For Guzman y Gomez, engaging with a transdisciplinary team of UTS students is helping the national restaurant chain make meaningful steps in embedding environmentally sustainable practices across their organisation.
This October, a team of Bachelor of Creative Intelligence and Innovation (BCII) students were invited to present their initiatives to the Guzman y Gomez leadership team, representing the culmination of their collaboration with the Mexican restaurant chain for their Industry Innovation Project (IIP) subject.
Back in March 2020, Guzman y Gomez (GYG) presented a transdisciplinary team of BCII students with a complex sustainability challenge: how to move towards a neutral environmental footprint, while remaining commercially viable. Over 12 weeks the student team explored, reframed and tested their concepts before presenting their solution; a feasible and viable roadmap towards a circular business model.
We spoke to Steve Orleow, Head of Technology & Insights at Guzman y Gomez and three members of the BCII student team, Angela Yiqing Lu (BCII/Business), Jack O’Sullivan (BCII /Science) and Victoria Fernandez Jones (BCII/Communication) about the mutual benefits of this learning engagement that sees students and industry partners work together on a real-world challenge.
Why did you decide to engage with the IIP subject?
Steve: Guzman y Gomez recognises its responsibilities to make a positive contribution in our world. The journey started many years ago with a focus on providing clean food to our guests. The opportunity to extend this towards reducing the impact on our environment is part of our journey and engaging with the Industry Innovation Project offered an opportunity to those that would be most impacted to reach for solutions.
Angela: I picked Guzman y Gomez (GYG)'s challenge as one of my preferences because I was interested in their problem space of "nothing to landfills", particularly within a food-based industry within Australia. I found the problem space to be both very tangible but unique to our location and the business
Jack: They [GYG] stated that we would have meetings with the CEO, Steven Marks, which I thought would be a great learning opportunity and indicated that they were genuinely passionate about the proposed challenge.
The program has given our organisation access to a highly motivated group of students who are eager to seek solutions to challenges we are looking to address.
Steve Orleow, Head of Technology and Insights, Guzman y Gomez
The students work in multidisciplinary teams for IIP, what advantages does this bring?
Steve: The mix of skills did allow these students to approach the challenges posed from a business, advertising, visual and scientific approach. Although they presented and asked questions as a group, it was evident that they brainstormed and did their research together and were able to approach issues from several different angles.
Their alternative thinking and problem-solving models allowed them to reframe our challenge and broaden the problem which then brought forward additional opportunities which was valuable.
Victoria: I learned that my discipline does not limit the knowledge I can source or the contributions I can make! As a communications/design student, I took a deep dive into industrial composting and biogas digester technology and found I really enjoy learning about the science of it all. I was able to explore outside of my comfort zone, and with the help of my transdisciplinary team (actual science students!) continue to develop this idea/initiative.
What have the benefits of participating in IIP been?
Steve: The program has given GYG access to a highly motivated and vested group who are eager to seek solutions to challenges we are looking to address. They [the students] had the time to research and think broadly about how several areas could be improved and provided practical solutions that we can take and further develop towards achieving our goals.
Victoria: I learned a lot about the way that large organisations are run, and how they are hoping to continue developing their own transdisciplinary work methods & inter-divisional communication. It's great to see the value exchange between what GYG provides for us & what we can provide for them!
Angela: Understanding that when you feel hopeless in changing a complex system that you are not expected to have a whole encompassing "one size fits all" solution. Rather, explore opportunities to make interventions that move towards the right direction which may come in the form of a safe to fail experiments and rapid prototyping.
The student team recently presented to the Guzman y Gomez leadership team, could you tell us a bit about how this came about and any other outcomes from the project?
Steve: The team was introduced to many teams within GYG so that they could get insights from marketing, finance, operations, supply chain and technology. When the insights were presented to the project sponsors, we felt that the operations and supply chain teams would benefit from hearing the ideas directly from the students as well as them benefiting from ‘formally presenting’ to a leadership team. The solutions presented by the team were enthusiastically received by our supply chain and operations departments who will be formally engaging in projects as recommended by the students.
Jack: It was a great and exciting way to finish off a project we had spent so much time working on in the previous semester and it was nice to see that they were still interested in the proposed solution and the methodologies we used to arrive at our planned intervention.
Victoria: Presenting to the GYG Leadership at Head Office was a fantastic experience that not only allowed me to gain legitimate pitching experience but also insight into how our proposed initiatives and discussed trends have been in development or will continue to progress behind the scenes. So thankful for the opportunity to have presented and have a direct influence on GYG's path to fully sustainable operations!
Many thanks to the GYG team who engaged with the students and supported their learning and congratulations to the student team (Angela, Victoria, Jack and Isabelle).