ESSEC Students Test New Restaurant Concept First-Hand
Over three days in April, the ESSEC IMHI Center of Excellence of Hospitality, Food and Travel, along with the ESSEC Center of Excellence of Impact Entrepreneurship provided current students with a unique academic experience – the opportunity to test first-hand the launch of a new restaurant concept.
Founded by ESSEC MBA in Hospitality Management (IMHI) class of 2014 graduate Norman Kolton, STREET Bangkok Local Food was installed in the Knowledge Lab of ESSEC to test and optimize the concept with the support of partners Cuisi'install, Innovorder, Alliance and Sérisign.
The observations and evaluations made throughout the experience will allow Norman and his team to enhance the processes that were put in place and improve the customer experience before the grand opening. Thanks to feedback from the students on the customer experience and the statistics gathered on the flow and work processes, the restaurant STREET will be able to improve its management of waiting time and service capacity as well as optimize stock levels.
"These three days at ESSEC allowed us to test the concept and make some final changes before the opening by proposing students an exciting experience and complete immersion in the streets of Bangkok," noted Norman Kolton, founder of STREET.
An innovative learning experience for the students at ESSEC
The students strongly benefit from this event has they have the chance to work on a live case study which they started over the three days and will finish by working closely with their professors and the entrepreneurs. This opportunity will allow the students to develop skills and gain knowledge on the entrepreneurial process, techniques on operational optimization and consumer behavior. Certain students from the MBA in Hospitality Management (IMHI) program will act as consultants for the start-up, providing the entrepreneurs with their analyses and suggestions. This will form part of their final consulting project of their MBA.
"We wanted to propose to the students an innovative experience by combining two areas of expertise of ESSEC – entrepreneurship and hospitality management. This unique educational experience could be replicated but not necessarily in the same format. It could involve other companies who have a new project, whether it is a start-up or an existing company, wanting to test and develop a new product, service and process. This type of experience integrates perfectly into the missions of the ESSEC Center of Excellence and in the learning design of ESSEC," stated Nicolas Graf, Director of the ESSEC IMHI Center of Excellence in Hospitality, Food and Travel.
STREET Bangkok Local Food, a start-up founded by ESSEC MBA in Hospitality Management graduate
STREET, incubated by ESSEC Ventures, allows Parisians to discover first-hand authentic Thai street food that could be found on the streets of Bangkok. Steering away from formal dining, the vision is to create a setting where you can share good food and the dining experience with your close friends and family in an easygoing environment. It is a space created by friends and enthusiasts who were persuaded by a new way of enjoying healthy, well balanced food adapted to their busy city lifestyles. They created STREET by putting together their ideas and experiences and in doing so, creating a unique culinary experience which revives the excitement of the streets of Bangkok.
Entrepreneurship is an important component of the MBA in Hospitality Management (IMHI) program at ESSEC, the subject encompassing around half of the courses throughout the program. Students have developed a real appetite with more and more launching into their own entrepreneurial adventures. Every year, 2 to 4 projects of IMHI are integrated into the ESSEC Ventures incubator and many entrepreneurial projects will see the light of day.