Despite some cooling of electric vehicle sales in the U.S. market, emerging markets around the world are creating their own hot spots on the electrification journey. Whether it’s new educational initiatives to prepare future EV business leaders and automotive workers to new policies and investments designed to create new EV innovation and manufacturing hubs, there’s a lot to learn from a new generation of leaders and innovators across geographies. The William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan (WDI) invites you to a learning webinar featuring EV leaders in Costa Rica, Mexico and the Philippines. Each with a different market perspective, this public WDI discussion will reveal how emerging actors and new collaborations are energizing the EV value chain.
Octavio Jimenez
Founder and Current Executive Director of the CEA Institute and Motoschool in Costa Rica since 1999. Graduate in Educational Administration and Master’s in Business Administration in Costa Rica.
Cynthia López
Executive Director of Desarrollo Económico de Ciudad Juárez, a non-profit organization formed by the leaders of the top-performing companies in the region, aiming to enhance the quality of life for its residents and boost the economy of the Juárez-El Paso region. Cynthia is also a leader in the sustainable urban mobility movement in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico.
Audie Vergara
Executive Director of Apl.de.Ap Foundation International (APLFI), leading efforts to strengthen middle-class communities in the Philippines through workforce development and education aimed at advancing skills in electronics, semiconductors, artificial intelligence, and electric vehicles.
Diana E. Páez
Senior Director, Energy & Mobility at WDI, helping energy and mobility businesses and stakeholders in low and middle-income countries take advantage of business opportunities and adapt to changes brought about by the energy transition. To do so, she leverages more than a decade of global development experience working with partners across government, private sector, academia, and civil society.
T.I.P. is a technological institute that provides education and has a unit that engages with the private sector in developing new technologies. WDI is collaborating with T.I.P. to develop a strategic roadmap for commercializing technologies produced through funded research and special projects. The commercialization plan will guide researchers in their initiatives along technology transfer. A team of MBA students performed a market analysis of two technologies and began an overview of the commercialization process within T.I.P. A second team did a deep dive into programs and courses, then developed recommendations for how to improve the commercialization process.
WDI conducted market research for a company that designs and manufactures unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) to transport small goods. Use of UAVs to transport items in low- and middle-income countries is low but they show significant potential for making healthcare commodities available in settings with poor infrastructure challenges. The purpose of WDI’s market research was to identify opportunities for this company’s expansion into both healthcare and non-healthcare sectors in Kenya, the Philippines, Zambia and non-healthcare sectors in Senegal. Data had been collected from decision-makers in public and private organizations in each country covering several topics such as product use cases, current transport activities and factors influencing the purchase or lease decision. Data was then analyzed and summarized into a go-to-market strategy for this UAV company in these four countries. This project was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
By Dan DeValve
The decision by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in emerging economies to enter an international market is a key step in their maturation. For some SMEs, the move is necessary for survival in a competitive local economy, while for others it’s a logical next step for a successful and growing organization.
Kim Ian’s Dairy Delights is an excellent example of how a locally successful business in an emerging economy, in this case, the Philippines, approaches the decision to transition to the regional or international market. In 2015, I traveled to the Philippines and visited the town of Los Baños, home to many agribusinesses and located near the capital city of Manila. One of the town’s successful small businesses, Kim Ian’s Dairy Delights, had rapidly grown its production of goat milk-based cream cheese. It now faced a decision between scaling up the business to reach supermarket chains in Manila, or remaining in the much smaller niche market in Los Baños. The business owner recognized that expansion of the business would require reallocation of resources to pay for marketing and logistics, significant financial investment and risk, and a strategy for healthy growth of the company. Despite the risks, ultimately the namesake owner decided that their success hinged on a transition to the larger Manila market.
“Foreign market entry is considered as a key strategy to grow and survive over longer periods of time for SMEs,” according to a recent study on Bangladeshi SMEs in the International Marketing Review. In emerging economies with vibrant entrepreneurship sectors, such as the Philippines, the decisions made by these business leaders are instructive and can be illuminating for SMEs in other emerging economies.
While entering the export market has clear benefits, it is a major risk for a small business and can easily result in failure. As key factors of success, a recent study in the Journal of World Business stressed the importance of international business experience on the part of the SME owner, the strength of the home country’s institutional support for SMEs, and whether the SME is using the proper business model. If they have the advantage of institutional support, such as the local government or a business incubator, business owners can also utilize a “learning-by-exporting” model to make the transition, as highlighted in a previous NextBillion post.
