Metro Coffee, a pioneering social enterprise business, provides employment opportunities, training, and support to individuals with Autism, Down Syndrome, Learning Disabilities, and other conditions. Rooted in the ethos of inclusivity and community, Metro Coffee envisions a future where individuals with special talents and needs thrive in the workforce.
Driven by a shared commitment to entrepreneurship and social responsibility, Metro Coffee chose to collaborate with the University of Westminster. Westminster Enterprise Network (WeNetwork) provided an opportunity for Metro Coffee to create a live brief and engage with students to harness their creative talents to address real-world challenges. By partnering with WeNetwork, Metro Coffee aimed not only to gain valuable insights into consumer behaviours but also to support student learning and foster awareness about social enterprise businesses.
The collaborative endeavour focused on understanding the impact of the pandemic and cost-of-living changes on consumer preferences, particularly among commuters passing through Gants Hill Station. Through comprehensive consumer insights research, students examined commuter habits, budgetary adjustments, purchasing motivators, and social media usage patterns. These insights were instrumental in informing Metro Coffee's strategic decisions and shaping its future initiatives.
The findings and reports provided by the students has been very useful to help us grow business further. From the report, we have managed to change our marketing strategy to attract different age group consumers, consider our branding strategy and be more conscious about environment when we purchase our products from our suppliers. It will help us develop strategies to increase the sales of the business going forward. The case study collaboration with the students has been very successful.
- David Rana, Co-Founder of Metro Coffee
By engaging with students through WeNetwork, Metro Coffee not only addressed pressing business challenges but also contributed to the professional development of future leaders.
The Metro Coffee creative live brief gave students the opportunity to work on business challenges in real time and create authentic solutions for the employer's business. This collaboration added authenticity to the learning process for the students and the opportunity to learn about neurodiversity within the business landscape. This is a valuable component, enhancing their knowledge, which contributes to creating and adopting a collaborative, interactive approach to engagement with Metro Coffee.
- Jennie Baptiste, Industry Engagement Officer at WeNetwork, University of Westminster.
As businesses strive to navigate an increasingly complex and dynamic landscape, collaborative initiatives like these underscore the importance of harnessing collective intelligence and fostering social impact.
It’s a win-win situation for all parties. Employers gets extra support to help grow the business and students gets chance to get practical real-life experience dealing with current issue faced by the employers.
- David Rana, Co-Founder of Metro Coffee.
Are you a business looking to tackle real-world challenges while empowering the next generation of entrepreneurs? Whether you're seeking consumer insights, marketing strategies, or product development ideas, our diverse community of students is ready to help.
Get involved and submit your briefs for students to tackle by emailing [email protected].