So what… Is the big deal about CSI?

By Gabriella de la Torre, MBA in Hospitality Management, Mexico & USA, 2012-2014 2nd Year

“The strength of the team is each individual member. The strength of each member is the team.” - Phil Jackson

One of our final blogs for the year, and you all are probably tired of hearing about the famous (or infamous depending on your perspective) course called CSI. With the project reports turned in to Steigenberger Hotel Group and the final presentations executed in front of company executives and Professor Nicolas Graf, this blog will focus on my personal experience with what I believe to be the one of the most valuable, challenging and exciting courses in the entire IMHI program.

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CSI: Competitive Strategic Intelligence… Or Chipotle, Stress and Imagination

The CSI journey began in April with the determination of the different groups. The morning we received the email with the list of group leaders, a flurry of messages, phone calls, and personal meetings occurred almost instantaneously, as each student sought to secure the best group based on his or her own individual criteria. The group that I had the good fortune of being a part of was made up of students from all over the world – yours truly from the US, Alexandra from Peru, Alex from Germany, Ioanna from Greece and Sara from Lebanon. But there was one characteristic that united us all: a strong determination to provide an excellent deliverable for Steigenberger Hotel Group.

Funnily enough, many of us had never worked in a group setting together. Nevertheless, from the first group meeting that we had at the beginning of May, each of us put our best foot forward for the benefit of the group. Assignment after assignment, we worked hard to present a concise, pertinent and creative analysis to Professor Graf.

It was not always easy, however. Rounds of feedback sessions, countless day-long (and sometimes night-long) meetings, thousands of cells in Excel and lines in Word documents. Emails back and forth regarding global trends that could impact our recommendations, competitive methods that the firm should focus on and when and where would be our next group meeting inundated our inboxes for the entire two months of the experience. Early morning trains to Cergy, to La Defense and back to Paris became even more a part of our weekly routines. It was exhausting both physically and mentally to be entirely honest, and there were moments of extreme stress for the entire group, such as the time when we worked the entire day to submit our second assignment before the midnight deadline; the five of us crammed into a small Parisian apartment, each of us working on a different computer, shouting from the kitchen to the not-so-faraway living room asking for information about this country’s GDP and that country’s number of inbound tourists, for services offered by this hotel brand compared to that one. And all the while, the minutes ticked away at seemingly lightning speed. Or the time the five of us spent the night in Cergy, again in order to make yet another deadline, having dinner after hours of non-stop work in a nearby restaurant almost in complete silence, our brains virtually fried.

Boy, was it stressful… But it is an experience that I will never forget not only because of its educational and professional merits, but also because of the four people that I had the opportunity to get to know even better and whom I can now call some of my closest friends. There were very positive moments, such as our countless lunches at the nearby Chipotle restaurant whenever we met at ESSEC’s La Defense campus, the many laughs we shared about everything and anything during work sessions, the immense feeling of joy when our financial forecasts turned out not to be negative… In addition to everything that I learned about the methodology to determine future opportunities in hospitality, these are the moments I will most cherish and remember. I learned so much about myself during the two months that constituted the project, and more than anything, I learned a great deal from my four teammates who were each tremendously gifted and talented in their own domains.

Looking back on the entire CSI project, I can say with certainty that it is one of the most rewarding experiences that I have had during my time at IMHI, and this is in great part due to my four teammates. Pushing through the challenges, strengthening each other and finding the right balance between work and play was what made working on the project truly satisfying and enjoyable. It is a part of IMHI that I will never forget, carrying with me the lessons and memories from Peru, Germany, Greece and Lebanon as I embark onto the next chapter of my professional career.

Strategic Management: The CSI Sequel

By Gabriella de la Torre, MBA in Hospitality Management, Mexico & USA, 2012-2014 2nd Year

The month of June has flown by for the graduating IMHI students, who have been diligently working on the deliverables for their capstone project.

The Mission: Create a branding or development strategy over the next ten years for Steigenberger Hotel Group (SHG).

After countless sleepless nights, hours of research, report writing, group meetings and feedback sessions with Professor Nicolas Graf, the final reports have been turned in, and the groups are now looking forward to July 1st, when our findings will be presented to SHG representatives.

