Tag: Capstone Project

A View From the MBA Finish Line

Nothing worthwhile comes easy. The MBA has certainly not been easy but it has been hugely worthwhile. This week marked the finish line as we handed in the final ‘capstone’ project, the culmination of our learnings over two years applied to a real company problem. I have anticipated the feeling of elation for months, but it has come inextricably entwined with mixed emotions. I primarily feel an enormous sense of achievement and satisfaction that I have realised a long held personal ambition. There is also a certain relief in knowing that I am finally free of the constant attrition of assignments, reading, lectures, exams and the Saturday morning dash out the N11 to Blackrock. Unexpectedly, there is also a strange accompanying sense of disappointment that a journey which I have enjoyed beyond expectation, has come to an end.

A journey shared is all the sweeter, and the most enjoyable element of the last two years has been working with, and getting to know, such an exceptional bunch of people. The intensity of the MBA bonds the class in an indescribable way. From team building in a rainy field in Blackrock to Honda, Coca Cola, Southwest Airlines, and GE, to karaoke in Tokyo, we have been on a roller coaster journey together. There have been ups and downs for everyone as we have struggled to balance work and personal lives with the demands of the course.  The unfettered commitment of the group to supporting each other, and ensuring that everyone made it to the finish line together, has been remarkable. Your classmates challenge you, they set the bar high, they expect more, they drive you, but more importantly they teach you and support you.

a-view-from-the-mba-finish-line-photo

Catherine O’Brien, 2nd from left, with MBA classmates

The MBA teaches you all the fundamentals of business management from corporate finance to management accounting, organisational behaviour, strategy and negotiations. But this is not where the growth lies. I attended an event last year where I was struck by a comment made by one of the speakers, who highlighted how comfort zones are nice but nothing ever grows there. Simple but powerful, it stuck with me. The MBA has offered the opportunity to step up and out of your comfort zone in so many different ways, and I am delighted that I have pursued every single opportunity. From representing UCD Smurfit at the John Molson international business case competition in Montreal, to presenting to global MBA colleagues in Yale, I have enjoyed every opportunity to grow and learn.

The self-learning which comes through the leadership dimension of the MBA is one of the most valuable aspects of the course. Through group work and end of semester peer feedback and reflection, you learn about your style of interacting in teams, your style of leadership, your strengths, and preferences. You learn about the preferences of others, that there is no one right way, and that ultimately our differences drive us to achieve so much more.

As I reflect on the MBA journey, I won’t miss the unrelenting workload, but I will unquestionably miss the challenge and the self-development. Above all else, I will miss the class debates, the sharp wit of my classmates, and the laughter imbued post mortems over a few drinks down in the Dark Horse.

To the faculty and programme office at UCD Smurfit, on behalf of myself and my colleagues, thank you for doing your very best to look after us, to inspire us, and to challenge us.

To my MBA colleagues, I am privileged to have undertaken this journey with you, to have learned from you, and to now count you as friends who I know I can call on as we all move forward in our respective careers and lives. May I wish you all the very best with the next chapter.

Catherine O’Brien, EMBA 2015-2017

MBA Capstone Consulting Project Company Event

MBA Students Listening to Company Pitches
MBA Students Listening to Company Pitches

An integral component of the MBA programme is the Capstone Consulting project which is completed by our full-time students over a six week period in the Summer semester. This project fuses all the component learning of the MBA at the final stages of the academic year. It is an opportunity for companies to collaborate on a strategic project with our MBA students and for students to implement what they have learned over the course of the MBA in a very practical sense. Our MBA students work with companies to address strategic or operational business issues that a company wishes to address but currently do not available resources to do so. It is an invaluable opportunity for students to gain experience in sectors that they may not have worked in prior to commencing the MBA.

MBA Student Ryan Nuanes, Muireann McCarthy and Jack Mac Giolla Bhride networking with David and Stephen Flynn, owners of ‘The Happy Pear’
MBA Student Ryan Nuanes, Muireann McCarthy and Jack Mac Giolla Bhride networking with David and Stephen Flynn, owners of ‘The Happy Pear’

Working in teams of three to four, MBA students are highly motivated and bring diverse personal and professional experience to the teams. Companies have actively engaged with the Capstone Consulting Project for over 7 years which is testament to the value and benefit that world-class organisations place on this initiative and many students have secured jobs post MBA with the company that they complete their project with. The end of the project initiative culminates with the submission of a full report including methodology, analysis and recommendations for the company.

