News & Events
BAED students visit Hyatt Regency Hotel in Thessaloniki
A company visit to Thessaloniki Hyatt Regency Hotel took place on Monday 13th May for our 3rd level business students of the management track. Mr. Serafini Giovanni, Human Resources Manager at Hyatt welcomed the students and while giving them a tour of the hotel facilities, he explained interesting issues related to human resources in the hotel industry. The students gained valuable knowledge and experiences and realised the importance of offering a luxurious five-star hotel experience to customers while wandering around the luxurious facilities of the Hyatt Regency Hotel. The students enjoyed this visit and the opportunity to get insight from one of the leading hotels in the region of Northern Greece.
21/05/2013
Seminar on 'Fostering Personal Creativity - Boosting Organization Innovation' by Mr Hatziapostolou in Tirana
Mr. Thanos Hatziapostolou, Lecturer at our Computer Science Department delivered an insightful seminar on ‘Fostering Personal Creativity - Boosting Organization Innovation’. The seminar took place at the premises of the Faulty of Economics, University of Tirana on 30th of May. Mr. Hatziapostolou focused his lively presentation on personal creativity and innovation. He discussed why innovation is important for companies, what types of innovation exist, the roots of innovation and the sources of opportunity. The seminar continued with the second part focusing on how personal creativity can be measured and enhanced and how this can help companies’ growth. Mr. Hatziapostolou also pointed out the components and barriers to creativity and creativity’s relation to innovation. The seminar was very successful and interactive and was conluded with discussion between the audience and the speaker. The event took place in the frame of the University of Sheffield postgraduate programmes delivered by the International Faculty in Tirana. Visit the official Innovation Challenge website.
17/05/2013
Guest lecture by Dr. Nikolaidis on Service Development
A very interesting guest lecture entitled ‘Developing your Service — Time to Reassess, Time to Differentiate’ was delivered by Dr. Dimitrios Nikolaidis, Head of Business Administration and Economics Department. The lecture was addressed to 2nd year Greek stream business students and took place on 23 April in the context of the unit ‘Principles of Marketing’. In his presentation Dr. Nikolaidis underpinned the importance of services and the necessity for today’s businesses to reassess their services strategy, upgrade their services standards and differentiate themselves from competitors by increasing customer satisfaction. Students enjoyed the guest lecture that ended with an open discussion with the lecturer.
14/05/2013
Training workshops for Fibank and EAGLE Mobile by Dr. Nikolaidis in Tirana
On 9 of May 2013 Dr. Dimitrios Nikolaidis, Head of our Business Administration & Economics Department (BAED) delivered two training workshops to groups of executives at two major companies of Tirana, Fibank (Financial Investment Bank) and EAGLE Mobile. The 2-hour workshop themed ‘From Customer Satisfaction to Customer Loyalty: From Theory to Practice’ focused on the concept of service quality and its influence to customer satisfaction and retention and touched upon a series of related issues such as the marketing service triangle, factors that influence customer satisfaction, the new era of marketing services and the importance of customers. Dr. Nikolaidis enhanced his presentation with real cases and examples that participants found particularly useful. The executive groups that attended the workshops from Fibank and EAGLE Mobile were representatives from the companies’ marketing department, customer relations, HR department, sales and technical support. All participants found the workshop very interesting and educative and thanked Dr. Nikolaidis for his lively presentation.
14/05/2013
Seminar on ‘Developing New Products as growth strategy’ by Dr Nikolaidis in Tirana
Dr. Dimitrios Nikolaidis, Head of the Business Administration and Economics Department and Senior Lecturer in Marketing Communications delivered a very successful seminar on New Product Development (NPD) in Tirana on 9 May 2013 at the premises of the International Faculty’s partner institute in Albania, The American University of Tirana (UAT). Dr. Nikolaidis focused his presentation on how new product and service development can prove a very successful growth strategy for businesses even in times of crisis. He presented the whole process of NPD: from idea generation, to market research, to the design production of the product and final evaluation. Dr. Nikolaidis noted that this strategy requires a strong understanding of the existing market and also require pairing the right strategy to product growth objectives. He also mentioned that such an investment usually involves a level of risk but, if businesses work methodically, it generates substantial profits. The event more than 100 participants coming from the fields of business, industry and academia, who found Dr Nikolaidis’ presentation particularly interesting. The seminar took place in the frame of the University of Sheffield postgraduate programmes delivered in Tirana by the University’s International Faculty, CITY College.
