OUR WORKSHOP AT THE
UNIVERSITY OF BIELEFELD
Business Informatics in the field of tension between science and practice
The Transferforum Business Informatics at Bielefeld University is addressed to practitioners, professors and students in the IT environment. The aim is to exchange views on current technological developments at universities and to discuss which new possible applications and professional fields may (or may not) develop as a result of these developments in industry.
We, from 4brands Reply, were also part of this initiative and offered a workshop, in addition to a stand, for getting to know each other. We presented current developments in the field of retail tech, such as intelligent shelf cameras that enable permanent monitoring of the shelf situation in the supermarket. This results in completely new data sources, that are available automatically and in real time. But what happens to this new data? What potentials and challenges arise for the consumer goods industry?
With this question, we conducted a brainstorming session with the 6-3-5 method. The 6-3-5 method is a creative method of finding ideas, also referred to as a “brainwriting pool“. It is particularly useful if you want to generate a large number of ideas in a short time. Each participant writes down ideas, passes the paper on to the neighbour, who in turn draws inspiration from the previous ideas and adds more. After several rounds, the ideas are collected and discussed together.
What insights have we taken with us? First of all, it is always good to take a different perspective. In this way, we benefited from new, future-oriented ideas from the students, who were able to contribute their previous knowledge and learning from their studies. We were able to engage in good discussions and have been able to bring along potential new use cases for our customers. In addition, networking events like this offer our newer team members the opportunity to get to know the world of IT or SAP consultants from a different perspective. Here is an exemplary insight of our colleague Henning:
“For me, it was the first workshop I attended for the 4brands. After a short introduction round, I described my career in the company: from working student to consultant. Then we started with the workshop topics: We used the 6-3-5 method to generate brainwriting ideas on the topic of IoT in the supermarket. Participants were divided into groups. Some groups dealt with the limits of camera-based shelf surveillance in retail, others with the opportunities. After the workshop, attendees had the opportunity to visit our booth for a personal exchange at our booth. Personally, I experienced the workshop and the following stand support as super interesting, because it was the first time for me. Participants worked well and asked the right questions. I think it was an insightful event from which I brought some new approaches to the workshops.”