Liam Doyle (MBA Class of 2014), Managing Director at Clink Hostels, networking with Ying Wu, Thao Nguyen, Paul Kelly and Minh Le Tran Hai
Liam Doyle (MBA Class of 2014), Managing Director at Clink Hostels, networking with Ying Wu, Thao Nguyen, Paul Kelly and Minh Le Tran Hai

The MBA Programme Office liaises with a diverse range of organisations to compile a selection of interesting, thought provoking and challenging projects that offer opportunities for personal and professional growth to our students. Last night, the MBA Programme hosted a successful Company Networking Event in which organisations pitched their project ideas and networked with the MBA students to answer any questions that they had. We are delighted to have 19 companies involved in the process this year across a range of industry sectors including Tourism & Hospitality, Retail, Finance, Not-for-Profit, Fin-Tech, IT, Start-Ups and more. Feedback from the event has indicated that this networking event has changed the opinions of some students and that they would like to complete a Capstone project in a sector that they didn’t think they would be interested in. Students being open to different options and using the MBA programme as a medium to explore these options through their academic, project based and leadership development curriculum is one of the key strengths of the UCD Smurfit MBA programme. The students will commence their project work in June and we look forward to seeing the results in early August!

Yvonne Harding ~ Full-Time MBA Programme Manager

Capstone Project – The Final Hurdle

The Importance of Team Dynamics

We’re well and truly under way with Semester 4. As noted already by Niall Twomey in his recent post, this is the semester that reflects your personal choices. I have heard varying comments in relation to ‘having more time’ on our hands, which is clearly a relative comment. With my choices of Negotiations Skills, Corporate Governance, Management Consulting (by audit) and Managing Sales Relationship I cannot associate with this view, but that’s my choice I guess!

Notwithstanding the workload ahead of us in Semester 4, teams are also beginning to consider the Capstone project that will ultimately bring a close to this 2 year adventure. It’s quite amazing to hear the variety of projects being considered. I certainly never anticipated working on a project relating to sustainable food systems, and how Ireland (through a partnership of Irish Government agencies including Enterprise Ireland) can export expertise in this crucially important area which is expected to grow significantly in the years ahead. I know very little about sustainable food systems right now, but along with my Capstone colleagues and armed with some key MBA learnings, that is sure to change in the coming months. It is with a little trepidation and excitement that teams are proceeding in trying to define exactly what they hope to achieve with the Capstone project. It strikes me that first and foremost, before any considerations around the actual topic, getting the right team dynamic is the most important ingredient in order to ensure a smooth journey from now until July!

It’s hard to think about the end given that we’ve only started Semester 4, but as my wife keeps telling me, the evenings are getting longer, you’re just not seeing them as you’re in Smurfit most of the week! While not entirely true, I choose my battles wisely.

Paul Dunne ~ Year 2 Executive MBA

An update from MBA land

The final results are now out for semester 2 and EMBA year 1 students are now able to relax and get on with what will hopefully be a long hot summer and some well deserved time reacquainting themselves with friends and family, catching up on their recreational reading and tv shows.  The year 2s and full-time cohort in the mean time are in the final stretch with their capstone projects due in July.  We wish them good luck and hope they manage some time off in the sun at the same time.

Alum Dave Byrne uses UCD Smurfit MBA as platform to set up “Buzzoo”.

The June 2013 Business eConnect magazine (official e-zine for UCD Business Alumni) features one of the FT MBA ’12 students…

In Profile: Dave Byrne FT MBA ’12

Taking a year out to do a full-time MBA helped fill in the gaps in Dave Byrne’s (MBA 12) business knowledge and gave him the space to come up with the idea for and set up his online music technology company Buzzoo. For Byrne, the company – a social music service for bars and retailers that play background music – is the perfect combination of his dual interests in technology and business.

Byrne’s primary degree was a bachelor of science in computer applications in DCU, which he graduated from in 2001. “That really sparked an interest in technology for me,” he says. “Ireland had become a major player in IT so it was an exciting degree to be studying at the time.”

After graduating, he joined PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) as a management consultant. “It sounded like it would be an interesting job and the graduate induction programme involved a three-month training programme in Florida. It was a fantastic experience and a great way to kick off my career in consulting.”

