Kippis Team Finland EDHEC Cup 2004 report

Feedback to the Organization Committee

Dear Elie,

Here is some report / feedback from the point of view of the participants from Finland. Kippis team

was the newcomer in the event and you should consider our feedback based on that experience.

At the end I have included some attachments that will describe our project.

Our report includes the facts and the problems we faced during the project. Anyhow we succeeded

in participating and thanks to you had a great week at Brest. Some of the things we found difficult

and would like you to improve are mentioned below:

1. Language "difficulties"

Because this is also an International happening, emphasize should be put to the facts that not

every team may not have a French speaking members.

My suggestion is that crews who want to get instructions in English should be taken away from

others and all the information for them should be given in English. I was totally lost during the

races because I did not understand French and my crew did not know what the sailing terms in

French did actually mean.

Also this should be considered by International dinner where we were welcomed ONLY with French.

2. Sailing

For the sailing my team was probably the least experienced (beside my only ONE MEMBER had

some experience on previous sailing). Therefore I would like you to organize a class for those

teams who rather want to cruise on a route sailing instead of having a real fight with dozens of

other teams competing very seriously on the trophy.

Next time we are trying to hire the boat with other means than this year because our FirstClass8

boat rented from ClubNauticLorient was way too expensive compared to what we really got.

3. Other arrangements

Organization Committee did great job and there I have nothing but positive feedback to give. The

fees we had to pay are understandable and we feel we really got service worth paying. So

everything fine here.

Thank you also for the possibility having a stand for one day in order to promote our school.

Next time we may try to propose our school the way Swiss and Senegal teams proposed in the

International tent.

Looks like Savonia Polytechnic is also participating EDHEC Cup 2005 but that decision will finally

take place in early September when we have students back from the vacation and new students

have started their studies.

Hopefully see you again next spring.

Pekka Granroth

Savonia Polytechnic, teacher in IT-technology, skipper of "Kippis Team"

36th EDHEC Cup Brest, France

17-24 April 2004

Kippis Team

Final Report on the project

Introduction

The EDHEC project is an adventure that you deserve after a long commitment and after a lot of

work. It requires an important motivation and you better not count your hours of work. Once you

are there, among the 200 boats on the Atlantic Ocean, running in the countryside of Brest region,

or having huge parties under the main tent of the village, the work is done and you can enjoy your

time. Then you understand the reason why you have worked so much during 7 months, and you

can be proud of your team's works which enable everything. You cannot be sure to be able to

participate to the event even 2 weeks before it starts as there are a lot factors that we have to

take into account; but the main one deals with money, without it you cannot take part to the

EDHEC Cup in spite of all your motivation and work. So money is the key, and we knew that.

The story started in October when 2 students presented the project to the school's administration

and then the students. At first sight it appeared to be quite hard to participate to the 36th EDHEC

Cup : we come from Finland – 3,000 km from France - and we had to launch the project in a new

school, a new city and a new country that have never been participated to this kind of event and

never heard about it! For us there were 2 challenges: launch the idea and find money and

sponsors in a country where the term "EDHEC Cup" is totally unknown... We think it was even

more interesting and motivated as we are concerned.

So the first difficulty was to gather a group of about 20 people, composed by half Finns students

and Erasmus students. The both are complementary: the project needed the competence and

knowledge of the Finns, their environment, way of working, way of contacting companies, their

language skills...and we - French people - were the link with the EDHEC School and know the

EDHEC Cup as 2 of us experienced it last year with their original school. We remember that our

first mistake was that we published our advertisement for the recruitment of the group only in

English... so there were essentially Erasmus students and not so much Finns. So we organized a

second meeting with advertisement in Finnish and then it was all right.

