Taking a Multipurpose Spray to Shanghai
They had a choice between completing a traditional group project or being evaluated by participating in a business competition. Claudia Cajoli and Flavia Benucci, classmates in their first year of the Master of Science in Marketing Management program chose the second option to get an extra opportunity: add participation in an international competition to their résumé. The competition in question was the Henkel Innovation Challenge, a business game launched by Henkel and open to all students enrolled in a university in Central or Eastern Europe and in the Asia-Pacific region.
 Flavia Benucci and Claudia Cajoli |
The Henkel students were asked to create a team of at least two people and play the part of business managers with the task of creating and launching a product, marketed in 2050, which needed to be innovative, eco-sustainable and useful to society.
That was how they created Schnett (from schnell and nett, translations of fast and clean). It's a spray that creates a green coating which becomes clear after a few seconds and turns into thin sheets that can be removed one by one. It's a sort of covering that keeps objects clean. The goal is to raise awareness about wasting less water, which can be used in needy areas, save time and help people in their daily cleaning.
Claudia and Flavia's idea met all the requirements of the Henkel business game. When they were explaining their work to Henkel, they convinced the panel, beating their competition from all over Italy.
"I was nervous speaking to an audience of established and interested managers," the students say. "The hardest part was answering questions quickly about marketing and economics that we had studied during our Bocconi courses."
On Monday they're leaving for Shanghai where they will represent Italy and join 27 other international teams. "It would be great to win," they say. "It would be a payoff for all our hard work and because we believe in our business game. The final prize would be nice too: a ticket for each of us for a trip around the world, worth 10,000 euros!"