13/05/2013
SEERC participates with Greek delegation at the Balkan Venture Forum in Sofia
The South-East European Research Centre (SEERC), the research centre of the International Faculty of University of Sheffield, CITY College, in Thessaloniki organises a Greek delegation to participate at the Balkan Venture Forum (BkVF) in Sofia, on May 21-22, 2013. The delegation contains start-ups, SMEs, young and experienced entrepreneurs, innovation experts, support agencies, venture capitalist investors, and policy makers. The BkVF is the largest venture capital, private equity and investment forum in the region, (http://www.balkanventureforum.org). It gathers top startups, VC investors, serial entrepreneurs, and innovators from the Balkans, Europe and the USA. As a regional SEE event dedicated to innovative entrepreneurship, access to finance and business opportunities, the Balkan Venture Forum in Sofia takes place for the third time, after Skopje and Belgrade. Apart from the excellent networking opportunity in Sofia as a vibrant startup hub, participants will be able to follow a program of startup coaching, startup competitions, keynote speeches, workshops and discussion panels. Some of the confirmed participants and speakers are: Jon Bradford - founder/CEO at Springboard, TechStars, F6S; Salim Virani - founder at Leancamp, Founder-Centric; Dan Lupu - CEO at EarlyBird Venture Capital; Phillip Moehring - Principal at Seedcamp, Maciej Zak - Investment Director CEE at Intel Capital; Giannis Papadopoulos - CEO at Attica Ventures; Vadim Tarasov - Investment Director Bright Capital; Oliver Holle - CEO at Speedinvest; Marius Ghenea - Chairman at VentureConnect; Yavuz Kaynar - Principal Banker at EBRD Venture Capital; Todor Breshkov - Managing partner at LAUNCHub accelerator VC fund; Lyuben Belov - Managing partner at LAUNCHub accelerator VC fund; Dilyan Dimitrov - Founder at Eleven Startup Accelerator; Hubert Cottogni - Head of regional business development at European Investment Fund; Peter Brodsky - Director at SoundCloud; Apostolos Apostolakis - Founder of e-shop.gr , doctoranytime.gr , Taxibeat; and many more. Participants of the BkVF will also be able to attend the Pitching Competition for 36 selected startups . In addition, there will be two partner events: Seedcamp on 22nd and Leancamp on the 23rd of May, to create an exciting startup festival alongside the Balkan Venture Forum. Balkan Venture Forum is organized by Balkan Unlimited Foundation, and co-organized by the VIBE project. Balkan Venture Forum is one of the main objectives of the SEE Programme project VIBE (Venture Initiative in Balkan Europe) and is being co-financed by the European Union. VIBE is an EU co-funded project in the framework of the ‘SEE Transnational Cooperation Programme’ with the primary objective to support facilitation of innovation and entrepreneurship in the region of South-East Europe. VIBE aims at fostering the creation and growth of innovative SMEs and start-up companies through a large array of actions. SEERC (www.seerc.org) as the only Greek partner in the VIBE project fosters through this engagement its contribution to the developing innovation and startup scene in Greece. More information about the Balkan Venture Forum and the full programme can be found at: http://www.balkanventureforum.org/programme-new/ Interested parties are also most welcome to engage with the social media dedicated to the event: http://www.facebook.com/BalkanVentureForum http://twitter.com/balkanventurefo http://www.linkedin.com/groups?trk=myg_ugrp_ovr&gid=4272414 http://www.balkanventureforum.org
13/05/2013
New Career Path in the Middle East for our graduate, Cristina Postolache
Congratulations to our graduate from Romania, Cristina Postolache, on her recent appointment as Chief Coordinator and Marketer at the Media One Hotel in Dubai. Cristina graduated last year from the MA in Marketing Advertising and Public Relations programme and started her career pursuit beyond Europe. After several interviews she was shortlisted and then appointed as Chief Coordinator and Marketer at the Media One Hotel in Dubai. Media One Hotel communication executive Siti Farida, Media One chief coordinator and marketeer Cristina Postolache and Rotana sales manager Osama Sark at Hot Hoteliers on TOMO's terrace. Photo source: www.hoteliermiddleeast.com Cristina’s main responsibilities involve working closely with the Marketing Director for the Internal Communications in the hotel, working with Marketing Team for the development and implementation of various loyalty card programmes which include maintaining accurate database information, managing regular guests, producing reports and also communicating the hotel’s activities by building relationships with key stakeholders and thus building its brand image. Cristina commented about her new job: “The Middle East, and especially Dubai, is a place that offers amazing opportunities for professional development and incredible life experience. I am planning to work here for at least the next 5 years and continuing to grow and improve my professional skills in marketing and communication in the hospitality industry. I have to admit that it is not easy living so far from home, and in a totally different cultural mix, but one thing that the Middle East guaranties is that if you work hard you will get rewarded and recognized for your efforts. I owe a great part of my success to CITY College, International Faculty of the University of Sheffield, and to the amazing lecturers that helped me develop as an individual, and helped me build up valuable knowledge in the areas of marketing and public relations.”
