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MBA Students Begin MAP Project Work

Tuesday, March 21, 2017

BoondTeam2

As their 2017 MAP project, U-M students Florian Eizaguirre, Amelia Harris, Matilda Narulita and Chris Atkins are advising Boond, a renewable energy firm in India.

 

Tom Reidy’s previous work experience and core MBA classes this year at U-M’s Ross School of Business have focused on operating a business in the developed world. That’s one reason Reidy is excited to head to South Africa to work for the startup organization, Mbuyu, as part of the school’s annual Multidisciplinary Action Projects (MAP).

“I’m interested in learning how business strategy differs in low-income, or base of the pyramid, markets because the frameworks we learned in our core classes over the last year have focused on developed markets,” said Reidy, a first-year MBA student.  “Also, this will be my first time working with a start-up and dealing with impact investing, so I’m hoping to achieve a good understanding of how those things function.”

Mbuyu is working with South African National Parks to protect some of the world’s most critical honey bee ecosystems while developing a business to produce and sell organic honey. The MAP in South Africa is one of 11 student projects organized and sponsored by WDI. The Institute also is providing funding for two additional MAP projects.

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. Participating organizations receive top-notch deliverables and data-driven recommendations from the teams of students. (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 then spend two to four weeks working with their organizations in the field.

Carissa De Young, a second-year MBA who is a dual degree student at Ross and the School of Natural Resources, will travel to India with her MAP team to work for GE Power.

“I’m most looking forward to learning more about the challenges in rural areas and how large companies can use their expertise to provide solutions,” she said.

Below is a summary of each WDI-sponsored MAP project.

 

African Institute of Management (IAM) – Senegal

Advised By: Paul Clyde, WDI and Ross School of Business

Team Members: Paul Miyamoto, Kaitlyn Fischer, Bradley Rollins

Founded in 1996, the Institut Africain de Management Group (IAM) is one of the leading private business schools in Central and West Africa. IAM is developing a master’s degree program in supply chain. This program will address the needs in Senegal and West Africa generally, by increasing the supply chain management talent available in the region.

The goal of this project is to develop a market entry strategy for a supply chain program at IAM.  The team will learn about the program and then conduct competitive analysis and interview businesses that either are or employ potential customers in Senegal.

 

Aparajitha Foundation – India

Advised By: Paul Clyde, WDI and Ross School of Business; Bob Dittmar, Ross School of Business

Team Members: Diocelyn Batista Rijo, Rachel De Leon, Adam Fitzmaurice, Nancy McDermott

The Aparajitha Foundation is an arm of the Aparajitha Group. It is committed to the cause of creating transformational change in adolescents by using audiovisual technology to deliver life skills training to economically disadvantaged children in India’s Tamil Nadu state.

The MAP team will conduct a market analysis that will enable the creation of a financial model for an overarching ecosystem to support the micro small medium entrepreneurs (MSME) sector in Madurai, India.

 

Aravind Eye Care System – India

Advised By: Paul Clyde, WDI and Ross School of Business; Thomas Buchmueller, Ross School of Business

Team Members: Kaitie Conrad, Nikita Jambulingam, Siddhi Kaul, Ravi Patel

Aravind Eye Care System is a 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 student team will work with Aravind’s senior leadership to develop a roadmap for the eyecare system’s future growth.

 

Banyan Global – Ghana

Advised By: Ted London, WDI and Ross School of Business; Jim Walsh, Ross School of Business

Team Members: Vagisha Goel, Eric Perrin, Adi Singhal, Courtney Tatum

Banyan Global is a development consulting firm that works in five continents. It is implementing a USAID-funded project to increase access, improve efficiencies and expand quality maternal-child healthcare in rural areas. Banyan is working with private maternity home owners who may be nearing retirement on “transformation” options – selling the facility, leasing out the facility, bringing on a partner, bringing on a manager, or bringing on a specialist who will enable the facility to diversify its service offerings.

The MAP team will focus on an in-depth investigation into the the financial constraints and opportunities for private maternity homes in Ghana, with a specific focus on the projected return on specific potential investments, and the feasibility of various credit options to finance those investments.

 

Boond Engineering & Development – India

Advised By: Ted London, WDI and Ross School of Business; Jane Dutton, Ross School of Business

Team Members: Chris Atkins, Florian Eizaguirre, Amelia Harris, Matilda Narulita

Boond Engineering & Development provides clean-energy lighting solutions to 100,000 low-income individuals and small-scale enterprises in rural, northern states of India by developing solar-enabled micro grids and other solar energy products.

The students will build a strategy around data collection and analysis and finding ways to monetize it. Boond collects a lot of consumer demographic data along with energy usage data from its portfolio of micro-grids in rural communities. It wants to analyze the data and explore ways of sharing its findings to those interested for a price.

