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MBA students inject energy into exporting to Canada
by chocieniSmall businesses eager to
export to Canada can get bogged down by the daily grind of running their
operations, and the desire to expand into cross-border sales fizzles.
The
remedy: a bunch of motivated MBA students.
Companies
interested in cross-border sales have been paired with MBA students at the
University at Buffalo who have done extensive research on their behalf.
The
businesses have come away with plans for exporting that they can follow through
on. The students have earned real-world experience, some money and academic
credits.
"At the
end of this program, I really wanted the companies to be able to be exporting
or at least know what they had to go through to get there," said Maryann K.
Stein, director of international programs at the Erie County Industrial
Development Agency, which teamed with UB on the program. The semester-long
project called "Exports to Canada" was well received, and another edition is
planned for this summer.
Stein
borrowed the idea from a longtime Canadian Consulate program that works in
reverse, introducing Canadian companies to exporting to the United States.
Seven Buffalo-area companies signed up, and UB joined in, providing six MBA
students to work with the companies. Another two MBA students helped Stein run
the program at the ECIDA, and National Grid provided a matching grant that
supported the effort.
The
objective was to determine whether exporting to Canada was a good and realistic
idea for the companies, and, if so, how to tap into the market. If companies
were already exporting to Canada, the goal was to find a way to ramp up those
sales.
Stein
limited the program to no more than 10 companies, to ensure hands-on attention.
And the program kicked off with a two-day business trip to Southern Ontario, to
get the companies into a cross-border mind-set. "You can't work in a closed-box
environment and expect to kind of conquer the world," she said.
The
interns had to get familiar with the businesses they were matched with. (The
students were paid by the companies for their part-time hours, in addition to
receiving academic credits).
"They did a lot of research that was available in Canada, who their competitors were in Canada and who their customers should be in Canada," Stein said. It was the type of in-depth, focused analysis of Canada that the companies did not have the time or resources to devote to on their own, she said.
A 'gold mine'
Michael
Kibler, chairman of printing company Buffalo Newspress, said his intern's work
helped him identify customers to pursue in Canada, primarily in Ontario.
"In the
back of my mind, I felt it would be good for Buffalo Newspress to do business
just across the border," he said, citing Toronto's status as one of the largest
cities in North America.
Kibler
expects the Toronto market will generate 20 to 25 percent of the company's
total gross sales for 2013. "It's sort of a gold mine."
Robert J.
Vezina, president of Life Safety, a commercial fire and security services
company, said he had been considering expanding his company's reach in Canada
when the new program came along. Life Safety supplies fire and security systems
to a variety of customers, including big-box retailers like Target and Home
Depot.
The
company's intern delved into financial projections and explored whether
exporting was feasible. Vezina decided his best move would be to establish a
Life Safety presence in Canada, something he is now working on. The Exports to
Canada program gave momentum to the idea, he said.
The MBA
students were eager to make an impact at their companies, Stein said. "They've
got everything they learned in school that they're ready to put in practice."
UB
created a class around Exports to Canada and chose business veteran John Dunbar
as faculty adviser. Dunbar, an adjunct instructor at the School of Management,
was formerly a partner at Strategic Holdings and Investments, a private equity
firm. He had dealt with just the types of companies the students were assigned
to.
The first
task Dunbar gave his students was to conduct a competitive analysis of the
companies as they currently existed. "What is your competitive advantage here?"
he asked them to explore. "Who do you compete with?" If the companies were not
in strong shape domestically, exporting might not be a wise move, he said.
Dunbar
urged the companies to share financial data with the MBA students, to provide
them with a complete picture of the business. He and the students agreed to
sign confidentiality agreements to ease any concerns.
The
students met weekly for their class with Dunbar to share experiences, being
careful not to share proprietary information. "I think they all learned by
hearing what the other students were going through," either in the work setting
or in resources they found for information, he said.
The
participating businesses praised the interns for their persistence in gathering
data and asking questions of employees. One of the companies told Stein its
intern was "relentless. He wouldn't leave them alone. At the end, they were so
grateful he did it."
Exports
to Canada paid dividends far beyond its stated purpose, Dunbar said. "It was an
opportunity for the companies to experience the talent in the UB MBA program
that they ordinarily wouldn't."
The
program also exposed the students to opportunities in small- to medium-sized
businesses they may not have thought about, and allowed them to interact with
multiple departments within one company, an experience a Fortune 500
company-type job probably would not provide them, he said.
Dunbar said the companies took the MBA students' work seriously. At the end of the program, the interns had to deliver presentations to the employers they worked with. "Some of the presentations were in front of seven or eight people," he said.
Giving real value
The
presentation by ValueCentric's intern, Ruth Huoh, has morphed into a sales
presentation the company can use to pursue Canadian customers, said Scott C.
Terhaar, chief financial officer of ValueCentric. The Orchard Park-based
technology and information services company works with customers in the health
care industry.
Huoh did
an immense amount of research to help ValueCentric understand the Canadian
pharmaceutical market, Terhaar said. "We didn't know who the players were, what
the market was."
Supported
by Huoh's groundwork, the company is working on signing deals with distributors
in Canada and has connected with pharmaceutical associations that have proved
helpful, Terhaar said.
Huoh said
she enjoyed the experience. Terhaar gave her lots of autonomy to conduct her
research, and she demonstrated how the company's flagship product, ValueTrak,
could succeed in Canada. "I was able to find out information that directly
impacted the way that ValueCentric entered the market, and really prove that
ValueTrak did fit the needs of the pharmaceutical companies up North," she
said.
Huoh
continues to work with ValueCentric on some other initiatives, even after the
Exports to Canada program concluded.
The
program was an ideal outlet for MBA students who were interested in
international business and learning classroom concepts, and wanted to take
those ideas into the workplace, said Carrie Gardner, director of the School of
Management's Credit-Bearing Internship Program. "The students just became
integral parts of their team."
"The
employers were kind of kept on their toes by the MBA students and it worked out
very, very well," Gardner said.