Live project - Brands and Communication and Innovation Management

The Master program in Business Innovation (MBI) attracts students with various backgrounds from all over the world. It assumes a business development perspective, which means that it focuses on developing a firm’s competitive position, its processes, people and products, its networks and resources. Business development mixes theory and practice and includes areas such as market, strategy and leadership to be managed in order to succeed.

What the project involves

As part of the MSc courses Brands and Communications (7.5 ECTS) and Innovation Management (7.5 ECTS), groups of 5-6 Master students work on real-world marketing and innovation challenges submitted by companies. Over 7-8 weeks, from mid-January to mid-March 2026, the students will act as external consultants — analyzing the company case, applying relevant frameworks, and delivering well-grounded strategic recommendations. The project accounts for about 1-2 days of work per week for the students and runs in parallel with lectures and seminars.

These projects are hands-on and rooted in real needs. Past partners have reported lasting impact from the students’ findings.

What makes these projects valuable

The Brands and Communication challenge focuses on developing a brand strategy and marketing plan for your brand. To achieve this, students will analyze the market in which your brand operates, identify relevant target consumer segments, understand these consumers’ needs and develop a brand strategy to meet these needs. They will also recommend a communication plan to bring this strategy to life, based on your marketing budget.

The Innovation Management challenge focuses on a relevant, “wicked” innovation challenge that your organization is currently facing and for which you want support. Students will apply the tools and frameworks learnt in the course to frame, analyze and suggest possible solutions to the challenges.

All of this is applied directly to your case. You benefit from the combined efforts and fresh perspectives of SSE Master’s students, whose analytical skills, creativity and diverse experiences often lead to surprising insights and actionable recommendations.

What we are looking for

We are looking for companies with an existing product, but a not too established brand. Ideally, your company has a sellable product or service in place, with some turnover in 2025. However, since the students’ task for the Brands course is to devise a brand strategy, it is important that the company does not yet have a brand strategy or a marketing plan in place. Or if there is a strategy in place, it is one that you wish to change. It is, however, desirable that you have the ambition and the means to implement a brand strategy, including having a marketing budget.

Suitable innovation challenges can be in the realms of the product / service / technology, the business model, the operations (process), etc. For example:

Sustainability Integration: How might the company make its product/business model/operations more sustainable?
Digital Transformation: How might the company adopt new technologies (AI, IoT, automation) to improve the product/business model/operations?
Customer Experience Innovation: How might the company improve customer engagement and satisfaction across digital platforms?
Personalization at Scale: How might the company offer personalized products or services at scale without compromising efficiency?

The projects are most effective when companies bring a real ambition they are already thinking about, tied to their brand strategy, consumer understanding, or positioning (for the brand strategy challenge), and tied to the organization’s strategy, goals and needs of its stakeholders (for the innovation challenge).

What you will gain

Concrete, structured insights from a team of analytical and creative SSE Master students
A detailed final presentation and report with strategic recommendations
A low-effort, high-reward way to address a real challenge in your business
Close contact with the school’s top students - a broad and proven recruitment base

What we ask from you

A defined challenge:
Have a brand that is in need of a brand strategy to be designed by the students (Brands course), and provide an innovation challenge for students to address (Innovation course).
Collaboration & feedback:
Assign a company contact to provide information, data, contacts within the company, and some guidance. The company contact should plan to attend (in-person at SSE’s location near Rådmansgatan) three sessions: the introduction (January 20), the final presentation for the Innovation course (March 9), and the final presentation for the Brands course (March 10).
Openness to new ideas:
Be open to the fresh, innovative solutions our students will bring to your organization. Please also know that, despite the clear benefits to your company, this is first and foremost an educational project for students.
No NDA:
SSE students cannot sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) for this project for practical and pedagogical reasons. In certain cases, NDAs nevertheless need to be put in place. For these cases, we have prepared an NDA that is appropriate for an academic setting. Please note that the school, not the students, would be the signatory party. We ask that you let us know as soon as possible if your participation is likely to require the use of an NDA.

If you need further guidance in defining a suitable challenge, reach out to andreas.dahlberg@hhs.se.