Picture your business as a college case study
Maybe you should take your business to college, at least to something resembling the business case study class Aurora Reinke teaches at Chicago's Kendall College (sadly, no relation).
With no cost and fresh ideas from young minds, the college experience could provide an interesting perspective on your business. And Reinke happens to be lining up businesses to participate in her January class.
Kendall was where Dennis Hack, the third generation of his family to head Standard Steel & Wire, asked for a feasibility study to help determine whether his Chicago-based specialty steel servicer should accede to the demands of a large customer that has shifted "a lot of work" from the Midwest to Mexico and open a facility near Brownsville, Texas, to provide local support.
"It was a good analysis," Hack says. "They looked at several issues and presented their conclusions as to what the cost would be if we go forward and the payback framework."
The students plunged into such issues as the cost of real estate and equipment, and what Standard Steel might gain or lose with its decision - which, interestingly, Hack has yet to make. The recession has eliminated some of his customer's urgency.
Michelle Coussens, owner of Plan B Consulting in Batavia and dean of the Kendall College School of Business, is one who believes outsiders' views can be a useful element in the small business planning process.
"We're so close to our own businesses, it can be hard to focus on planning," Coussens says. "Talk to your stakeholders. Key vendors. Key customers. Your accountant or attorney. Develop the two or three questions that matter the most and ask. Do the blue-sky stuff. People love to give their opinions."
"Get an intern. Ask a business class to work on a particular problem for your organization."
Partly because it's an option few businesses seek, the college connection is intriguing. Hack, whose daughter Bridget was in the Kendall class, benefited from having a specific issue to be researched and analyzed.
The issue was less specific for Velosis, LLC, a Chicago company that has taken a mobile point-of-sale device - basically an electronic order pad for restaurant wait staff - to the prototype level. Partner Valerie Burrelle asked the Kendall class to explore financing possibilities.
The students "did not bring a lot of new information to the table," Burrelle says. Nonetheless, the students' suggestion that Velosis, self-funded so far, should establish a credit history to be credible to potential investors has led Burrelle and her partner-brother Philippe to "readdress some avenues we had dismissed originally."
If you'd like more information about the Kendall College program, e-mail Reinke at areinke@kendall.edu. E-mail me to explore other college options.
• Questions, comments to Jim Kendall, JKendall@ 121MarketingResources.com
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