A selection of three recent case studies published by WDI Publishing, part of the William Davidson Institute, highlights several issues commonly faced by Philippine SME owners as they consider a move to the international market. These three cases, which are available for free, were among a total of 94 published as part of a four-year project focused on training university faculty in the Philippines on how to teach and write business case studies. WDI implemented the project, in partnership with RTI International and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
A business case study is a documented analysis of a real-life business scenario, typically one in which the protagonist must make a crucial decision affecting the success of the business. As a teaching tool, cases provide students with “real-life” experience in decision-making and strategic thinking. As Philippine faculty engaged with a local business and identified a dilemma to feature in their cases, we noticed many focused on whether or not SMEs in the Philippines should enter international markets.
A common theme runs across these three cases. Each business is established in the domestic market with varying degrees of success, and each owner recognizes the advantages to be gained in exporting. Despite the potential benefits, the business owners must also consider the risks, especially adjusting an existing business model and scaling up production capacity to meet the demands of a new market.
Because the case studies were published in 2016 and 2017, WDI was able to review the various decisions ultimately made by these business owners and the ensuing results:
As this view inside three organizations showcases, SME owners can find it difficult to make the transition from domestic to international markets due to a lack of business experience. However, as illustrated in the cases of IPMC and REFMAD, government support for SMEs during this process is crucial. It can include assistance, such as the coordinating of trade fairs to help business owners make new connections, entrepreneurship training programs to provide business owners with the tools needed to scale a business, or even simple promotion of the business to potential customers.
As in the case of GFCP, if the business expertise, proper business model and ability to scale up production are absent, and the business has little to no external support, the idea of entering the international market remains only a dream.
Note: This article was written by Daniel DeValve, a senior project manager for grants management at WDI. The article originally appeared on NextBillion, which is managed by WDI.
Photo by I Travel Philippines via Flickr
From a 2017 WDI-sponsored MAP team.
WDI’s partnership with Aravind Eye Care System dates back to 1999. Over the years, the organization has utilized a combination of student MBA teams and other engagements with the Institute to explore new ideas for growing strategically and improving operations at its hospitals and clinics, which offer world-class eye care at affordable prices.
Just a few of those completed projects include determining the appropriate governance structures for Aravind, consulting on expanding geographically and growing eye care services, implementing improved operational processes, delivering HR capabilities and leadership training for physicians, and improving the culture and patient experiences. Each of those projects were sponsored by WDI as part of the Ross School of Business’s annual Multidisciplinary Action Projects (MAP).
In 2016, a student team customized and tested an existing process model at select Aravind facilities that measured performance of each unit in terms that everyone in the organization could understand. Last year, the Aravind MAP team worked with senior leadership to develop a roadmap for the eyecare system’s future growth.
MAP is an action-based learning course offered at Ross in which MBA students receive guidance from faculty advisors. Each project requires analytical rigor, critical thinking, and teamwork. (Find out more about WDI’s MAP projects over the years here.)
After learning about their projects and conducting secondary research for several weeks, the students spend two to four weeks working with their organizations in the field.
In March, a MAP team (one of nine sponsored by WDI) will travel to Chennai, India to work at Aravind’s largest facility, which opened in September 2017 and offers the usual suite of services to patients, including specialty eye surgeries. As the new facility nears its six-month anniversary, administrators are studying patient care and looking for areas of improvement.
The students, as part of their overall work to enhance the patient experience, will work with Aravind leadership to develop recommendations on how to transition some of the work performed by eye specialists to general ophthalmologists, who are currently underutilized. Before heading to Chennai on March 17, the team will meet with faculty at the University of Michigan’s Kellogg Eye Center to hear how they manage similar issues.
Members of the MAP team said they are eager to observe the Aravind business model, which student Gerard Heath called “a leader around the world in developing solutions to provide high quality care in low-resource environments.” They all think the experience and work at Aravind will help them in the classroom as they finish up their studies, and may help inform their future career paths.
Kelsey Wyatt-Mair said she is interested in operations and “learning from this hands-on experience will equip me for later in my career, whether it’s in or out of healthcare.”
And Katie Zurales is “excited to see a different healthcare system” and how high quality, cost-effective healthcare “translates to different cultures.”
Of the four team members, which also includes Daniel Semaan, only Wyatt-Mair has some international work experience.
“It will be interesting for all of us – how to navigate that culture,” Wyatt-Mair said. “We’ll get exposed to the similarities and differences of Aravind with, say, Kellogg Eye Center.”