Looking back on this experience that occupied virtually every waking moment for the IMHI students, we have the chance to hear about the CSI / Strategic Management challenge first hand from different group members.

Gaelle Nziwoué, Second-Year Student
“CSI or Human Resources? The experience would have been beneficial if the only objective of this exercise was to be good consultants and truly satisfy the needs of the company we were advising regarding its international expansion plan. However, the real challenge was to come together and work non-stop with five people with different experiences and personalities. Nevertheless, each of us learned to be patient, to respect others and to let go of his or her ego for the benefit of the greater team. All of us were conscious of the need to adopt this philosophy in order to overcome the workload that was imposed on us. In the end, with only a few weeks before the end of our studies, there was not a better way to prepare us for the professional world.”

Bruno Trenchard, Second-Year Student
“A tough, demanding, but highly enriching experience that taught us how to work in a professional context with all the issues involved. Managing a team, explaining different concepts, motivating teammates, and working in a good atmosphere are the things that are best learned on the field, and through this project.”

Sara Semaan, Second-Year Student
“Contrary to everything I have heard from students who already did the project—‘It is hard.’ ‘You will get into fights with each other.’ ‘You will hate your group after CSI.’ My experience was contrary to everything I was expecting. CSI was great! It was challenging, since it required us to sum up and combine everything we have learned during the previous two years in one long project. It was time consuming. We couldn’t focus on other courses, and even annoying at some point! But at the same time, it was fun! You should choose your teammates wisely, since you are going to spend literally two months with them. I could not be happier with the choice I made from a team standpoint. It was an incredible team! These two last months are what I will remember the most from IMHI!” 

Luc Jiguet, One-Year Track Student
"CSI has been by far the biggest challenge of the MBA. It asked all members of the team to [come together to] make a strong analysis for the hotel company. The core competencies and other theories learned during the program were utilized in order to create the best teamwork possible for the project. A good experience to remember for any hardship that we may encounter at work. Just three words would summarize CSI: never give up!”

With a variety of viewpoints and feedback, CSI and Strategic Management have proven to be a challenging experience from a number of standpoints that has prepared us for difficulties we may face in the real world. Stay tuned for the results and experience of our final presentations on July 1st!

Current IMHI student status: Sleep-deprived...

The End of the Beginning: CSI

By Gabriella de la Torre, MBA in Hospitality Management, Mexico & USA, 2012-2014 2nd Year

“Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” – Winston Churchill

Sitting in Professor Nicolas Graf’s Competitive Strategic Intelligence (CSI) class two weeks into the third and last trimester of the year, we are reminded of the beginning of our time at IMHI. For some of us this was two years ago, for others it was simply seven months ago, but we all recall the first class we had with Professor Graf during the program’s Introductory Session – Introduction to Strategy. This time around, things have changed. Not only are we more knowledgeable about the hospitality industry after our respective IMHI courses and work experience, but also the stakes are much higher.

As our capstone project, we have been asked to work as consultants for Steigenberger Hotels with the aim of creating either a branding or development strategy for the group. This project is to be completed in conjunction with another class, Strategic Management in Hospitality, over the course of the last two and half months of our IMHI experience. In the CSI course, the groups have been diligently working on the first assignment, which pushes us to open our mind beyond France and beyond the hospitality industry to gain an understanding of major trends and global forces that are likely to have an impact on the firm in question. Short deadlines, massive amounts of research and a requirement for succinct, precise and insightful deliverables make for a true challenge for each of the groups.

This final stretch of our IMHI journey is likely to be a test in many respects: testing our stamina, testing our limits and testing everything we have learned over the course of this academic experience. For many, this last trimester may seem like the beginning of the end of a unique chapter in our lives. Through this particular project, however, it becomes clear that this just the end of the beginning: the beginning of our deep exposure to the hospitality industry and the beginning of our new careers. This project is truly the culmination of our individual experiences and will provide us yet another opportunity to put what we’ve learned into practice in a real-life situation.

Steigenberger Consulting Project Kick-Off