12/05/2013
The International Faculty joins the Vice Chancellor’s Celebration of Enterprise from overseas
The week 15-19 April 2013 was dedicated to enterprise across the University of Sheffield. It was a week full of events, lectures, workshops and activities organized by the University of Sheffield Enterprise (USE) to celebrate and showcase the University’s enterprise activity. This year the Vice Chancellor of the University of Sheffield, Professor Sir Keith Burnett supported the enterprise celebration, putting emphasis on the importance that the University placed on enterprise. The International Faculty of the University, CITY College joined the celebrations from overseas with a series of events that took place during that week at the main campus of the Faculty in Thessaloniki, Greece. On 17th April a seminar on ‘INVENT: Gaining Enterprise Skills’ was delivered by Dr Dimitris Dranidis , Director of the MSc in Software Engineering & Telecommunications programme, as well as by two computer science students, Yannis Panayiotou (3rd level student) and Tomor Pupovci (postgraduate student). The seminar presented how through the projects of INVENT our students gain enterprise skills during their studies. The presentation included examples of projects undertaken by our students. ‘ΙNVENT’ (Innovative Enterprise Technologies) is run by students of our Computer Science Department. It is supervised by faculty members, and develops for its clients software solutions free of charge. It aims at providing timely, innovative and high quality software and IT service support to external clients and in this way creating a bridge between academia and industry. On the 18th of April a seminar entitled ‘From Idea to Profit: Finance and Support your Business Idea’ took place at the Auditorium of the International Faculty. The seminar hosted three guest speakers who delivered three very interesting speeches on the main theme of the seminar. Mr. Andreas Baresel-Bofiger, Lecturer at the International Faculty and Project Manager at our research centre SEERC, delivered a very insightful presentation on ‘Current trends in start-up financing - Venture initiative in Balkan Europe and the Balkan Venture Forum’. In his turn, Mr. Sotiris Karagiannis, Sales Director of N. and W. Greece, SPACE HELLAS S.A. talked about ‘From a tech idea to a global meaningful company - a mentor’s view’. The seminar concluded with a presentation by Dr. Lambros Lazuras , Lecturer at the International Faculty and Research Associate of SEERC on ‘Breaking barriers for enterprises in Europe - Insights from the projects ELIE and ELIEMENTAL. The entrepreneurial case of Cocomat was presented in a seminar delivered by the CEO of Cocomat Mr. Paul Efmorfidis, Mr. Efmorfidis, presented to the participants the company’s development and its steps to success. He elaborated on the aspects that made Cocomat a huge success, not only in Greece but also abroad. The company’s mission is to manufacture the best beds in the world in the most sustainable way possible. As Mr. Efmorfidis stressed out, one major success factor was that Cocomat is known for using natural materials from renewable sources, such as coco fibre, natural rubber, wool, cotton, sea grass, horsehair, silk, linen, wood and goose down. Cocomat is established in 1989, COCO-MAT today is a recognized leader for natural sleep products, bed linen, towels and furniture for homes and hotels. Cocomat has a growing network of stores operating now in 12 countries. Also, the frame of enterprise celebrations the Director of Student Affairs and Career Planning, Ms. Maria Mariaki , presented an insightful seminar on ‘Career Planning: Techniques and Strategies’ to Computer Science students. Ms. Matiaki presented useful techniques and strategies necessary for the pursuit of a successful career in their field of interest. She also provided students with practical advice and tips on how to best write their CV and use it in their job hunting. During her seminar, Ms Matiaki pinpointed the constant increase of skilled graduates and emphasised how a well-written CV can be a success factor that differentiates candidates. The well-attended event proved to be a good opportunity for students to learn more about strategies for their effort to find a job after graduating in the field of computer science. The events that took place at the International Faculty in the frame of enterprise celebration were well-attended and proved to be very appealing to the audience.