In between the work, the group plans to explore some local temples and beaches and perhaps travel to other cities. They said they were excited to discover Chennai was listed as one of the world’s best “food cities.”
WDI Initiatives often recruit partner organizations to work with MAP teams. The Aravind project is aligned with the Institute’s Healthcare Initiative. Similarly, WDI’s Education Initiative is working with the MAP team assigned to the Technological Institute of the Philippines (TIP) project. The students will create a strategic plan for a newer TIP initiative to improve the engineering and technology skills of students.
Amy Gillett, vice president of WDI’s Education Initiative, said MAP teams are one of the ways the initiative can improve the delivery of management education in emerging markets.
“The MAP teams bring new perspectives to universities in emerging markets,” she said. “They help university leadership think in different ways about how to expand into promising new areas or how to think strategically about growing an existing department or initiative. We’re so pleased to have this opportunity to unite MBA students – with their passion for social impact and their strategic thinking – with our university partners who welcome fresh insights.”
Like many of the Institute’s MAP partners, TIP has collaborated with WDI in the past. TIP was one of three university partners that worked with WDI on the STRIDE project.
“We’re so pleased to continue our successful partnership with TIP,” Gillett said. “During a recent trip to Manila, I had the opportunity to meet with TIP’s leadership. I was really impressed by their commitment to providing access to a college education for underserved communities as well as by their drive to continuously improve their operations and the services they offer to students.”
Here is a summary of each WDI-sponsored MAP project:
Aparajitha Foundations – India
Advisors: Paul Clyde, WDI and Ross School of Business; Stewart Thornhill, Zell Lurie Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies and Ross School of Business
MAP Team: Amirah Patterson, Riki Smolen, Robert Mack, Nathan Stevens
Aparajitha Foundations is a charitable trust that supports the less privileged, mainly in the areas of education and health.
The team will co-create alongside the founding team of the Michigan Academy for the Development of Entrepreneurs (MADE) as they test, validate, and iterate on MADE’s business model and product prototype for supporting entrepreneurs and Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Madurai, India. MADE is a nonprofit institute established at the Ross School of Business by the Zell Lurie Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies, in partnership with WDI and Aparajitha Foundations, that works with entrepreneurship development organizations in developing countries to give individuals operating businesses in these environments the knowledge and best practices they need to thrive.
Aravind Eye Care System – India
Advisors: Paul Clyde, WDI and Ross School of Business; Jim Walsh, Ross School of Business
MAP Team: Gerard Heath, Katie Zurales, Daniel Semaan, Kelsey Wyatt-Mair
Aravind Eye Care System is a vast network of hospitals, clinics, community outreach efforts, factories, and research and training institutes in south India that has treated more than 32 million patients and has performed 4 million surgeries since its 1976 founding.
The MAP team will develop a framework for integrated patient care service delivery.
CURE International – Ethiopia
Advisors: Paul Clyde, WDI and Ross School of Business
MAP Team: Simon Kaufmann, Keegan McQuillan, Alan Wisniewski, Brandon Yelen
CURE operates clubfoot clinics in 17 countries around the world, each tasked with helping children and families deal with the congenital deformity that twists the foot, making it difficult or impossible to walk. In Ethiopia, CURE manages 37 clinics.
The MAP team will work to improve quality and increase scale of leg brace production in Ethiopia.
Ghana Emergency Medicine Collaborative – Ghana
Advisors: David Butz, WDI and Ross School of Business; Jim Walsh, Ross School of Business
MAP Team: Alexander Ukoh, Liam Kraft, Kartik Raju, Shreyance Mandaliya
The Ghana Emergency Medicine Collaborative aims to improve emergency medical care in Ghana through innovative and sustainable training programs for physician, nursing and medical students. The goal of the training programs is to increase the number of qualified emergency health care workers retained over time in areas where they are most needed.
The student team will investigate the feasibility of incorporating mobile payments into the emergency department workflow, including an analysis of how that will impact both the finances and operations of the department.
Imperial Logistics – South Africa
Advisors: David Butz, WDI and Ross School of Business; Ravi Anupindi, Ross School of Business
MAP Team: Justin Loescher, Jasmine Knowles, Courtney Alexander, Javier Castillo
Imperial Logistics provides logistics and supply-chain management across the African continent, and is a leading distributor of medicines and healthcare products.
The MAP team will establish an African Pharmaceutical Wholesaler Association (APWA).
