Entrepreneurs United

Barcelona Business School students recently met with Hilton executives at their five-star, beachfront hotel in Barcelona to learn about the international company´s operations. Executives discussed a variety of topics with the students, including the management of the front desk, events, restaurants, finances and executive services. They also showed students their premium facilities, outlined the marketing of their high-end services and described the type of international managers they pursue.

“Here you have to know about everything,” Hilton Diagonal Mar Managing Director David Ecija explained to students when describing his daily assignments. “And you have to exceed expectations. If they ask me for 100%, I give them 105%.”

Ecija said he focuses on the quality of the service, the well-being of his customers and employees and the generation of profit. He also said he works to boost his competencies as a general manager, including his ability to communicate plans, build relationships, analyze information, make decisions, develop the business and lead his team.

Executives showed students the different rooms the hotel provides its guests, including their new relaxation room for busy executives, which Hilton is instituting throughout Europe. The amenities in this spa-like room include a whirlpool bathtub facing a plasma TV. Students also enjoyed a tour through the hotel´s hanging pool terrace and fully equipped executive lounge overlooking the city. Hilton Diagonal Mar opened its doors in 2005. The company´s other locations in Spain include Madrid, Mallorca, Toledo, Valencia and another hotel in the upper part of Barcelona.

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eFans.com, The Sports Revolution, goes out of beta 

Santa Monica, CALIFORNIA – January 22nd, 2008 -  eFans today announced it has concluded Beta successfully and is in full production. The updated and expanded version of the website features a very user friendly design and many new exciting features such as live scores, news, stats  and a section for videos that are interconnected directly with YouTube.

In less than three months, eFans.com has received sizeable attention in the sports industry and has attracted users worldwide. eFans has just signed a partnership agreement with PA Sports, the leading sports news agency in the world.  This partnership will provide eFans users with all of the statistical information of any team, athlete or sport they are interested in as well as current scores, news and standings.

eFans is very close to finalizing deals with some of the world’s best venture capitalist firms.  Allocation of the funds will include the development of the next phase of the website and a marketing campaign that will target the top sporting events around the world. The next major release of the website will be launched in mid 2008 and will include fantasy games, online betting, market place, venues, events and eFans TV.

eFans currently has more than 1,000 sports-related networks, each based on teams and athletes. These networks allow every team and athlete in the world to have an online community where they can connect directly with their fans. Users can become part of sports networks as diverse as David Beckham, the Boston Red Sox, Maria Sharapova, Tiger Woods and Manchester United.

eFans founder and CEO Stephan Maric states, “I am very excited about the sports community’s acceptance of the website. The attention we’ve received in our first few months has been amazing. Emerging from a successful Beta, and now in full production, we believe eFans will become the website of choice for sports fans worldwide.”

Links

• http://www.efans.com

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Barcelona Business School recently welcomed two eco-tourism experts who discussed with students the sustainable tourism operations of the Norwegian organization ‘Basecamp Explorer’ in Kenya, Norway, India and the Pyrenees. Tina Frisk and Moses Ole Sayalel particularly focused on Basecamp Explorer´s operations in Kenya, where Tina works as manager and Moses as safari guide.

In Kenya, the Basecamp lodge is located right outside the Maasai Mara National Game Reserve where Moses and his colleagues take visitors on safaris and where they may come across leopards, cheetahs, hyenas, lions, elephants, antelopes and zebras. “We need to preserve it for travelers and for the people who live there,” Tina emphasizes, while Moses adds proudly: “You cannot tell the difference when you are inside and outside of the game reserve.”

Lodge operators follow codes banning off-road driving and poaching. “The consumer is very aware these days,” Tina says. “If their driver is doing something he shouldn´t do, they will tell him.” Basecamp built and operates the camp in an eco-friendly way.  The company relies on local construction materials such as grass and stones and operates using solar heat and bio-toilets to minimize environmental impact. Including Moses, the majority of the workers come from the local, Maasai community, where a health clinic and school operates with donations from visitors to the Basecamp lodge. 

Among Basecamp´s future projects is an international seminar, “Tourism in Peace with People and Nature,” scheduled for March in India. For more information, we suggest you visit http://www.basecampexplorer.com.

