Full-Time MBA students traveled to Greece to meet with their client, Symbeeosis. The company promotes health and wellness through natural nutrition, including organic herbs and honey.
A signature experience for Kelley’s Full-Time MBA students, GLOBASE (Global Business and Social Enterprise) enables student teams to work with small and medium-sized businesses to make meaningful contributions to communities in international markets. Students assist clients to overcome obstacles, expand their business, find new markets, hire employees, and develop strategic plans.
This spring, 72 MBA students, three faculty and three staff members traveled to Greece (26 students), Argentina (24), and Botswana (22) to work on business plans with 14 companies. All types of industries, ranging from a third-generation family business in Argentina that produces, imports, and sells hardware components for windows and wants to assess opportunities to drive sales growth, to a well-established organic foods manufacturer in Greece looking to expand in the US market.
Students are selectively chosen to participate in this competitive program. Once chosen, four to five students are paired with a second-year student leader to solve a business challenge. It is a true consulting engagement with the client often being a company or non-profit that cannot afford such services.
Before traveling, students develop a strategy for how to make the most of their time while in-country with their clients. Students move through a structured process to prepare and then solve a complex problem taking into consideration cross cultural differences, working virtually with their client to articulate a vision and address issues as they arise. Teams take approximately seven weeks to prepare a project plan before making their journey to meet the client in person.
Being in the country allows the students to learn even more about the business and to become fully engaged and dedicated to their client’s objective. They spend the week performing local research and learning as much as possible about their clients, other stakeholders, and local culture.
Following the time in-country, students apply what they learned to develop a portfolio of resources for their clients. Finally, the teams present their final recommendations, along with deliverables, in a virtual meeting to wrap up the program.
Seeing all the touchpoints of the business makes it real to the students. The hours are long, and the dedication is realized. These experiential courses have a lasting impact on the students, organizations, and communities. The students learn to work effectively and efficiently as a team, despite jet lag, conflicting expectations, cultural variations, and very limited time for a project of this magnitude. The teams know that their final recommendations, as well as smaller ones throughout the project, can change the trajectory for the businesses they work with, and they do all they can to ensure the change is a positive one.
Learn more here. Consider supporting GLOBASE Scholarships.
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