Outbound Initiative – Brazil
Advisors: Paul Clyde, WDI and Ross School of Business; Stewart Thornhill, Zell Lurie Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies and Ross School of Business
MAP Team: Tsering Sherpa, Daniel Vergara Ramirez, Dale Jarosz, Varun Haralalka, Agustin Sosa, Mike Porcelli
Outbound Brasil uses the latest technology to identify global opportunities and resources for the growth of innovative and high impact business in that country, such as new and better markets, customers, partnerships, investments and awards.
The team will conduct a situation analysis on the Brazilian tech investment scenario and make recommendations for which innovations could make smart money more accessible to local startups.
REFRESCH – Gabon
Advisors: Paul Clyde, WDI and Ross School of Business; Bob Dittmar, Ross School of Business
MAP Team: Alena Golovchenko, Felipe Prieto Nunez, Sean Welsh, Allie Murphy
REFRESCH (Researching Fresh Solutions to the Energy/Water/Food Challenge in Resource Constrained Environments), is a consortium of educators and researchers working to improve the lives of those living in resource-constrained communities. Its goal is to find solutions to challenges in the areas of food, water and energy. It is funded by the University of Michigan Third Century Initiative and is headquartered at the University of Michigan Energy Institute.
The student team will identify a set of commercially viable business model archetypes or templates to increase access to renewable energy products and services in Gabon. They also will develop a recommendation on the most likely template to be profitable. A secondary goal is to understand the entrepreneurial skills and capabilities required to launch and operate such enterprises.
Technological Institute of the Philippines (TIP) – Philippines
Advisor: Paul Clyde, WDI and Ross School of Business
MAP Team: Joseph Grandominico, James Schoen, Alexa Thomas, Charlton Washington.
The Technological Institute of the Philippines (T.I.P.) is a leading private tertiary education institution that specializes in engineering and technology courses, and has an enrollment of 25,000 students on campuses in Manila and Quezon City. In 2016, the school launched T.I.P. TechnoCoRe, which aims to develop engineering and technology students’ skills in problem-business opportunity formulation, ideation, validation and execution – the core skills of technopreneurship.
The student team will create a strategic plan for T.I.P. TechnoCoRe.
Vayu Inc – Senegal
Advisor: Paul Clyde, WDI and Ross School of Business
MAP Team: Alexander Franczyk, Brandon Pickett, Adam Ronk, Adam Woodruff.
Vayu has developed an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that can be used to deliver needed medical supplies and products to remote areas. The UAV launches and lands like a helicopter and flies like an airplane once off the ground. It can fly 100 kilometers and hold just over two kilograms of payload.
The team will conduct market analysis and develop an entry strategy for introducing delivery UAVs into Senegal’s market.
In collaboration with key partners, WDI last month organized a conference in the Philippines that brought together university career service professionals and industry partners to share experiences, progress and best practices for moving graduates from the classroom to the workplace.
The two-day conference in Manila attracted more than 50 people from around the island nation and was part of the Science, Technology, Research and Innovation for Development (STRIDE) program funded by USAID and implementing partner RTI International. For the last three years, WDI has provided technical support for three Philippine university career centers as they work to strengthen relationships with business and industry. The March conference was a forum for career center directors and staff from those three partner universities and others to present what they’ve learned to their peers from across the country.
Filipinos in both academia and in private enterprise recognize the gap that exists between the skills employers expect from recent graduates and the skills universities are providing. Career centers can bridge that gap by equipping students with critical thinking, teamwork, and communications skills – qualities employers seek.
“Forging a stronger connection between industry and academe in the Philippines will result in higher employment, more productivity, and a more globally competitive workforce,” said Amy Gillett, vice president of WDI’s Education Initiative, who helped manage the conference. “This event showed there is significant interest in forming a Filipino network linking colleges and employers. Participants understood they can start it in small ways, through simple steps like meeting over coffee to flesh out more details or starting a Facebook group.”
The conference included four best practice sharing sessions, including three from universities supported by WDI and its consultants. WDI collaborated with the University of Santo Tomas (UST), the Technological Institute of the Philippines (TIP), and the University of Iloilo (UI) by matching the institutions with career center experts based in the United States. WDI and its partners worked to address the priorities identified by each career center. Activities included virtual and in-person support as well as other learning activities over the course of the three-year engagement.
Leaders from the universities presented how they have made significant progress to meet their goals over the past three years and have begun to share lessons learned with other universities as well. In their presentation, representatives from TIP focused on three key areas: providing employment readiness, which involves both preparing students and incorporating feedback from businesses; involving the greater campus community in supporting the career services center; and, focusing on students’ long-term career success.
