Akcela – the Norwich based business incubator and management consultancy has no less than three UEA project teams supporting businesses for this year’s NBS Exec-MBA final projects. As originally reported, the UEA consultancy teams are supporting Origin Hope, Eido Research and TechEducators on their continued growth plans, with projects ranging from a market segmentation and go to market strategy, to a full stakeholder review and communications plan. This isn’t the first interaction between the Akcela team and the UEA, with a total of four of the six members of the Akcela Ventures management team completing their MBA with the UEA. Managing Director, James Adams, graduated from the MBA in 2018 and feels this is a perfect win-win-win-win for the companies, students, university and Akcela. “In business and society, you are always looking for opportunities where all actors in the transaction win. I really feel we have achieved that with this partnership. For the companies receiving the consultancy, they are getting consultancy from some incredibly talented and capable individuals. This isn’t a paperwork exercise or going through the motions. These are real-world, real-life consultancy issues that the companies are working through. The output is going to be put into action. So for the students, they are experiencing a live consultancy project. Putting to use their learnings from the last two years, with the support of the university and Akcela to drive great outcomes. There is an expectation, but there’s also the opportunity to really get stuck in and drive great outcomes.” “For the university, they continue to support local businesses, with the guidance of the Akcela team, who both understand the process with many having been part of it, but with real world experience in consulting some of the worlds largest companies. For Akcela, not only do we get to give back to the students with a real challenge and our support; we get an outside influence and challenges from a wide range of business backgrounds.” The projects will be running for several weeks including one week of intensive focused work within the Akcela Incubator. The teams will present back initial findings to the management teams, before producing a full report which includes findings, next steps and suggestions to explore further.