Business Advice

is your arsenal for developing and maintaining sound financial plans and business strategy.

Inside: Budgeting | Compensation | Valuation

Free Trial: Intuit QuickBooks

Simple Start Free Edition 2009 for Windows

Departments

The Entrepreneurial Generation by Donna Fenn

Inc.com Featured Blogs

July 28, 2008

Can Student Consultants Help Grow Your Business?

Posted at 2:41 PM

Over the past few months, I’ve been in touch with Becky Oliphant, a professor of marketing at Stetson University in Deland, FL, who takes a very hands-on approach to teaching her MBA students about business, much to the advantage of local companies. In the spring, for instance, Oliphant’s students helped develop a marketing plan and SWOT analysis for a local business called Complete Parachute Solutions – a $33 million company that supplies government agencies with parachutes. You can read more about that in this NYT story.

And this summer, Oliphant took 27 international marketing students on two, two-week trips to Europe (Italy, Austria, and Germany) to visit companies like BMW, Swarovski, Riedel, and a small bicycle tour and rental company called Mike’s Bike Tours, owned by American expat Mike Lasher. Among the students’ suggestions to Lasher: add local advertising to each bicycle; begin using Google AdWords; start doing a night tour that includes a pub crawl; create and sell more branded paraphernalia. It’ll be interesting to see what advice he takes to heart.

To me, this sounds like a great way to spend a summer vacation – not just for the students, but for the business owners who host them and receive the benefit of their youthful perspective. I wonder how many other colleges and universities send out teams of student consultants to both local and international companies and what kind of impact the student suggestions have had. Share your stories with me, please!

An interesting footnote: While they were touring Europe, Oliphant challenged her students to be on the lookout for the “made in China” label as they shopped. “It was not until the next to last day in the trip that someone found batteries in a grocery store that said ‘Made in China,’” says Oliphant. “Most clothing and souviners were made in Germany, Austria, Italy or Switzerland. The people of these countries support their own manufacterers even if items are priced a little higher.” Hmm. The last time I visited a souvenir shop near Times Square, I had an equally hard time finding items that weren’t made in China. Food for thought.

8 Comments

Posted by: at July 28, 2008 5:52 PM

Your last point was quite interesting. Americans live in Cheap is King culture. I know there are a plethora of opinions on whether this helps, hurts, or creates some other sort of result.

I wish that somebody would raise this point more loudly that all we find here is Made in China, while other countries still manufacture at home. What does it all really mean? Some say we have moved on from an manufacturing society to a "knowledge" society. Can you not have both?

Posted by: Bennett at July 29, 2008 10:23 AM

In terms of consulting, I have just started the Madison Consulting Group at James Madison University. We are taking a different approach to undergraduate consulting services; planning on consulting with University departments, clubs and organizations, as well as, local not for profit organizations. This opportunity is very unique and an amazing hands on experience. Furthermore, I am completing the establishment of the Inter-collegiate Consulting Network. The mission of the Inter-Collegiate Consulting Network is to establish a platform for college and university based consulting groups to further their networks, exchange ideas on clients and consulting projects and foster consulting skills necessary to further their careers after having graduated from their respective institutions. You have written a great article and I hope my comments are useful to you.

Posted by: Nate Stockard at July 29, 2008 5:17 PM

I am a firm believer in working with students. My companies throughout the years have always taken advantage of any opportunity to work with students primarily because they are are the generation that we should be marketing towards. Their ideas and suggestions should not be taken lightly, especially from more mature students such as MBA students.

If anyone has any information about similar programs, I would love to learn more.

Also, when working with students, you get to examine possible employees without as costly commitment. When a student comes in and tells you how to turn around your business and it works, why not hire them?

Posted by: Sophia at July 29, 2008 5:43 PM

I did a posting about free work from MBA students also. I think that it's great to tap into young minds. Also, you may want to hire one of them when they graduate.

http://sophiaperl.com/?p=35

Posted by: Tim at July 30, 2008 8:39 AM

When I was a senior in college, I had the amazing opportunity to participate in a semester-long consulting project. There were 2 teams of 6, and I was the leader of one of the teams.

We were consulting for a start-up company out of Dayton, OH called "Warmbat." They were an Australian shoe company introducing a line to compete with Ugg boots.

The entire project was out of class, but once a week we presented to the 3 professors. They then continued to tear our findings apart, and then we would have to figure out how to solve our problems on our own. It was stressful at times, but the best school experience I ever had. I learned more during our consulting project, then I ever could have in a classroom.

I have followed Warmbat a little throughout the past few years, and they seem to be doing better. They have worked their way into brick and morter stores, which was one of our main suggestions. They were trying to compete with Ugg by doing it all online. Through our market research, it was very obvious that people don't buy shoes online unless they've tried them on in the store, or already know and trust the company.

I would highly recommend partnering with a college near by and take advantage of projects like this. It's an amazing opportunity for students, and free research for businesses.

Posted by: Colin K at July 30, 2008 10:49 AM

In my last year as an MBA student at Hawaii Pacific University, Honolulu-Hawaii I took a class called Integrated Marketing. One of the assignments given to us by our Lecturer was to work with a local Mom & Pop Supermarket in the Commercial District in Honolulu. It was the best experience I ever had for the simple fact as in International Student mixed with local students and working on practical marketing applications the brainstorming sessions were brilliant.

The Supermarket didn’t have to pay a penny for what we did and as for us it didn’t matter because we had the opportunity to see an actual business from the back end(operations) rather than Front End(customers perspective). We saw this as a privilege more so than a chore to get good grades.

I did stay long enough after graduation to see that the Supermarket did take our suggestions onboard. What a feeling of having business owners take us seriously and follow our suggestions. I must add the Internet as a marketing tool had just become an interesting channel for customer insights and we suggested this new parameter to bolster sales and create an Online image for the Supermarket. The implementation of that work has stood me in good stead in marketing at my current work place. There are classes and moments in University that take you places and create competitive edges for the student but this one class did it for me. I’m a star at what I do because I have been there done it and it worked.

Posted by: Bruce Yang at August 21, 2008 10:53 AM

As with the commentators above, I have my own story as a student consultant in business school. I had always thought that student and intern labor was both under and underutilized. As a Gen Yer in my organization, I see it as a huge opportunity to bring something unique to the table. How do I partner with local universities in order to get student consultants? How can I attract interns and make them useful? I know there are many bright ideas out there that can help our organization overcome the challenges we are facing, it's just a matter of reaching out to the right people.

Bruce Yang
www.20somethingsuccess.com

Posted by: dr prasad at June 23, 2009 12:56 AM

I agree with the fact that student / intern power is not harnessed.. However, using the power as consulting is one way. There are many better ways to do this. I have alternate stand for this.

Let students launch and operate their own firms as part of studies for the purpose of learning better and also engaged in earning the cost of their education out of the learning process. I feel they should avoid to work for the companies as consultant for reasons like: They are underselling their effort, 2. They get much better insight when they use their consulting ideas by themselves..

In India @ NITIE, Mumbai we make it mandatory for every student in the college to launch a company and operate it as part of their two yeat MBA program. We have seen best results in the last three years of operation..
see .. studententerprises@blogspot.com

Dr Prasad , Chief of
NITIE Center for student enterprises, Mumbai, India

Post Your Own Comments

Try a RISK-FREE Issue of Inc. Today!

Renew | Contact Us | Current Issue