12/05/2013
Seminar on the entrepreneurial case of Cocomat by CEO, Mr. Paul Efmorfidis
An insightful seminar in the frame of the Enterprising of the University of Sheffield was presented on 15th of April 2013. The well attended seminar was delivered by Mr. Paul Efmorfidis, Director of Cocomat. Mr. Efmorfidis, presented to the participants the company’s entrepreneurial case and development. He elaborated on the aspects that made Cocomat a huge success, not only in Greece but also abroad. The company’s mission is to manufacture the best beds in the world in the most sustainable way possible. As Mr. Efmorfidis stressed out, one major success factor was that Cocomat is known for using natural materials from renewable sources, such as coco fibre, natural rubber, wool, cotton, sea grass, horsehair, silk, linen, wood and goose down. What is more, Cocomat believes in making business more sustainable, continuously investing in improving the environmental and social performance, as a means of providing the greatest possible benefit to all. After the presentation, participants had the chance to discuss with Mr. Efmorfidis and ask him questions on the company and the factors that led him to the success of his entrepreneurial business idea. Cocomat is established in 1989, COCO-MAT today is a recognized leader for natural sleep products, bed linen, towels and furniture for homes and hotels. Cocomat has a growing network of stores operating now in 12 countries.
10/05/2013
Our students claim satisfaction at the UK National Student Survey 2013
According to the recently released results of the UK National Student Survey (NSS) for Spring 2013 the overall student satisfaction for the International Faculty of the University of Sheffield almost reached the absolute 100%! The NSS was conducted at the International Faculty Departments in the period 19 March to 21 April 2013 for all 3rd year students. The participation was 63% for the overall Faculty. In 40 out of 44 questions the satisfaction was increased up to 27% compared to the NSS 2012 (on average 12%). An overall report for the University including all Departments and Faculties will be released in Autumn 2013. The National Student Survey is a national online survey open to over 400,000 final year undergraduate students across the UK. NSS provides an opportunity to give their opinions and assessment on the overall quality of courses within their institution. NSS provides an excellent opportunity for students’ voice to be heard in the benefit of academia. The International Faculty would like to thank all students who participated in the NSS survey and we welcome their feedback. We are happy to have happy students!
07/05/2013
Company visit at Polis Convention Centre in Thessaloniki
Our Business Administration & Economics Department first year bachelors students organised a company visit at ‘Polis Convention Centre’, 23 April 2013. The students, escorted by Mr. Stelios Kehaghias , Senior Lecturer at the Department, were given a short tour of premises of ‘Polis’. The centre’s representative talked to the students about the centre’s philosophy, aims and marketing strategy. The students were impressed by the facilities of Polis and found the information on the way the centre operates very interesting. Polis Convention Centre is a luxurious centre located in the outskirts of Thessaloniki and hosts conferences, as well as social events. Company visits take place during each academic year and aim at bringing students closer to the real-life business world.
25/04/2013
Guest Lecture by Dr. Nikolaidis on New Product Development
Dr. Dimitrios Nikolaidis, Head of the Business Administration and Economics Department delivered a very interesting guest lecture on New Product Development (NPD) to postgraduate students attending programmes in Management (Human Resource Management, Supply Chain and Logistics Management and Leisure and Tourism Management) as well as to undergraduate students studying Marketing. The seminar took place at the main campus of the International Faculty in Thessaloniki, on the 18th of April 2013. Dr. Nikolaidis focused his presentation on how new product and service development can prove a very successful growth strategy for businesses even in times of crisis. He presented the whole process of NPD: from idea generation, to market research, to the design production of the product and final evaluation. Dr. Nikolaidis noted that this strategy requires a strong understanding of the existing market and also require pairing the right strategy to product growth objectives. He also mentioned that such an investment usually involves a level of risk but, if businesses work methodically, it generates substantial profits. The lecture concluded with an interesting discussion between Dr. Nikolaidis and the students.
25/04/2013
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