International Consulting Projects

The application of business concepts is a primary tenet of USD's graduate business curricula. The international business practicum experiences have been designed to provide students with the opportunity to apply business concepts to real-world, business situations abroad. These experiences will assure that students are prepared to manage effectively the challenges of working in a global business environment.

The international business practicum is a field-based, short-term consulting project for a corporation in another country to address a current and significant problem identified by that organization. In some cases project teams consist of University of San Diego students working with graduate business students from a university in another country. These projects are typically organized in January (between the regular semesters) and locations vary each year. In January 2009, we will have projects in Rio de Janairo (in cooperation with COPPEAD Graduate School of Business), Beijing and Bangalore.

Selected Summaries of 2008 Projects:

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK); GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) is a leading healthcare company, which produces prescription medicines and vaccines. They also offer consumer healthcare products, such as dental health products, over-the-counter medicines and nutritional drinks. GSK approach the USD consulting group concerning a lack of appropriate means for control over their Batch not right first time (BNRFT) index indicators. BNFRT is an index for which GSK is able to determine the success or efficiency in their production line. Though the index gives very important information to GSK, the process of obtaining this information is quite slow, taking up to three months. GSK believed that the use of visual tools could fix the problems. However, after extensive review, analysis and discussions were made by USD team, they determined that the root of the challenge was not on technical issues but on the corporate culture. Consequently, the team focused their recommendations on structural and cultural organization change. As appropriately noted by the team, if corporate culture issues are not solved, no systems or tools, regardless of how sophisticated or technically able they are, would be successful.

RM Asia ; Bangkok, Thailand: RM Asia Group (RMA), a holding company of multinational trading firms, has recently constituted a Heavy Equipment Division with the aim marketing JCB products in a wide spectrum of countries in Asia and Africa. The USD Consultants were asked to survey the market potential—identify likely customers and assess the existing competition from Caterpillar, Deere and Hitachi—and propose entry strategies for the African countries that the group found to be the most attractive. The Consultants identified six such countries in the West African Coastal Belt and the Horn of Africa, and provided an in-depth analysis of entry-modes that will serve as RMA’s blueprint for expansion.

 

Walmart Argentina ; Buenos Aires, Argentina: Walmart is the largest retailer in the world and continues its expansion internationally. Walmart Argentina occupies the fourth-fifth market share position in this country and invited USD graduate students to investigate, identify and design: (a) expansion operations outside of the city of Buenos Aires (project 1), and; (b) strategies to consolidate its organizational culture and reputation as one of the best places to work in this country (project 2). USD Students were commended on how they related both project to the strategic growth business plans and the innovative ideas at product, process and business model level.

Selected Examples of Previous International Consulting Projects:

Organization: Children's Malaria Hospital (Mbarara)
Industry: Health Care
Project: Propose enterprises that could generate profits to cover the hospital’s operating expenses, while also enaging the community

Company: Arcor (Buenos Aires)
Industry: Food services
Project: Develop entry strategies for two product lines for entry into the US market

Company: Telfónica del Perú S.A. (Lima)
Industry: Utilities
Project: Logistical support for the "phone stores" to improve customer services

Company: Panificadora Bimbo del Perú S.A. (Lima)
Industry: Food services
Project: Develop a commercial plan to identify new target markets to increase market share

Company: Petrobras Distribuidora (Rio de Janeiro)
Industry: Oil and Gas
Project: To design a preliminary plan for improving both the staffing of the call center and the service provided to customers

Company: Cybercellar (Pty.) Ltd (Cape Town)
Industry: Beverages (wine)
Project: Investigate alternatives for international funding and to recommend strategies for next round of financing

Company: Shell Brazil (Rio de Janeiro)
Industry: Oil and Gas
Project: Devised a plan for the creation of "virtual expertise centers in Brazil" to identify areas of expertise available in the Intranet and areas of interest for dissemination within the Shell Brazil Group

Company: RenalRio (Rio de Janeiro)
Industry: Medical Equipment
Project: Determine market potential and ways to reach customers for the new product

Company: Century City Property Developments (Cape Town)
Industry: Real Estate
Project: Determine complimentary property usages that should be planned