Cardiff Week 2022

The Cardiff week has become a staple of the degree programme in International Business Management. Originally designed in the 1980s to accommodate visiting athletes from the USA, it has taken on new life as an academic challenge to students, who have to quickly identify issues of localized cultural significance. They then have to acknowledge and incorporate these findings when presenting a SWOT analysis and marketing plan for a sports organization or event in Wales.

The Cardiff Week aims to have an impact on its participants beyond the few days they spend in the UK. It is intended to have long term benefits in the way students approach the cultural differences and potential sensitivities of co-workers, clients and the companies they may one day come into contact with.

This year, our students were assigned with the creation of a 5-year strategy to turn Cardiff City FC into a significantly more ecologically “greener” sports club. As is the case with any good business plan, the strategy should also be designed to be of financial and commercial benefit for the football club.

In order to successfully tackle this challenge, the students first immersed themselves in Welsh sports culture. They experienced the atmosphere at local football, rugby, cricket and ice hockey venues and the historically rooted social processes and marketing activities that surround them. They were confronted with unfamiliar customs and hyper-localized advertising slogans they needed to decipher.

To gather context for their experiences, the FHNW students visited the Cardiff Business School at Cardiff University, where Tim Lewis, the organizer of the Cardiff Week, presented the historical and sociological background of the importance of Cardiff as a port city during the industrial revolution and a comparison of Welsh and Swiss cultural sporting practices.

Over the course of the week, the students met an array of sports managers who worked closely with the Welsh and UK media. From these meetings, the students gathered valuable information on how sports teams are managed and how they work to be properly (and favourably) covered by local and national media outlets. This provided first-hand insights and further context for the students as they developed ideas and worked on their final presentations. As a particular highlight, the students were received by Councillor Graham Hinchey, the Right Honourable Lord Mayor of Cardiff for an official meeting, where they acted as ambassadors for FHNW.

Cardiff Week 2022 concluded with the students’ presentations at the National Sports Centre for Wales. Here, the students excelled in laying out their innovative approaches to developing a more ecologically friendly sports club and formulated some radical long-term ideas to make Cardiff City FC the most environmentally friendly team in Wales, and one which sets an environmental gold standard in sport.

As such, the Cardiff Week offers an additional international component to a trinational study programme that takes part in Switzerland, France and Germany. The students benefit from exposure to yet another set of cultural norms and have a chance to hone their analytical as well as creative skills.