approach to education not duplicate the university style of education".

Secondly, why are our lecturers teaching instead of making a better living in the business world?

I have very little patience for this sort of logic and for those that feel clever every time they say “those who can, do; those who can’t, teach”. This logic assumes that our lecturers can’t be successful in the world of business so the only option left is to come teach us.

Which has an underlining assumption that those lecturers’ motives aren’t based on the idea that they want to make a difference and view teaching as a principled profession, but rather that they were bad at making money so they had nothing left but to teach.

I am all for giving feedback and voicing our opinion when there is an issue to be addressed, but I would also say before start questioning the integrity of the school and the staff, we should check our attitude. Are you here as a student to get your degree and go? Or are you here to learn and strive at an institution that genuinely tries, sometimes imperfectly, to create the right conditions to foster learning and growth?

Essentially what I’m trying to say in this article is that your attitude has a lot to do with the kind of person you will be in countless life situations.

"Your attitude will be fundamental to giving either constructive criticism or unhelpful and narrow-minded criticism".

As a general life rule, I believe it best to try and view things with grace and a willingness to see things from the other’s perspective.

- Jonathan Gaddis

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EXCHANGE

EXCHANGE IN MBS

INTERVIEW WITH JOËLINE STUDER

IMAGE COURTESY OF: Joëline Studer

Hi Joëline, could you briefly tell us who you are and why you decided to be a foreign exchange student here in MBS?

My

name is Joëline, I am 20 years old and grew up in the Southern part of France near Avignon. I have been very lucky because my parents have always been around foreigners; for instance, they lived in Africa for 6 years. That’s why I always wanted to explore the world. I decided to be an exchange student in Finland because I had not been in this country before, and I thought it could be a good idea to go to an unfamiliar country. Other reasons are; I wanted to discover a Scandinavian country, visit a Finnish sauna, taste their hot chocolate, enjoy in the snow, among other things. Most of the students go to Australia or United States, these are good destinations too, but I felt that I should try something different.

What differences or similarities are there between MBS and your school, for example regarding lectures and culture?

Maybe the biggest difference is the relation

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IMAGE COURTESY OF:Joëline Studer between the MBS students and teachers; here people are more easy-going and always ready to encourage one another. Even if there are many good similarities with my school, I feel it’s more relaxed in Finland, maybe it’s because I’m an exchange student (laugh).

Another difference is that I had the opportunity to choose my schedule that I have enjoyed so far.

I have also been motivated by the group works I participated in, especially because my involvement in these groups was my own choice.

What have you gained from being an exchange student here in MBS? That’s a big question. Of course, I have gained a lot in many different ways. I would say that I have made new close friends. In my opinion, when travelling, relation with others can become deeper within a short period of time. Simply because, for example, in my case, we had so many different adventures together and enjoyed our time as much as possible. I also learnt a lot from other cultures as well.

Did you find something unique about Finland/ Finnish people?

They are very respectful; I truly think that people here are awesome and are always ready to help you.

I really met good Finnish people. At first it’s not easy to talk to them, but they can surprise you. They are modest and simple as well. But, I think that they should be proud of their country.

Did you travel to other regions of Finland?

I have been to Lapland, Porvoo and Turku. I enjoyed it so much.

Any unforgettable memories during your exchange period?

I would say that Erasmus life has only positive aspects. For example you can travel in an easier way - I came from France to Helsinki by train and Ferry, it was an amazing experience. Helsinki is in a good location. With a friend, we decided to go for a road trip from Finland to France to know our continent better. In total I visited 12 countries in 5 months and always in a cheap way. Before coming I was already in the mood of enjoying my time here so far.

you are a student it’s also an opportunity to grow up and develop your character. Life goes so fast, that’s why it’s so important to make the best out of the experience. I enjoy spending time at school as well because I discovered it is a good way to learn and it is so interesting to have different aspects of different cultures. Travel sometimes seems quite impossible, but when I see all these Erasmus students around me, I just cannot believe it and become certain that travel make the world stronger. In fact, there are more and more students who travel, it’s easy to make friends and to learn about others. Erasmus is a community and I am sure that I will see some of my friends here again. To compare to my daily life, I feel that I have more opportunities to spend time and to really enjoy simple days. Even though sometimes at home you already have your schedule.