 

CARE International – Egypt

Advised By: Ted London, WDI and Ross School of Business; Jane Dutton, Ross School of Business

Team Members: Andrew Hauser, Colleen Hill, Zack Molnar, Elizabeth Padilla

Working with the Danone Ecosystem Fund, CARE International is working to improve the socio-economic conditions of dairy farmers in Egypt using a collaborative model that engages cooperatives and community development associations in the country.

The MAP students will partner with Danone and CARE International to facilitate access to quality information for dairy farmers to improve their skills and productivity, and develop the institutional capacity, including good governance practices of farmers’ organizations.

 

GE Power – India

Advised By: Ted London, WDI and Ross School of Business; Sugato Bhattacharyya, Ross School of Business

Team Members: John Barbour, Carissa De Young, Claire Fletcher, Wiles Kase, Christina Lee, Jon McCartney

GE Power provides power generation, energy delivery, and water process technologies to solve issues in local markets.

The student team will develop a go-to-market recommendation for a new set of energy products and services that are focused on providing electricity in emerging markets.

 

Imperial Health Sciences – South Africa

Advised By: Paul Clyde, WDI and Ross School of Business; Ravi Anupindi, Ross School of Business

Team Members: Jaymon Ballew, Jeremy Egan, Francesco Esposito, Emily Lombardi, Mary Rockas

IHS provides supply chain solutions to the public and private pharmaceutical markets in Africa. It has partnered with several development and global health leaders from the public and private sectors to launch Lulama, an innovative financing partnership that will strengthen independent, community pharmacies in underserved areas, and enable access to quality, life-saving medicines to those who need them most.

The MAP team will assess the Lulama community pharmacy pilot program from the perspective of all the stakeholders for its potential to be a sustainable, scalable and replicable solution, and make recommendations.

 

ITC Limited – India

Advised By: Ted London, WDI and Ross School of Business; Sugato Bhattacharyya, Ross School of Business

Team Members: Gustavo Calzavara, Rakshit Gupta, Paula Luu, Linh Nguyen

ITC is a major diversified Indian conglomerate that creates multiple drivers of growth by developing a portfolio of businesses in the consumer goods, hospitality, paper, packaging, agribusiness, and information technology sectors.

The MAP team will develop a robust and scaleable business model in the fruits and vegetables space that could lead to a sustainable business that significantly enhances value for farmers in India.

 

Mbuyu Group – South Africa

Advised By: Ted London, WDI and Ross School of Business; Jim Walsh, Ross School of Business

Team Members: Megan Knoch-Dohlin, Ari Lowell, Tom Reidy, Christine Rickard, Sara Schmidt, Neil Tidwell

Mbuyu Group is working with South African National Parks to protect some of the world’s most critical honey bee ecosystems and strengthen the bee population. The group also hopes to become one of the largest global producers of organic honey.

The student project will develop a comprehensive fundraising communications strategy and materials recommendations to raise $5 million from international funding institutions and individuals. The money raised will support the purchase of 50,000 beehives on behalf of poor communities surrounding the nation parks.

 

Vayu – Malawi

Advised By: Paul Clyde, WDI and Ross School of Business; Thomas Buchmueller, Ross School of Business

Team Members: Jason Doran, Cazzie Palacios Brown, Maggie Vasquez, Charles Walton

Vayu is a Michigan start-up developing drones to aid medical care such as flying shipments of drugs, blood and other samples to remote villages.

The students will develop a market entry strategy plan for Vayu for Malawi.

 

Global Fairness Initiative – Nepal

Advised By: Mike Gordon, Ross School of Business; Paul Clyde, WDI and Ross School of Business

Team Members: Molly Hope, Kevin Jones, Julie Smith, Allen Xu

The Global Fairness Initiative promotes a more equitable, sustainable approach to economic development for the world’s working poor by advancing fair wages, equal access to markets, and balanced public policy to generate opportunity and end the cycle of poverty.

The student team will determine a sustainable financial model for Better Brick Nepal, a market-based program that is transforming Nepal’s brick industry by eliminating forced, bonded, and child labor.

 

Vietnam Partners, LLC – Vietnam

Advised By: Stewart Thornhill, Ross School of Business; Paul Clyde, WDI and Ross School of Business

Team Members: Niall Bachynski, Maddy Bourgeois, Nick Daen, Sara Faurer, Juan Recalde, Aaron Wolff

Vietnam Partners works with companies and investors to build successful businesses that exploit opportunities arising from Vietnam’s accelerating integration into the global economy.

Vietnam Partners in collaboration with the Hanoi School of Business has been requested to set up and lead the development of a Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation (CEI) and establish a start up venture capital fund.

 

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