ICN Business School has been operating 100% remotely, like every school, since March 23rd. The continuity of the courses is ensured by e-learning. And the new edition of the Creative Business Days (CB Days) planned for the beginning of April in Nancy was adapted due to the confinement and took place virtually but with creativity and success, which was hailed during the debriefing organised at the end of April with the students and members of the management committee of Carsat Nord-Est*.
An immersion consulting mission
ICN’s teaching teams have shown their responsiveness by adapting to the exceptional situation we are going through and organising this new edition of the CB Days in less than 15 days in a totally digital version: a professional seminar in total immersion during one week at Carsat Nord-Est, during which 40 second-year students from the ICN Grande Ecole Programme worked on “accompanying the digital transformation” of their business project. A seminar that goes off the beaten track and a new and human experience despite the distance, during which the ICN students were more motivated than ever to take up this new challenge and make high-level managerial recommendations to the great satisfaction of Carsat.
“The conditions are all special, the containment has just been put in place. Carsat, like many companies that can’t stop, is facing a reorganization in a hurry: “we have to ensure, in particular, the payment of pensions”. The mutual trust between this organisation and ICN creates such a dynamic that our students feel it. They are very professional in their behaviour and work and the teaching team is impressed by their investment. Is it the event that created this dynamic? Certainly, but not only, it is also the construction of a very structured educational offer. Of course, this required us to be very well prepared: conceptual support adapted to the problems posed by the company in terms of strategy, team management, ideation, qualitative and digital surveys, and information flow management. A very rhythmical sequence of pedagogical activities, continuous interaction with the students, non-stop 9am-6pm, weekly progress points between teachers, because success requires that nothing is set in stone. Our reactivity to the needs and evolution of the students is also a key to success.
With hindsight, it is not the confinement that creates the adhesion of our students, it is the structure of this new pedagogical offer. The investment, the questioning, the professionalism, the sharing during these experiences between professors allow us to say: we have taken a new step. Some of the solutions proposed by the students to the questions raised by Carsat will be discussed by the management committee and will be implemented in the short term. The vast majority of the students did not think they would learn so much in such a short time and at such a distance!” underlines Marie-France CLERC-GIRARD, head of the Artem department and head of development & innovation at ICN Business School.
“Last year, 70 ICN students spent a week crisscrossing all floors of our headquarters to evaluate the Carsat’s digital brakes and assets. This year, during the CB Days, the students were present in virtual mode, due to the health crisis that has been unprecedented for a century. From Monday morning, I presented to them, as I did last year, the Carsat and our company project, quietly installed at my computer at home. They worked all week on the theme of “supporting the digital transformation” of our business project. Managers answered their questions to deepen the diagnosis made by last year’s students. This is called “pedagogical continuity”. Above all, we continued the digital transformation of Carsat in record time. Is digital technology “a threat to humans?”; “a waste of time?”; “A double workload?”. NO! These CB Days were an opportunity to show that digital technology also allows us to highlight the incredible resources of human beings and their ability to adapt.”
says Emmanuel GOUAULT, Director of Carsat Nord-Est.
* Carsat (pension and occupational health insurance fund) is a social security organisation. It is a private law structure exercising a public service mission, and providing assistance to employees, retirees and companies in the areas of retirement, social assistance and occupational risk management.
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