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Pictured are a group of Students on the Master of Business Studies – Internationalisation programme at Waterford Institute of Technology spent the past semester working on a live project, as part of this taught Masters programme.  In their module Marketing and International Business, under the direction of lecturer Conor Kelleher, students conducted a market analysis of particular countries that a Waterford start-up company is considering targeting for export sales.

Irish Handmade Glass Ltd. is a new venture, specialising in ‘art glass blowing’, founded by four former employees of Waterford Crystal.  The company will operate out of their glass studio, currently under construction, on Henrietta Street in Waterford City.  Between them the four company directors, all master craftsmen, have over 100 years experience of glass blowing and glass cutting, with two being second generation glass workers.  With the support of the Enterprise Board and the City Council they are keen to keep alive the tradition of crystal manufacture in the city.

Lecturer Conor Kelleher thanked Irish Handmade Glass Ltd., not alone for the very kind sponsorship of five prizes, but also the time and energy the company had put into the project.  Two of the founders of the company, Tony Hayes and Derek Smith, had visited the College on two occasions to meet with the students.  At the beginning of the exercise they had made a presentation on the company’s background and its plans, and on completion of the project the students made presentations of their key findings to these two directors.  In between these times they were dealing with ongoing queries from the students as the projects progressed, and indeed as their own start-up evolved.

After the students had made their presentations Mr. Smith thanked the students for the excellent insight the students had given them of their prospects in the different international markets under consideration.  Mr. Hayes complimented the students on identifying opportunities that the company had not considered themselves to date. Both were very impressed by the standard of presentation, and expressed the desire that this equivalent type of exercise be conducted again in the future, when the company would be up and running.  Mr. Kelleher thanked them for giving the students the opportunity to work on a real project, outside the confines of text-books and fictional case-studies.  He wished the company well as
it commences manufacturing and trading in the coming months.

Mr. Hayes and Mr. Smith judged the team researching the Australian market to be the winning project.  This team consisted of five team members – Victor Adebayo, Elizabeth Cox, Maurice Power, Jamil Ahmed and Len Brimson.  Despite the obvious barriers that geography presents, this team illustrated that Irish Handmade Glass could have real potential in this country, including primary findings to illustrate that shipping costs need not be the obstacle one might expect.  Other markets looked at by the class of nineteen students were Canada, United Arab Emirates and United States.

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