Stillman School MBA Capstone Gives Students Real World Consulting Experience
Fall Semester: Partnership with Reheroed
Last fall the Stillman School of Business at Seton Hall University launched a new MBA capstone course called, Integrative Experience II: Business Consulting. The course was created to provide students with an experiential learning opportunity whereby they could transform the concepts and skills learned in the classroom into real world experience.
Each semester the participating students partner with a business on a consulting project where they address the “core challenges of understanding the customer, crafting a go-to-market strategy, and driving future growth.”
The course covers a period of 10 weeks and concludes with the students giving a final presentation where they detail action items and major insights gleaned.
To learn about how the course’s first run fared and what the students are up to this spring, we sat down with Adam Warner – a marketing professor at Seton Hall, Steven Crane – consulting professor and Vice President of Clarion Research, and Brad Childs – Seton Hall Alum and consultant.
The trio informed us that the Fall ‘15 Integrative Experience II course proved to be a success for both the students and their business partner Reheroed – a startup company that re-purposes heroic items to serve new functions for the heroes risking their lives today. The company’s current line of products includes New York City Fire Department (FDNY) branded key chains, hats, and cuff-links, made from used FDNY fire hoses.
According to Childs, the students enjoyed their experience working with Reheroed’s ownership and found the opportunity to generate real impact motivating and informative. Over the course of the semester the students dealt with problems inherent to startups, such as: lack of resources and bookkeeping, and increasing brand awareness. A particular problem that the student’s faced was coping with a lack of data, historical or otherwise, in which to help them in devising their solutions. But, Childs explained, after acclimating to the start-up environment the students found the freedom available to take initiative and implement ideas exciting.
Said Childs:
“Students consulted the client on three primary items: defining the target consumer, crafting a go-to-market strategy, and driving future growth. Some of the insights and recommendations provided by the students included increasing presence at events, aligning with charitable causes, creating a robust e-commerce platform, and raising additional capital.”
Spring Semester: Partnership with Lagniappe Seafood
This spring the Seton Hall capstone MBAs will be moving away from the world of startups and working with Lagniappe Seafood– a mature business that has existed since 1985. The students will face a different array of challenges than the previous semester, such as: improving brand awareness while staying true to company culture and affecting change in an infrastructure that is less flexible than a startup environment.
Building upon the success of the previous semester, Childs and Crane detailed some improvements made to the course. For instance, an increase of milestone markers have been implemented to assist with time management. Also, the students will be creating a Statement of Work (SOW), which is a document that defines the consultant-partner arrangement, deliverables, and timelines.
It will be interesting to see what insights the students have to share at the end of the semester.
Market Research Center
In addition to the Integrative Experience II: Business Consulting capstone, the Market Research Center at Seton Hall offers further opportunities for experiential learning. Below is the center’s mission statement, taken from their website:
“The mission of the Market Research Center at Seton Hall University is to provide high quality market research services for both the University and business communities. Students, faculty, and business owners partner together to address business challenges via market research while uncovering customer insights and developing actionable recommendations.”
Warner informed us that the Market Research Center currently partners with 14 external partners.
Given all of the opportunities for hands-on learning and real world experience at Seton Hall, it will be exciting to see the innovation and knowledge that the upcoming graduates bring to the business world.