We met some problems to be organized, that's why our work was not very efficient at the

beginning. But then we learned to create group-work, the meetings were planned and followed

agenda... The question of the meetings was also quite a problem because we had to find the time

and day which was suitable to everybody. We would say that from October to December we

organized our way of working that's why we didn't work so much but it had to be done. We learned

how to work in group in a different context from the school. In November and December the main

work that we realized was the elaboration of our brochure to convince companies to become our

sponsors. We attached great importance to it because it appeared obvious for us that it was our

main chance to convince them. And the result was, in our opinion, great. It requires several

sleepless nights for some of us but we were satisfied afterwards. That led us to our first

negotiation and contact with a company: Kopijyva, a printer company. And we success to have our

first sponsor which print our 100 brochures for free! That represents about 300 euros...

In January we tried to interest the town hall of Kuopio without success because it was too late

unfortunately. We had meetings with the headmaster of the school, we were in touch with the

EDHEC school many times to try to negotiate some discounts, ask information... they proposed us

a partnership with a French school, they were supposed to help us financially and they will have

some advantages from the EDHEC school in compensation. But finally in April they announced us it

was not possible because they miss some money. We really made the most of us to find money;

we tried to follow every trail. For instance we thought about organizing a party in order to collect

money but it appeared that it would have been a lot of work for few euros. In February we started

our first concrete work to earn money: the snow works on the roofs of some companies that Pekka

has found. We worked 3 days on these roofs, the first day everybody was there and it was a great

job. After it was harder to get everybody but anyway at the end we had about 1200 euros, our

first money! Then in March we organized a meeting for our potential sponsors, we sent about 200

letters of invitation and presentation of the project to companies next to Kuopio but also big

Finnish companies like Nokia or Nordea. It was a lot of works: write the letters, publish the

addresses with the computer, contact them by phone... but the results were very poor: no

companies came! I think our letter was not so well written and didn't explain which interests they

have in becoming our sponsor. But anyway, for us, the thing is that the entire group was involved

in this job and the cakes were pretty good...!

Though we had the money of the snow works and the money that the school promised to us, we

had no idea rather we could participate to the competition or not at the end of March. The other

question concerned who will take part in it among the 20 people that have worked for the project.

It was quite obvious that we failed in collecting enough money to enable everybody to join the trip

and it was a very sad observation. There was not some selection because many people decided to

stay for personal reasons, but we think they would have come if we got enough money... At the

beginning of April we realized our last job: the market survey for the boat exhibition. We were in

charge of distributing questionnaires to the customers of the exhibition and then to analyze them

with the software SPSS. It was also a great job and we got 1000 euros. In April an article was also

published in Savon Sanomat relating our project... the main headmaster of Savonia School was

quite glad to see that and gave us 1000 euros more which were welcome. Another aspect of the

trip was to develop the partnership between Savonia School and the UBO, university of Bretagne,

so we organized some lessons of Intercultural communication and management with one teacher

of the University of Brest.

So at the end we collected almost 6000 euros and it was not so bad I think, even very well! But we

also success in having discounts from the EDHEC school (300 euros), from the ferry Viking line

(300 euros), we had some agreements with the car renter, we found a cheap boat. Our skipper

managed to get 25 shirts for free which were used for our official shirt, 150 euros from DNA... We

also managed 12 beautiful caps with the inscription "EDHEC Cup 2004, Kippis Team from Finland".

At the end 10 people left Kuopio by camping car on the 14th of April. When we were there we tried

to avoid useless expenses, we slept in the parking place next to the EDHEC village, the EDHEC

organization gave us a lot of food... it was not so expensive for us. And concerning the trip itself,

all was, we didn't meet any big problems, everybody was friendly, we sailed as we expected, had

parties also, visited Europe (Stockholm, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Mont Saint Michel, Saint Malo,

Brest and Paris), had the lessons with the French lecturer, had the opportunity to eat with a

French family... we were very well welcome by the EDHEC organizers, we had dinners in the

"International tent" where all the international crew were gathered. We also could represent our

country and our school during one day in the village with one tent. Except the weather at the

beginning of the trip, everything was all right and all the adventure was a success according to us.