To conclude, I would say that this experience is great in so many ways. Every single experience is different and you need to create yours

- Grace Ndiritu & Joëline Studer

What advice would you give to exchange students studying here at MBS? I wish to share my adventure here in Finland because I have been enjoying it so much; I encourage every student to go out of their comfort zone for one or two semesters to study in a different culture. When

Joeline is an exchange student here at MBS, who kindly shared with us her experiences here in Finland.

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IMAGE CREDITS: ESC Rennes

PARTNER UNIVERSITY PROFILE:

ESC RENNES SCHOOL OF BUSINESS Rennes

R

ennes is a student town located in northwestern France. It is the capital of the Brittany region. Rennes has

a colourful history and the city is full of medieval influences. Rennes has over 200 000 inhabitants, 60 000 of whom are students.

Rennes is approximately 2 hours from Paris by train. There are lots of restaurants, cafés, creperies and bars in the city. There are also various parks and museums, such as Parc du Thabor and Musée de Bretagne, that are worth visiting.

ESC Rennes ESC Rennes School of Business was established in 1990. ESC Rennes is one of the Grandes Écoles, elite graduate schools. The university has approximately 3 800 students, 40 percent of whom are international students. In addition, ESC Rennes is accredited by The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) and the European Quality Improvement System (EQUIS), just to name a few. ESC Rennes was ranked 23rd

EXCHANGE

TIPS FROM PREVIOUS EXCHANGE STUDENTS LIFESTYLE

UNIVERSITY ESC Rennes has prestigious reputation

a

The welcome team assists international students and organizes events Associations arrange trips to nearby towns all the time

The most efficient way to arrive in Rennes is flying to the Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris and taking the TVG train to Rennes Book your flight and train tickets as early as possible since they can be extremely expensive

The lunch break is nearly two hours long, so you can explore other options besides cafeteria food

You will need your birth certificate in both French and your own language in order to apply for a French housing allowance for students (CAF)

The library is big and modern, and contains 23 000 books

Rennes has an excellent public transportation system

The campus is open 24 hours a day, 6 days a week The teaching style and standards do not differ significantly from Metropolia Business School French language tests are compulsory in the beginning of the semester, even if you have never studied the language

There is a farmer’s market every Saturday that is definitely worth visiting Summers are long and warm The general price level is similar to Finland but food is significantly more affordable You do not have to speak français but it will make your life easier

ACCOMMODATION Private accommodation is generally recommended République, Saint-Anne and La Gare are desirable locations for accommodation if you wish to live near all the shops, bars and parks If you want to live close to the university, Villejean is a great location for an apartment Start searching for an apartment as soon as possible Make sure that you know exactly what your apartment contract says, especially if you are not fluent in French Accommodation prices range from 300 to 700, naturally depending on the location, condition and size of the apartment

- Mia E. Varis

Since Rennes is a student town, there is always a party somewhere

in the Financial Times ranking in 2014. The university also has 170 university partners all over the world. Double degree students can choose to study Finance and Banking, Sales and Marketing or Purchasing and Supply Chain, and are required to complete 180 ECTS.

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WORKING IN SALES & JOB OPPORTUNITIES IN DUBLIN SAMI LAMPINEN

H

ello dear fellow students! This article shares my experience in sales and how I’ve been observing sales profession evolving in past 10 years. Yes, as you can see, I’m one of those “senior students” and I am taking my second education after having first completed in 1995 from engineering. I’m mostly visiting Myyrmäki campus while daytime students are away so Tuesday evenings and Saturdays are my slots for studying, the rest of the day I spend with my job in sales.

I’ll skip that part of the story of how on earth I ended up in sales after graduating from engineering and swearing that I’ll never work in sales. It would be a story of its own, so let’s stick with this topic of sales for now.

I’m working in an American company which is headquartered in San Francisco and it is operating in the software industry. The company is called Salesforce, and it is now 16 years old.

I’ve worked in the Finnish branch in Espoo now for eight years. My partner and I started this office. First, I acted first as a Sales Engineer, for 3 years, basically drafting and demoing those solutions, that customers were willing to accept and then purchase while my partner was acting

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WORK PLACEMENT to see various roles.

IMAGE COURTESY OF: Sami Lampinen as an Account Executive; handling commercial negotiations and other arrangements. We were a pretty effective duo and after three years we hired a couple of people and since our customer base was rapidly increasing I moved into this Account Executive position as well.

