Graduates report

If someone had told us at the beginning of our seminar that we would be able to present our work at the 56th Hawaii International Conference on Systems Science less than a year later, we most likely would have shaken our heads in disbelief. How this came about, however, is something we would like to explain to you in more detail.

In our work, we investigated how artificial intelligence can contribute to more sustainability in the field of agricultural economics. During our research period it was especially valuable that we could go to our supervisor with all our questions and that we could clarify them in weekly to bi-weekly meetings (e.g. how to conduct a structured literature review in the field of information systems). This also allowed us to clarify any new questions that arose and be sure we were on the right track and within schedule. With the results of our research, we developed a so-called Concept Matrix, which allowed us to clearly structure the relevant articles on the topic. By following a systematic approach, we were able to gain interesting insights and identify research gaps. For us, it was already a success to be able to delve so deeply into the scientific work and thus contribute to the discussion around the topic of sustainability.

However, the most exciting part of our work actually happened after the actual seminar: We had the opportunity to further elaborate our work and submit it to a scientific international conference afterwards. And indeed, our work was accepted at the 56th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. This gave us the opportunity to go to Hawaii and present our work to researchers from all around the world. That was pretty exciting! On site, we were able to expand our knowledge through many interesting talks, making new contacts and, of course, having the experience of presenting our work at an international conference. On top of that, we had plenty of time to explore the island and its beautiful nature.

All in all, it was a very exciting and interesting time in which we were able to gain many new insights into the world of scientific work. Therefore, we can only encourage students to approach scientific work with commitment and fun – it's worth it! Maybe you will be the very next to present your seminar paper or thesis at a conference!

Jonas Witte & Kevin Gao

The goal of my thesis was to develop a design process for an AI-based business model. In addition, Deutsche Bahn Vertrieb GmbH supported me as an external practical partner. Practical insight – great! Not a minute later, the mail left my inbox in which I applied for the topic. Shortly thereafter, I received a message that the topic was still available.

Maybe you're feeling the same way I did when I was looking for a topic for my thesis. Perhaps you are still undecided about the direction you want to take? With this report I would like to give you some orientation. You will get an insight into why I chose the department of Prof. Buxmann and why this was my best decision.

I wrote my bachelor thesis at the department of control engineering. I wanted to find a counterbalance to this and therefore write my master thesis at an economics department. “Something about disruptive technologies, digital business models, IT or AI … ”, I thought to myself. I visited the websites of various departments at FB 01. I finally found what I was looking for at the Software & Digital Business Group: the advertised exposés covered exactly the topics I was looking for. One call for proposals particularly caught my eye and I immediately fell in love with it. It formulated the need for a design process for an AI-based business model. In addition, Deutsche Bahn Vertrieb GmbH was present as an external partner, which made the posting that much more interesting to me. Practical insight – great! Not a minute later, the mail left my inbox in which I applied for the topic. Shortly thereafter, I received a message that the topic was still available.

During the kickoff, I got to know the contact persons at Deutsche Bahn better. During this meeting, we decided on contract management as a suitable use case. An AI service was to be developed for this use case. In the first few weeks, I combed through numerous scientific publications and highlighted the current state of development on AI services. At the same time, I researched how business models are generally developed in companies. One tip I'd like to share right away: a thorough examination of the literature helps to narrow down the methodology that will be used later on at an early stage. Therefore, I recommend to start with the literature review as soon as possible and to deal intensively with a lot of papers.

In the weeks that followed, I developed a draft for a business model, which I then validated in expert interviews and adapted to the Deutsche Bahn. The challenge was to get employees from various departments at DB on board. I noticed in the first interviews that the business model was still very abstract formulated for some DB employees. I therefore created an individual presentation for each subsequent interview. This allowed me to visualize and explain my ideas more comprehensibly. The key result of my master thesis consisted of a design process for AI-based business models. Within the expert interviews, I was able to identify five escalation stages within change management.

Julian Hüsselmann