International Collaboration Brings Hochschule Mainz Master’s Students to EBS

On 1 October, MBA students in Digital Product Management at EBS met with ten master’s students from Hochschule Mainz to exchange experiences and explore how solutions developed by EBS students could perform in international markets.

The Hochschule Mainz students visited EBS as part of an international seminar focused on exploring Estonia’s digital ecosystem and comparing different management practices.

Testing Digital Product Ideas in the German Market

In the first half of the day, EBS’s Digital Product Management MBA students presented their prototypes and the results of their user testing to date. Students from EBS and Hochschule Mainz then worked in mixed groups to analyse whether and how these solutions could work in the German market.

The discussions explored the adaptations a new market might require and how these could affect a product’s business model. The students’ ideas ranged from generating various types of reports to solutions that help people set savings goals and visualise their financial future.

“Today’s international collaboration day is a great opportunity to test whether the ideas you have come up with could take off in the German market,” said Anna-Liisa Reinson, Visiting Lecturer at EBS.

The role of artificial intelligence in product management was also discussed during the first half of the day. “An AI agent can help us make significant progress on certain tasks, but it cannot replace human curiosity, vision, empathy, intuition or the ability to influence senior management,” Reinson said.

Why Is Product Management a Business Role?

The second half of the day featured a practical lecture on product management led by Urmo Keskel. The discussion focused on why product management is fundamentally a business role and why simply delivering what management or customers ask for is not enough. The key is to understand the problem being solved and the change the product is intended to achieve.

Group discussions highlighted the students’ varied backgrounds and levels of experience. While some participants had been working with digital products for years, others were only beginning to explore the field. This created an opportunity to share practical experiences and different perspectives.

International Collaboration in the Classroom

Hochschule Mainz is one of EBS’s partner universities in Germany. The joint learning day brought together students with diverse backgrounds and experiences, giving them an opportunity to learn about each other’s markets and approaches.