A unique perspective

There are plenty of reasons why advisupply, KLU’s student consultancy, is becoming increasingly popular with companies seeking top-notch logistics benchmarking and competition analyses.

For starters, there’s the knowledge and expertise the consultancy can draw on.

While advisupply is entirely student led and run, with its own legal entity and finances, it remains affiliated with KLU and, thus, able to make use of the university’s world class logistics and supply chain research, knowledge and expertise. Not to mention its extensive industry network.

Then there’s the financial aspect.

“There’s a big advantage for businesses to work with us because they get this expertise without paying as much as they would to established consultants,” explains Bachelor in Business Administration student and president of advisupply, Max Adam.

Agile Operations

Staffed by 25 dedicated KLU bachelor and masters’ students with insights gleaned from internships with leading logistics and consultancy firms and, in many cases, industry experience, advisupply also boasts agility, as evidenced in their latest project.

At the beginning of July, Dr Rupert Seuthe, who is Head of Corporate Relations and responsible for cooperation and knowledge transfer projects between the university and industry at KLU, passed on a request from e&Co, a member of KLU’s network.

The Munich-based consultants had been asked by GOCELO, a pan-European logistics network focusing on last-mile solutions in the areas of high-tech logistics, Furniture, Fixtures and Equipment (FF&E) and med-tech logistics, to evaluate their strategic options of growing in the market and possibly even expanding their operations beyond the six countries they currently operate in.

Working as part of a team

“e&Co needed a reliable, knowledgeable partner for the project and also wanted to make use of advisupply’s unique network and neutral perspective,” explains Adam. “The timing of the project was also critical, as we had to start one week after being told about it and had exactly two months to complete the work.”

The project involved the gathering of primary data from both academic experts - KLU professors - and private sector industry experts - members of GOCELO network - and secondary data about the state of the market and how it is evolving. The findings were then analyzed and presented to the client.

The GOCELO project represents a milestone for advisupply, as it’s the first time advisupply has provided services to a client while working together with another consultancy firm. It’s also the first time the student consultancy has done work for a network of companies.

Expanding networks

If both e&Co and GOCELO are satisfied with advisupply’s work, there’s a good possibility that their project team will present the key findings of the market study to a wider audience at the network’s convention in Netherlands end of this year.

“This is great for us,” says Finn Micke, advisupply’s Head of Project Acquisition and the team lead on the project, “as there might be other companies present who are also interested in working with a student consultancy working primarily in the field of logistics. There would be some great attention and the possibility to gain a bigger network.”

Since its founding in 2020, advisupply has been actively growing its network of clients through attending networking events, reaching out to contacts, and building a strong reputation as extremely competent, cost-efficient consultants.

It’s a standing that continues to be enhanced by projects such as the GOCELO project and last year’s creation and implementation of a solution to optimize route planning and deliveries for Hamburger Tafel, a non-profit organization delivering hot, free meals to vulnerable people around Hamburg.