First of all, people seem to have lots of different opinions on working in sales and what sales actually are. Sales means different things to different people, but what I mean mainly here in this article are the so called quota carrying sales work. The work of people in the sales organization that are in charge of bringing the specific revenue inflow into the company. Quota means their share of the projected future revenue of the company that they need to at least bring into the company. Typically, these people are called Account Managers or Account Executives.

Then there are other people involved in sales as well, for example, My previous role ”Sales Engineer” – This is a typical role in software industry sales or in technical sales. There are at least five different other roles I could mention in the sales organization, all of these roles play an important part of the sales work.

Please take a look at my link at the end of the article

Still a little bit of background. Sales are happening through the segments also commonly referred to as territories, I manage four customers who belong in the Strategic Customers Territory. They are strategic to us because they already represent a big revenue stream, or they are bigger potential for us in the near future – typically, in a fiscal year time frame. Some people in our company manage SME or Mid Market segments, which might contain tens of customers or even hundreds, that kind of sales work is more transactional, compared to my strategic role. Strategic means that we are investing more time of an individual and the team for these customers, of course we expect to receive return in a form of new revenue on top of the old revenue (we are in subscription business, which is again something that would need an article of its own to describe properly).

So what do I then do in sales? In short, I manage my customers, build pipeline and close pipeline.

The pipeline is a term used in sales to describe the sales funnel which is the size and maturity level of the sum of deals identified. In practice, it means that we identify, qualify, maturate and close these deals.

In theory, sales are pretty simple; you just need to identify/know what the customer needs and sell that. In real life, it is the opposite, the challenge is to understand customer real business issues and how we can help to solve them. Also, how to figure out decision makers and a real compelling event of by which date customer needs to figure out the solution for his problem. Or then how to speed up the customer decision making process so that it will support your own quota closing rate according to your targets and promises to your stakeholders.

As you can see, it becomes more complex now.

Therefore, proper sales management, sales tools, processes, pricing management, organization/ territory structure, incentives and even product portfolio management to mention a few, are used to drive sales in company and of course the success of an individual working in sales.

A couple of words on how I’ve seen sales as a

profession evolving in Finland in past years; I graduated in 1995 as an engineer, I had my own opinion of the sales - it was so strong opinion that I wanted to work with the technology instead. I felt, sales should be handled by someone else. I worked in “technology” for about five years, but since year 2000 my opinion started to change to the point that I even desired to work in sales. In my opinion, I’ve noticed that in general the appreciation of the sales work has developed in the past ten years in Finland. At least the culture of “sales pitch” or “pitching” something for others has raised everywhere, especially, in the world of startups. Startups may be emitting need of “pitching” i.e active pursuing clear and benefit focused messaging to other companies too, not to mention those TV series like Lion’s Den, which have been emphasizing need of the sales skills heavily as well. Also, a clear need for more professional sales habit have been identified in Finnish companies.

In general, they need to increase their sales but also have better sales and financial forecasting for example. Products/services are great, but they just don’t sell by themselves that’s the fact as we all know.

So, in this highly competitive environment we are living, someone needs to promote and actively sell these products/services professionally and that’s a job of a salesman. I think the direction is clear and things are moving in the right direction in sales; the professionalism and clear investing are well handled.

Sales is happening here more and more.

In conclusion, I want to have two simple key takeaways from sales what you should remember after reading this article; Pipeline - enough pipeline is a key to success in any case, in sales, pipeline is the monetary value of the potential individual deals in your territory. What is enough? It varies based on the industry/company/ product and sales person, but typically one good rule of thumb is that you need to have a pipeline of at least three times of your quota to close your target sales. Job of a sales professional is to execute searches and build this pipeline from his/her segment of customers and then maturing these pipeline items (often called opportunities or sales projects) until they are closed. ‘l won (hopefully)’

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Quota - is the monetary value that your company sets for you as a target sale happening in a certain period of time. Typically in a fiscal year, and split into quarters and even months. This quota is linked to the bonuses of a sales professional, if you reach your quota you’ll get your bonuses, if you go over your quota you might be getting even higher bonuses.

Sales as a profession - Is demanding, it is customer-focused and fun to work with. If you do well, it’s also pretty rewarding. In case you are interested, please be in touch via Twitter or LinkedIn at: Sami Lampinen/@samilampinen and if you are graduating soon, why not apply into the positions we have open in Dublin for junior sales professionals to start learning the journey and career in sales.