“Students must be prepared inside and outside the classroom,” said TIP President Elizabeth Quirino-Lahoz. “We need to eliminate the gap between industry expectations and the kind of students schools produce.”
Frank Alejandrino, director of Career Services Director at TIP, mentioned that to-date, 30 universities throughout the Philippines have visited the TIP career center to learn from their practices. “Our doors are open,” he said.
Lucila Bance, head of Career Services at UST, presented the school’s new program: GUTS – Gear Up Tools for Success – a series of career workshops with themes targeting career readiness. Bance also highlighted the fact that the UST modules are delivered to students by partner companies who provide career-related seminars on a variety of subjects including networking and professionalism.
Following a recommendation by WDI consultants, representatives from UI said they have started inviting industry experts to teach for a semester and have seen strong results.
Several participants inquired about building a new professional association in the Philippines. WDI Consultant Andrew Ceperley introduced the idea of a network that would link academia and industry, similar to the U.S.-based National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE). Participants discussed how such a network might take shape in the Philippines and the industry representatives at the forum contributed to the discussion by highlighting what services and competencies they value in a career center.
Farouk Dey, WDI consultant and head of Career Services at Stanford University, led a session that explored several trends for career services. Today’s career services field is all about “connections and community,” he said. Dey suggested career services professionals engage alumni as well as employers, and to get out of the office to better engage with students around the campus community.
Several participants came away inspired and ready to take action at their universities.
“We don’t have funds, but having these ideas will allow me to make small steps. I’m feeling pumped up and ready to make recommendations to my management,” said Horacio Gutierrez, Philippine Women’s University.
El Anelio Barnachea, of De La Salle – College of St. Benilde, added: “This conference was an opportunity for me to understand the industry and academic linkages. Students have problems in terms of career decisions. Now I have a wider perspective on how to match students’ needs with industry demands. It was also important that industry was at this conference so we could hear what kind of competencies they need.”
Please click here to learn more about WDI’s work through the STRIDE program.
Cultural factors can influence just about every aspect of an entrepreneur’s journey: from how they seek funding, to how they deal with setbacks, to how aggressively they grow. We compared our countries, the USA and the Philippines, to explore how cultural background influences entrepreneurs.
WDI is debuting the first of an ongoing series detailing the long-term impact the work the Institute is having in a certain sector or a particular geography.
The first WDI Impact Report, “Improving Business Education in the Philippines,” examines the Institute’s contributions to the five-year STRIDE project that is focused on strengthening the science, technology, research and innovation capacity on the island nation.
In 2013 the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) launched the Science, Technology, Research and Innovation for Development (STRIDE) program in the Philippines through its implementing partner RTI International. As part of the STRIDE project, WDI was asked to provide academic support for faculty from dozens of Philippine universities. WDI designed and delivered four workshops to teach over 130 professors how to write and teach business case studies while also helping faculty increase engagement with local industries and companies.
WDI assisted the professors as they developed and wrote their case studies. WDI then published the business cases on its WDI Publishing site. There are more than 90 case studies that are part of the WDI Philippines Case Collection.
“Case studies give a wider and deeper perspective into the featured organizations,” said Manuel Manuel III of the University of the Philippines Diliman, who attended the first case writing workshop. “In my case, it has given me an appreciation of the challenges the company is facing and/or has faced and what it is doing moving forward.”
WDI President Paul Clyde said the STRIDE program serves as an excellent model for integrating the work of academics with the private sector – making it a strong project to showcase as the Institute’s first Impact Report.
This WDI Impact Report, entitled “Improving Business Education in the Philippines,” examines the Institute’s contributions to the five-year STRIDE project which was focused on strengthening the science, technology, research and innovation capacity on the island nation. In 2013 the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) launched the Science, Technology, Research and Innovation for Development (STRIDE) program in the Philippines through its implementing partner RTI International. As part of the STRIDE project, WDI was asked to provide academic support for faculty from dozens of Philippine universities. WDI designed and delivered four workshops to teach over 130 professors how to write and teach business case studies while also helping faculty increase engagement with local industries and companies.
Despite positive trends, entrepreneurship in the Philippines faces challenges – especially within entrepreneurship education. To respond, WDI has successfully employed the case method to address gaps and set up Filipino entrepreneurs to succeed in their local context. This article demonstrates how by showcasing several Philippine cases published by WDI Case Publishing as part of the USAID/Philippines STRIDE project.