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Norwegian media showcases Barcelona Business School graduate´s final project; Community welcomes his suggestions

BBS student Harald Jose Haraldsen has been the subject of local media and community attention since he returned to his native Norway. People are interested in finding out what they can do to keep local football clubs alive and Haraldsen is now ready to provide answers.

A Sports Management Master graduate at Barcelona Business School, Haraldsen presented a final thesis on the decline in attendance at the local, grassroots football clubs in Fredrikstad, Norway.

“Since football is very important to people here, my project received quite a bit of attention”, says Haraldsen about the thesis titled ‘Local football clubs in Norway: Is this the beginning of the end?’

“I was both interviewed by a local newspaper (Demokraten) and by a local radio station (Radio Fredrikstad) about my project. Also quite a number of people were interested in reading my paper since I returned home.”

“I have been asked to sit on the board of the youth league here in Norway, and have also discussed opportunities within the Football Academy. Writing the Capstone project turned out to be much more than just a completion of requirements!”

Being a former player and great football fan himself, Haraldsen wanted to identify the causes of the decline in attendance in order to reverse this trend. He believes football clubs are a great tool for community cohesion and he is ready to implement changes to keep them in place. The project includes interviews with key figures of the Norwegian football community and a section of the professional team, Fredrikstad FK.

Links

Download a copy of the article in PDF (Norwegian language only)

Article published in “Demokraten” on October 30,2007

• http://www.demokraten.no/lokalsport/article3092911.ece
• http://www.ffk-college.no/

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About Jun-Hwan Park

Born in 1985 in Santiago Chile, “Jun” was raised by multi-cultural surroundings. Both parents South Korean, educated by international schools, he will graduate from Barcelona Business School with a Bachelor degree in Business Communication and Public Relations. August 2004, Jun moved from Santiago to Alfred University, New York; however, Jun rapidly realized his desire for exposure to the European culture and moved to sunny Barcelona in 2005.

After attending GIMUN 2007, his first MUN, he felt he found his calling. At MILMUN 2007 he received an Honorary Mention, granting confidence in his aptitude to chair the Conference of Disarmament at ZAGIMUN 2007. Jun has been told that he’s a Jack-of-all-trades and likes to consider that impossible is nothing and also that there are no problems without a solution.

The Zagreb International Model United Nations (ZAGIMUN) is an annual United Nations simulation for university students organized by the Center for International Cooperation in Zagreb, Croatia.

Links

• http://www.zagimun.org/

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As real-life examples and business projects are highly valued with us, undergraduate and graduate students from Barcelona Business School were asked by the school to write a comprehensive business plan for the “reacTable”, a revolutionary new electronic music instrument. Dr. Sergi Jordà, project leader of the research group at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra’s Audiovisual Institute, provided our students with a complete presentation about the idea behind the new instrument and about the almost limitless functionality of the reacTable.

Links

• http://reactable.iua.upf.edu

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Barcelona Business School student Jon Orn Gudbjartsson was one of four to receive a scholarship from the Icelandic Chamber of Commerce last February. This is due to Gudbjartsson’s exceptional success in his studies at Barcelona Business School where he is pursuing two degrees, a Master/MBA in e-Business and in Business Communication and Public Relations. The grant from the Icelandic Chamber of Commerce is awarded annually to those Icelandic students, studying abroad, that are most likely to strengthen the Icelandic economy with their skills, knowledge and professional contribution.

Jon Orn Gudbjartsson, who is the first Icelander to study at BBS along with his wife Rut Gunnarsdottir, received the grant from the Minister of education of Iceland, Thorgerdur Katrin Gunnarsdottir. The grant was delivered at an annual business conference in Reykjavik.

The Iceland Chamber of Commerce is an association of enterprises, companies, and individuals, from all sectors of the Icelandic business community. It is an independent voluntary organization, established in 1917, and has always been free of state involvement or official contributions.

The Chamber represents most of the major enterprises in Iceland, large and small, and is financed by membership and service fees. It operates two highly ranked schools in Iceland, the Reykjavik University and the Commercial College of Iceland.

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