Conclusion

The EDHEC team of 2003/2004 of Savonia Polytechnic was in a way, the "founder" of a great

student project and we hope sincerely that the 37th EDHEC Cup will have one more time the

Finnish flag next to the other flags of the village. Concerning the global result, we would say that it

is not perfect, but it was unhoped-for... We could put the basics of our program studies (business

and management) in practical: negotiations, group work, contact with companies, meetings... but

also we think we learned to live communally because there were no problems at all among the

members of the group whereas we were 10 in a small camping car during 2 weeks! So, for us it

was both a very rich experience for human's relationships and work, leading the project... We have

done and learnt a lot of things in one project that we can describe as very rich according to us.

Main things that you need for this kind of project is to stay optimist, to never give up, to keep your

initial motivation and to be not afraid to work.

Finally, we would like to thank everybody who contributed to the success of the project especially

those who could not take part in it, Pekka Granroth who has done a huge work, the school

administration, the EDHEC organizing Team and our sponsors.

In this part, we will focus on some specific points which are interesting to be developed. As we

said in the previous report, this project gave us the opportunity to learn a lot about many different

skills.

Now, it is time for us to have a critical point of view regarding this project we leaded during these

7 last months. It means we will describe just as well the positive than the perfectible things. We

will tell the things as we feel it now, without accommodating attitude because these remarks will

be very useful if the school decide to join the cruise next year.

The first idea of the project:

Everything began with the testimony of Axel and Alexis who took part to the "35ème Course

Croisière EDHEC", so called "EDHEC Cup", last year with their school. The idea to join the regatta

with the "Savonia Polytechnic" school became quickly a very attractive prospect.

The most interesting in this was that everything had to be created. It was so exciting to take the

initiative in building such a project. At that moment, it was a challenge. We knew that it was

possible to succeed if we were able to work enough; the contrary was also true...

Doing it from the Finland was actually an addition of handicaps compared than doing it from

France, that's why it was so interesting.

We had three main objectives:

• To convince the school that our project was very interesting and feasible.

• To gather a team of motivated people ready to work a lot without promise of success

• To find to some sponsors interested to back our project in order to get some publicity in

return

Basically, the last point was also the most difficult to get because our estimated budget was

around 17000 € according to our calculations. Anyway, our objective was to take part to this race

without spending any money from our own: The costs of the studies are already enough high...

The constitution of the team:

At the beginning, we had some problems to gather a team. Of course, we made some mistake

while giving the information (in English) for the first meeting: But after that, students were getting

more and more interested and new member were joining the group all the weeks during 1 month.

When we stopped the recruitment, we were already 27 members. After that, a lot a people asked

us to join the group, but we had to refuse because we were already too many.

We will maybe be rude, but we should have been more carefully while recruiting the members of

the team because we faced a problem of lack of motivation with a too important number of

members. We realized indeed, but too late, that some of them were only interested by spending

on week in France or free.

The most significant example was the attendance of the meetings. Some of them were coming to

the meetings only when it was not too constraining for them: that kind of person didn't really

understand that the meeting were only the smallest part of the work we add to do.

We (the staff) tried to find some solutions about it:

• We tried to explain many time how important it was to attempt all the meeting because we

needed the point of view of everybody to get ideas and to take some decisions

• We were sending a mall every week (1 or 2 days before the meeting) to all the members to

make sure that nobody forget the appointment

• We tried to be as organized as possible by sending the "agenda" before the meeting and a

"minute" after it to make sure that everyone got all the information.

Hopefully, the majority was already much implicated or got the message very quickly.

This experience showed us that motivating people is far from being easy. We analyze it now in a

positive way because we know it will be useful in the future.

Organization of the meetings:

As we said before, we tried to build an organization as similar as a real company. We needed to be

organized not to forget to speak about a subject and to be the more short we could.

