Welcome back from the Winter Break. Here’s an update on things for the consulting projects. We have 6 projects, 4 in Chile and 3 in Brazil.
1. Casa Lapostolle – Chile
Members (full): Noriyuki Harada, Byong Joon Kang, Chul Jung, Paulo Martin, Summer Daoud
POC: Charles-Henri de Bournet, Patricio Eguiguren, Maricarmen Lecumberri
URL: http://www.casalapostolle.com/Lapostolle/index.php
URL: http://www.casalapostolle.com/ClosApaltaWinery/home.php
Project: Possible launch of a new product, with a need to do a market study in USA.
A gigantic part of our Global Connections Trip to China is the Consulting Projects that give us a flavor of International Business. Here’s a brief introduction to the projects that we are hoping to offer this year. We hope to have 8 projects, four in Beijing and four in Shanghai. Students who do projects in Beijing will visit similar companies in Shanghai. Students who do projects in Shanghai will visit similar companies in Beijing. We’ll divide the class into teams (maximum 5 per group).
Beijing
1. Company: TianAng Software (Beijing) Co., Ltd.
URL: www.tian-ang.com
POC: John Wang (CEO)
Students: Charles Eberle, Benjamin Ryan, Steven Salazar, Jason Trykovsky
Project Description: We’re a software outsourcing service provider and we have customers in US, Canada, Germany, Spain, Denmark, Israel, Malaysia, and China. We provide software development outsourcing services to our customers in the areas such as customized applications, web applications, database applications, and PDA mobile applications. The technologies we’re specialized include Microsoft .NET, Java/J2EE/J2ME, Oracle, and PHP/MySQL/Linux. Normally our typical customers could be the companies with software outsourcing needs, such as software firms, or the IT Department of the non-IT companies. We’re interested in the recommendations which the MBA students could provide for us.
2. Company: Global Exchange Education Center
URL: www.glexchange.net
POC : Michael P. Wang, Director
Students: Foong Peng Lum, Joel Goering
Project Description: We are in contact with some investors in USA to plan to form IT Outsourcing center in China, which will serve to Financial firms in USA. We need to do general marketing and feasibility study. We need to give brief evaluation of investment environments of China and a few keys cities from IT outsourcing point view, also we need to do some comparison with India on the factors such as pool of IT graduate, education standard, costs factors, government policy, infrastructure。 We originally plan to hire some Chinese interns to do that. But if it is interesting to your people, we may have a team of UT students with some Chinese students to do.
3. Company: IMForce Marketing Solutions
URL: www.imforce.com.cn
POC: Langton Zhu
Students: Noriyuki Harada, Edyth Adedeji, Liz Eppler, Daniel Harrison
Project Description: Possible projects include 1. Foreign Investment to High-tech zone in China. Research repport on U.S. enterprises investment (criteria of investment destination selection, decision-making process, involved decision-makers). Target industry, manufacturing, precision machinery, LED, etc. 2. IT service outsourcing research. Research report on criteria of IT service vendors’ selection by U.S. enterprises, decision-making process, involved decision-makers.
Shanghai
1. Company: Yi Hao Dian
URL: http://yihaodian.com
POC: Gang Yu, Chairman
Students: Kylia Cunningham, Jennifer Wood
Project Description: China’s largest online supermarket
2. Company: OpenLanguage.com by Praxis Language Ltd.
URL: http://openlanguage.com
POC: Hank Horkoff
Students: Shannon Emerson, Margaret Cheng, Shelli Dunigan, Bill Bridges
Project Description: OpenLanguage is a mobile learning network designed to help language teachers augment their classes with the best of modern web & mobile technologies while helping students study on-the-go. OpenLanguage is designed as a SaaS model targeting both freelance teachers and private language schools earning revenue from student licenses. The core service provides a web/mobile platform, library of learning materials and administration features for schools. On the backend, OpenLanguage resells products from third-party tool developers and lesson publishers with an ambition to become the “App store for language learning”. The challenge OpenLanguage now faces is to market the service to both freelance teachers and academic institutions (public & private) in the United States.
3. Company: Chic Quality Foods
URL: www.Chicfoods.com
POC: Tom Raleigh
Students: Patrick O’Berry, Adam Staley, Jeff Harbach, Killian Lapeyre
Project Description: Chic is testing the benefits of high pressure processing (HPP) which is thought of as being more effective than thermal process, but has generally been more expensive. However, given the cost of labor in China and the good connections that Chic Quality Foods has, they would first like to conduct a quantitative study on the cost benefit of HPP. Often stores are forced to dispose of 30%-40% of their fruit because of spoilage. If HPP improves quality, extends the lives of the fruits, and can be processed at Chinese costs of labor, it may be an attractive alternative for customers. Second, given the increased quality and extended life, would a product like this add value to smoothies and juices? Both projects would consist of interviews with produce consumers (HEB, Central Market, etc.), developing the questions, issues, and scenarios to help Chic to determine the feasibility.
4. Company: Trend (仟代)
URL: TBA
POC: Jing Wang
Students: Heidi Burns, Lindsay Conant, Dorothy Eubanks, Leslie Farish, Anthony Jen
Project Description: Trend’s main products are ties, vests and other men’s accessaries. Their yearly revenue is about $15M to $20M. The company has started to try to invest real estate business and the long term goal is for banking. The company is in Shengzhou, Zhejiang. Note: maybe they will meet us in Beijing and not Shanghai.
5. Company: Starrett
URL: http://www.starrett.com
POC: Emerson Leme
Students: Paulo Martin, Robson Marchetti, Juan Carlos Vallarino
Project Description: The project that I have in mind is “How to increase sales in China for one of the saw products”, which is currently produced in Suzhou. We have a new product which uses a new material technology and I’d like to use it as a platform to boost domestic sales in this product category.
I just loved accompanying all of you to Chile and Brazil this year. Thanks so much. One of the great benefits of being a professor is to watch students experience new things. To me education is based on what the students do, not what a professor does. And in this case I had a perfect vantage point to watch students doing a lot. From company visits, interviews, and presentations to tours with hard hats, drinks in hands, and food on plates, from cheering soccer players to hugging children in the favelas. Thank you.