He spent two years with PwC, before the consulting arm was bought out by IBM. After two years with IBM, he moved on to Accenture for the next six years. “I had the opportunity to work with some really talented people over the years and to learn a huge amount from them,” he says. “I saw consulting as ideal for my early career because it allowed me to work across a vast array of projects in a variety of roles. Every project started as a bit of a trial by fire but you quickly adapt. I always viewed them as very good learning opportunities and the constant challenge and change kept the work very interesting.

“Consulting really teaches you to figure out how things currently work and how they can be improved. That’s the basis of most of the projects. The work brought me to some interesting locations like Arizona and South Africa.

“Consulting can be pretty demanding so I took a six-month career break in 2008 to travel around the world with my wife. It was a once in a lifetime experience and really helped to recharge the batteries.”

While technology consulting offered a good mix of technology and business, he felt there was a lot he still needed to learn. “I’d always wanted to do an MBA to fill in the gaps in my business knowledge, to learn about things like strategy, marketing, accounting and entrepreneurship. The MBA at UCD Smurfit has a great reputation so I was thrilled to get a chance to do it. I guess it was a difficult decision to leave a very good job at a very good company but I’m glad I did.”

That decision was helped by the fact that he was awarded a full scholarship. “I was on the fence up until then. I decided to go for the full-time programme to really throw myself into it and get the most out of it.”

He describes the experience of taking a year out to go back to college after 10 years of working as refreshing. “It opened up a lot of opportunity outside of what I’d done previously. I think the MBA really helps you to think about business at a higher level, to think more strategically and have more of a commercial focus. It’s a great way to look at opportunities outside the area you have worked in to date and maybe to bridge into a different career in a different area. As a learning experience, I would say it’s second to none and I think anyone in a professional career is really lucky if they can get the chance to do an MBA.

He came into the programme without definite plans around his future direction. “I was quite open. I knew that as part of the MBA I needed to spend the year exploring the opportunities and trying to figure out what it was I was going to do afterwards.

“I’ve always felt I like to work with business and technology, which is quite a broad scope so I was looking for something that would marry those two together.”

Beginning Buzzoo

The idea for Buzzoo came to him during the year. “One day we were in a bar complaining about the music that was playing in the background. I noticed that we had our smartphones on the table in front of us and suddenly wondered if we could solve this problem with our smartphones.”

The solution itself is aimed at any business that plays background music, including bars, restaurants and retail. “It enables everyone on the premises to control the music by using their smartphone,” says Byrne. “It’s like moving the jukebox onto the smartphone so that the crowd becomes the DJ.  You can vote up the tracks you like and vote down the ones you don’t like.” The product as it is now includes an admin application that allows venues to schedule and play music from any location, while a smartphone app allows visitors to influence the playlist.

Byrne asked two of his fellow MBA classmates to come on board and, as part of the entrepreneurship module, the three developed a business plan which ended up winning the UCD business plan competition for 2012.

Byrne says that new job opportunities that came up during the course of the year made it a tough decision to launch the start-up after the MBA. “It was a bit of a risky decision, but the challenge and the excitement of it was too much to resist,” he says.

After graduation, Buzzoo was accepted onto the National Research Centre Launchpad Accelerator programme. “The programme provides investment and mentorship to help early stage digital technology companies to get their business off the ground. They’ve a top team of mentors and you’re surrounded by likeminded people going through the same process.”

Over the last year, Buzzoo has also received EnterpriseIreland support and been accepted onto and completed the Irish Times Fusion programme. In January 2013, it was selected as a finalist in the Best Irish Startup category at the Europa Awards. Most recently, the company won bronze in the Food & Drink Entrepreneurial Startup of the Year category at the Startup Awards 2013.

“We’ve built out a really solid team,” says Byrne. “We’ve built the minimum viable product and we have some great partners and customers lined up.”

Alpha-testing has now been carried out in a couple of bars in Dublin and a commercial launch is planned in the next couple of months. “We’re looking at Ireland as a bit of a testbed and the hope is that we can go to a couple of key reference sites in Ireland and then start looking at overseas markets. We’re working with a big drinks company on a proposal that would see a fully branded version for one of their products rolled out in 10 bars on a pilot. So we have the ability to offer a fully branded version of the application as well.”

Future developments of the product may include integrating video, he adds.

Outside influences

Byrne says that learning has always been a key driver for him and that he has learned the most from the people he has worked with. “My family is also a big influence on me. I’ve a great wife and I’ve two fantastic girls and they’re very important to me. Between my family and some of the guys I’ve worked with, they would be the key influences rather than a public celebrity.”