It was great to meet everybody once a week to take stock of the situation and to plan what we

had to do during the following week. I think we had some very interesting discussions about very

different subjects. Sometimes, the news was very bad and we needed to speak all together to find

a solution. We remember for example when we learnt of the decision of the school which wasn't

able to give us as much as expected.

Some other days, the news was pretty good and everybody was happy about it.

Anyway, organizing meeting is a lot of even if it doesn't seem to be so. Preparing the agenda

needs to get all the information collected so far. Then, it's important to classify the different

information in a proper way to keep coherence in the development. The agenda is also

indispensable during the meeting to make sure that all the points have been discussed because

sometimes, the meeting doesn't follow the different points as they were planned to be discussed.

The minute is the most important document after a meeting. It's a summary of all the subjects

discussed where is written the solutions we imagined or the decisions we took. It is actually the

official report of the meeting. It makes sure that there is no misunderstanding for all the members.

It's necessary but it takes time and requires being in state of concentration during the meeting.

During these 7 months, we learn also how to lead a meeting. For sure, it was not perfect even at

the end, but anyway, it is experimentation. We faced up to a lot of situations. Some days,

everybody was enthusiastic, some other everything was wrong. We remember, on month before

the cruise, the project was about to be cancelled because of lack of money; some of the members

were becoming very pessimistic. Hopefully, we finally decided to go on for two weeks to see what

was going too happened and, somehow, we managed to continue until the final goal.

The realization of the brochure:

To convince our future sponsors, everybody agreed that a brochure "sponsors oriented" was

needed. The first idea was to do it only in English because we were supposed to find a part of our

sponsors in the different native countries of the international members. At that time, we were also

worrying about the cost of the print.

We (Axel and Lionel) took cake of the creation of this brochure. Axel wrote the major part of the

text while Lionel was creating the graphic design of it. We remember with pleasure all the time we

spent to create it: A couple of sleepless nights to try different types of presentation. After 10 days,

the brochure was ready to be printed.

After a negotiation with the manager of the printer (Kopijyva), we got all the brochures for free.

Kati, one of our Finnish member spoke explained everything and we are sure that without her, we

wouldn't have obtained such a result. Kopijyva became at that time our first sponsor.

After the Christmas break, when we saw that only few persons got some contact with companies,

we understood that we add to print the brochures in Finnish because we wanted to focus on the

Finnish companies which were supposed to be more concerned by our project.

The research of money:

The research of money was the key point of our project: Indeed, it was the key factor of our

participation to this "36th EDHEC Cup". No need to repeat what was already explained already but

we would like to add some remarks.

We have to admit that we had some problems to get the money we expected. I had planned a

budget of 17000 € for 25 persons and we got about 6000 € for 10 persons. However, we are

positive about it because it's already a big amount of money. Pekka, our skipper helped us a lot to

find solutions to get this money.

We had to work to get the major part of the money, it's the fact, but when we were in Brest, we

understood why we worked so hard. This lack of money is very easily understandable: He started

the project almost too late and we were in hurry to contact the sponsors.

Next year, if the project goes on, the first contacts should be taken if possible in September or

October. Major industries of Finland have to be targeted because it's now easier to convince the

companies by giving them a good visibility on both local and international publicity.

During the cruise:

In this last part, we will just write some ideas about what we consider as positive and negative

things during the trip.

Positive points:

• The atmosphere in our team was very good

• The choice of the camping was definitively the best choice (cheapest) to join the regatta in

France.

• We almost managed with the money we had. So, students who were taken part don't have

too much to pay for it.

• We had a stand during one day to promote the school because we were an international

team

Perfectible points:

• About the money: The organization we had about money could have been better. Pekka

was taking care of it because we didn't have any other solution. But, the team should have

a separate association independent from the school (at least a different account number),

so it would be clearer about money. If the team could have its own VISA card or at least a

"common wallet" for example, it would be more transparency than this year.