More info about jobs in sales here: http://salesforce.careermount.com/ candidate/job_search/quick/results?sort_ field=post_date&location=Dublin

- Sami Lampinen

As you’ve noted from the article, Sami is not doing his Internship with Salesforce, but has been working there. However, his work experience fitted so well under this category!!

Meet our cover model LiisaBrett from Estonia. Liisa is one of our IBL 14 A students and was amongst the volunteers during the entrance exams. At the moment, she is interested in Marketing and Business Consulting. These are platforms to her career and might change as she advances in the International Degree Programme.

Good luck with your studies!!

- Grace Ndiritu IMAGE COURTESY OF: Daniel Hunt

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IMAGE COURTESY OF: Eemelli & Minja

LIISA-BRETT SONNENBERG

Charity Shore!! - 17th April 2014 2nd Year EM Students have organized a charity party for their school project, in connection with Kummit Organisation, the charity focused on economic support for children in poorer countries. The party will be held at Wäiski restaurant starting at 6pm. Different artists will be performing and a professional photographer will be taking photos. 5 euros is the minimum fee for an entrance ticket.

The students’ goal is to reach a large audience for the cause of the children!!

Hope to see you there!!

- Grace Ndiritu

STUDENT LIFESTYLE

EVENTS HAPPENNING NOW METKAN WAPPU Hi all! Perhaps the most exciting event of the Finnish student culture, aka Wappu will be here next week!

The student union METKA organizes a weeklong Wappu event from Thursday 23th onwards. The week consists of 8 different events organised by the student associations in Metropolia.

IMAGE CREDITS: METKA

Buy yourself a Wappu Pass through the event and collect stamps from each event. On Thursday 30th head to Kaisaniemenpuisto to METKA’s main Wappu event, return you pass there and you will be rewarded with an exclusive overall badge!

In case you have any questions related to Wappu, feel free to ask me. I hope to see many of you during the week!Â

- Jaana Paju

PHYSICAL ACTIVITIES - GOOD FOR HEALTH! IMAGE COURTESY OF: Louise Stansfield

Did you know that our gym and sports hall are available again for re-use? Floor-ball, football, basketball, badminton to mention a few, can be practiced here!! Make a reservation and enjoy some physical activities with a friend or alone. All you need is to write an email to METKA and make a reservation. We hope that in future, the school will be able to organize different friendly/competing matches with different degree programmes.

- Grace Ndiritu 20

FISH DINNER FOR 2

Easy Recipe!! For Busy students!!

Ingredients

Preparation.

• 1 pack of Alaskan Seiti Frozen. Basically, you can find a similar fresh flat fish (Kampela) for the same price at the counter.

After leaving the fish to defrost, cut it into small pieces on a cutting board, then set up 4 large flat bowls in a line. 1st with milk, 2nd with flour, 3rd with beaten eggs the 4th with bread crumbs/cornmeal.

• 4 potatoes

The last bowl should be nearest to the frying pan in which you heat up olive oil (can be substituted by 1/2 cleared butter or 1⁄2 good frying oil).

• 1 packet of frozen peas (Herne) to add some veggies to the plate • 1 egg, some milk, some flour and some bread crumbs/cornmeal; to be mixed together • ½ tsp olive oil/butter • Pinch of salt to taste

Created for students, by students!!

MetroBiz Magazine Addresses issues relevant international business

to

students

NB! The oil should not be heated for a long time! Fry the fish in the pan; turn only once after the colour is golden brown, the frying time is rather quick. Once they are done, put them on absorbent paper and salt to taste.

You can keep the first fried portions in an oven at 50-70degrees Celsius, if you are cooking for more people or if your frying pan is small.

For the side dishes: boil the potatoes in salted water until you can easily put a toothpick through them. When they are ready, drain the water into the sink and peel off the skin quickly under cold water, to avoid them cooling down.

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Then put them back in the bowl and add some butter, milk, pinch of salt, and mash them with the potato masher or with a big fork. At the same time, put the peas in a pan, add some oil and 1 big/2 small garlic cloves, cover with a lid and let them cook until the peas are well cooked.

At this point all you have to do is plate everything and

EnjoyYour Meal!!

- Lorenzo Ciatto IMAGE COURTESY OF:Lorenzo Ciatti

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