His advice for anyone considering starting a business is not to be afraid of taking risks and to give new things a shot. “If you fail, it’s no big deal. You’ll still learn from it. Sometimes the things that scare you the most are the things that are most worth doing.

“With regard to starting a new business, the first thing to do would be to talk to lots of potential customers and sketch out a one-page overview of the business using a business model canvas. Get advice from people in the know, figure out what gaps you have, build a strong team and go for it.

“I think it’s important to be as lean as possible so you can give yourself as long a runway as possible. And I think you need to experiment and be prepared to pivot the business as required.

“I’ve no idea what the future will bring but that keeps things interesting I guess. As long as I’m doing something that has a focus on business and technology I’ll be happy.”

More about Dave’s experiences on the MBA Programme

Let’s Get Real!

I write this blog with 2/3’s of the MBA program behind me and the academic portion effectively complete. The first 2 semesters have been a flood of information and knowledge that has been enriching and stimulating, albeit saturating at times. In this 8-9 month period we have completed 16 separate academic modules, written countless assignments, given innumerable presentations and generally been immersed in the spectrum of business related subjects, day and night.

For the final 2-3 months of the program, this outline changes tack completely. The academic learning is done and we are now expected to put it all into practise. The program’s vehicle for this exercise is the market place. As MBA participants we now move from being students, to in essence cheap labour, as we are offered out to companies to perform consulting projects. The value gained from businesses in the past means that the program is oversubscribed from companies looking to make use of this opportunity, which provides us with a broad choice of projects to work on.

I have made the selection to work on a project for a multinational looking for a feasibility analysis of a new line of business and a related roll out plan. This project struck a cord with me as it aligned my entrepreneurial tendencies with an opportunity to implement much of my learning’s from the program. Specifically, I look forward to implementing the theoretical strategy elements of analyzing the opportunity and industry attractiveness, the firm’s value chain and relative competitive advantage, and the best avenues for entry.

The project also facilitates implementation of our marketing theory in performing a market segmentation and analysis, identifying the target market, and determining the product positioning and best marketing mix. Our financial learnings should also add value in the financial modelling and analysis that will be required. I am thus looking forward to the challenge of performing a value adding assignment in tight timelines and hopefully gaining much practical learnings in feasibility analysis and the roll out of a new business venture.

Neil Krige

All in all, this practical element of the program has come at the right time as most program participants are itching to put all our learnings into practice and get out of the class room and back into the real world of business.


– Neil Krige, FT MBA 2012/13



Back to the Smurfit Ranch

The pressure and intensity of the end of first semester exams seem like a distant memory after a long Christmas break. I hope everyone in the class enjoyed it as alumni have said that it’s probably the last time we’ll get 4 weeks in a row off again at that time of year. The provisional results of the semester exams should be released next week so hopefully everyone has cleared the bar. Looking back at the first semester, the learning curve was steep but I can truthfully say that I have never learned so much new theory and concepts both from the MBA academic staff and my fellow students at any other time during my academic or working life. The challenge this semester, I feel is to consolidate this new knowledge and integrate this into the remaining modules and the Capstone project in the summer.

Sorry to see Becca Baumann leave the class at Christmas to take up a post in the US. I have no doubt that her career will go from strength to strength if her earnest engagement in class discussions is anything to go by. Hopefully she will be able to complete the MBA at a later date there.

Looking forward to the opening lecture by Professor Walsh in Financial Statement Analysis tomorrow afternoon and the first session on the International Study Trip with Professor Gibbons in the evening. I sense the evenings being less free than they have been over the past few weeks.


Cathal O’Ceallaigh

FT MBA 2013

School’s out!


What a difference a year can make. The MBA is all but done. On Tuesday, our Capstone team will present its Social Media Consulting Project to Aer Lingus, and that will be that: The MBA journey, as we know it, will be over.

It’s been a fantastic experience. It’s not quite so fantastic when you’re up close and personal with the workload, but in those moments when you get to stand back and reflect upon it all, it’s pretty immense how much knowledge you can absorb in one single year, and how quickly things can change.

