Students from the Science to Business Marketing Research Centre at FH Münster University of Applied Sciences were among those who participated in the DIGIFABS SME Goes Digital Challenge. Here, Marly Hany shares their experience on behalf of the group that participated.
“This project was a valuable learning experience that combined academic knowledge with real-world application in the food and beverage industry. Through the DIGIFABS project, we were first introduced to the role of digitalisation in traditional food businesses, which set the foundation for applying data-driven approaches in a practical business context, and prepared us to work on a real business case with Essmann’s Bakery.
We learned a lot through working with Essmann’s Bakery and on this type of location analysis project. Visiting their factory in Altenberge (Germany) was really insightful as it gave us a deep understanding of their production processes, workflow, branch operations, and, of course, their delicious bakery products.
The main objective of the project was to develop a scoring model for location quality and to prototype an interactive heatmap to support Essmann’s expansion decisions in selected regions of Germany. To achieve this, we worked with several tools, including Google Looker Studio, Kepler, and German demographic and spatial data sources such as INKAR and Overpass Turbo. We also conducted correlation and regression analyses to better understand which location factors are most strongly associated with store performance. As a result, we successfully built an interactive heatmap that highlights high-potential areas and supports data-driven expansion planning.
Our experience with DIGIFABS during the Summer School in Slovakia was truly amazing and very insightful, especially through the exchange with professors and the program’s interdisciplinary mindset. Finishing the project by winning third place in the pitch event made the experience even more rewarding.
Without the combination of the DIGIFABS project and the collaboration with Essmann’s, we would not have gained such a practical understanding of how data can be used in strategic location planning projects.”
It is wonderful for the DIGIFABS project to get this feedback from our students. If you are interested in hearing about the experience from the SME perspective, read our interview with Julian Feller, Head of Marketing at Essmann’s Backstube GmbH.