HEC Paris Digital Major Students Design AI-Powered Market Intelligence Solutions with Global Logistics Leader CMA CGM
Over an intense week combining on-site immersion within CMA CGM’s innovation ecosystem in Marseille, workshops, coaching sessions, and a final pitch session, 32 Master’s students from the Grande École Master in Management – Digital Major took on a major real-world challenge: How can AI revolutionize Business Intelligence at CMA CGM?
Master in Management students (Digital Business major) participating in the CMA-CGM 2025 super case during the final pitch on the HEC Paris campus.
Guided by Professor Stéphane Madoeuf, Academic Director of the Digital Business Major (Master in Management - Grande école), and in close collaboration with CMA CGM senior executives, the project offered a unique, hands-on opportunity to explore how artificial intelligence can reshape decision-making and performance in global logistics.
A Real-World Learning Experience
From September 16 to 23, 2025, six student teams worked on designing innovative solutions to help CMA CGM anticipate geopolitical, environmental, and operational disruptions, turn crises into opportunities, achieve sustainability goals, and enhance sales and marketing intelligence by leveraging data more effectively.
The experience began with an immersion in CMA CGM’s innovation ecosystem in Marseille, where students discovered the Group’s operations, digital infrastructure, and strategic approach to innovation, from its partnerships with Mistral AI to the creation of Tangram, a structure dedicated to advancing digital and technological transformation.
Back on campus, teams refined their proposals through workshops, mentoring sessions, and data-driven analysis before pitching their projects to a jury of CMA CGM experts, including Jean Fauquembergue (Head of AI) and Agnès Mossina (Head of Marketing).
The Challenge: Turning Data into Action
The brief, defined by CMA CGM’s AI and Business Intelligence teams, invited students to design a system capable of scanning and interpreting vast streams of data — from geopolitical events and port disruptions to market trends and environmental factors — and turning these signals into actionable insights for commercial teams.
The goal was to imagine an AI-powered approach that would enable CMA CGM to move from reactive decision-making to proactive opportunity generation, aligning with the company’s ambition to be recognized not only as a logistics provider but as a trusted strategic advisor to its clients.
The Winning Project
The winning team’s project, titled “The Catalyst”, proposed an AI-powered market intelligence platform designed to transform supply chain volatility into business growth.
By analyzing multiple data sources — including port status, weather forecasts, news alerts, and client logistics data — the system detects early signals of disruption and translates them into dual commercial actions:
• For sales teams: predictive alerts and client-specific recommendations to strengthen loyalty and upsell premium services.
• For marketing teams: event-driven campaign briefs and competitor intelligence to seize new market opportunities.
The project’s strength lay in its clear structure, coherent sales–marketing alignment, and realistic roadmap from MVP development to global rollout.
The jury commended the team for a “well-conceived, structured, and credible project,” highlighting their ability to articulate complex AI concepts through concrete business use cases — from port congestion to perishable goods management — and to demonstrate how AI can turn crises into opportunities.
A Win-Win Collaboration
This Supercase once again illustrates the value of industry–academia partnerships that connect students with real business transformation challenges.
For students, it offered an invaluable hands-on experience at the crossroads of management, data, and innovation — requiring strong analytical, strategic, and collaborative skills.
For CMA CGM, it was an opportunity to benefit from the creativity and fresh thinking of a new generation of digital leaders.
As Professor Stéphane Madoeuf emphasized, this initiative reflects the Digital Major’s mission to bridge technology and strategy: “These projects show how our students can translate complex technological challenges into actionable business solutions — exactly what global companies need today.”
Building the Future of Responsible Innovation
Beyond the competition, the collaboration with CMA CGM forms part of a broader partnership between the Group and HEC Paris, spanning research (CMA CGM x & Tangram HEC Paris "Sustainability & Supply Chain Analytics" Chair), innovation, talent recruitment, and access to education (scholarships for Lebanese students). It underscores a shared commitment to preparing future leaders capable of leveraging technology responsibly to drive sustainable impact.