On Thursday, I’m heading off to Yale University, to do it all over again. Thanks to the ambition of Professor Damien McLoughlin and Dean Ciaran O’hOgartaigh, Smurfit is now part of the Global Network for Advanced Management and thanks to the support of Yale and Smurfit, I hope I’m just the first of many Smurfit MBA Graduates who’ll experience the adventure presented by the Masters in Advanced Management (MAM) Programme over there.

Without Programme Director of  Strategic Marketing, Ciaran Doyle, picking up the phone  to me last Summer, and steering me onto the MBA (“You’d be MAD not to do it!”), and without MBA  Director, Orla Nugent, and MBA Careers, Brian Marrinan, thereafter, taking a chance on me with the IMAGE Magazine Scholarship; and Dean Ciaran O’hOgartaigh and Professor Damien McLoughlin now rowing in behind my application to Yale, never mind the enduring support of my family and friends,  this adventure to the US would not be happening.

As Newton once said, “If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants”: I didn’t get here alone, I didn’t get through it alone, and I don’t go to the US alone. The support I’ve had sustains me and goes with me. Thank you to everyone who has made this adventure possible for me, in every way.

To anyone about to start the Smurfit MBA this year, enjoy it! You’re in for a great year ahead, full of challenge: The type that’s worth it. I recommend getting your hands on a copy of, “Snapshots from Hell: The Making of an MBA”, by Peter Robinson. Read it as fast as you can, before the course begins.  It’ll get you in the right frame of mind for the year ahead (you’ll be reading fast all year!), and if you like it, I reckon you’re going to enjoy what’s coming down the tracks at you.

For anyone juggling the MBA as a possible option; know that there’ll never be a day when you’re ‘sure’ that it’s the right thing to do. I don’t think any of us were. But you’ll never find out from the side lines. Jump in. And figure it out later. I doubt, very much, you’ll regret it.

To our Lecturers: Thanks for all that you taught us. I hope, one day, we will have our revenge for cold and warm calls, case study avalanches, and sleepless nights.

To my fellow MBA Classmates: Thanks for all I’ve learnt from you during this past year: It’s been immense. I doubt there’ll be pitch-and-putt, magnetic darts, or a ‘quote board’ in Yale’s equivalent of the MBA room! (And seeing how much I featured on the latter, I won’t be suggesting they invest in one, any time soon!) I wish you the best: I hope you’ll all collectively knock it out of the proverbial park in the future.

School’s out.

What a year.

– Davinia Anderson, Full-time MBA 2011-2012

Real-world Experience

I am going home in the next few weeks. It has been a long year for me and my family. But I still have a lot to tell about my capstone project. First of all, I was very happy to get a project in the industry (banking) that I see myself in the foreseeable future. Secondly my project team has been set up to work directly with Strategy Division and people tell me it is a perfect time for us as the company is making a number of changes to it’s business strategy. So the attention of the company is on us as our achievement is also their achievement. After the kick-off meeting, I felt a little nervous because the company expected us to deliver the most difficult piece of the program that they are working on at the moment. The scope document was done up carefully to ensure that given a limited period of time, we can both deliver what they asked and what we have been asked from an academic perspective. At the time of writing this blog, nothing critical has yet been completed. Only some background information has been documented in the final report. This is because we agreed to file our findings and analysis after each section. I know, a lot of work needs to be completed. The team has done more than six interviews with key personnel in the company. The more information we were given, the more confused we seem to get (at least I thought so). After two days of conducting interviews, I felt really tired. However, we decided to sit down and have a discussion one what should be done next and therefore we spent days in the syndicate rooms (in college) to jot down all our thoughts and came to some conclusions. We have more clarity now.

As the matter of fact, the project team is new to each of us and we have never ever worked together before. The first thing I did was to read the three CVs again. The team dynamics have been good since each of us have different experiences in different industries. I have had a great time working alongside two people with completely different working styles. One team member is very quiet and the other has a very good sense of humour. We were helping each other while learning to deal with the “storming” phase of our project even though it was a very quiet one. For me, it is a totally new experience as I have learned about the other side of business that I have heard but never got my hands on. I have had a chance to talk to experienced people in various positions. One good example of such conversations was when one of the executives from the company asked us “So, what is the final outcome of this project” and “have you used LinkedIn to connect to the people here?” He shared his own insights about networking and job seeking. There are four more weeks to go and regardless of the fact that the workload is likely to get heavier, we are confident that we are on the right track and also have a lot of support from the company. I am looking forward to the final leg of my project!

– Linh Hoang, Full-time MBA 2011-12