April 2009
Reaching Beyond the Case Study
The real world experiences gained by student consultants of the Wharton Small Business Development Center pay dividends deep into their careers
 Scott Hillyer, 2007 MBA Alumnus |
When Cheryl Uynicky came to Wharton for her MBA, the Wharton Small Business Development Center (Wharton SBDC) caught her attention right away. As a member of a family which owned a furniture business in the Philippines, she had a natural interest in small businesses. She also was curious about consulting, which was on her list of possible careers to pursue after graduation. So Uynicky decided that working as a student consultant at the Wharton SBDC was a great fit.
Her first Wharton SBDC client was Hollister Creative, an award winning marketing communications business with clients like Comcast, Exelon and Cargill. The company was facing a common growth challenge: rising costs in pursuit of increased business. Uynicky went to work running diagnostics into how to contain Hollister's expenses. But she also talked to customers to find out why they liked working with the company and what it could do better. In the end, she gave Hollister needed outside objectivity so the firm could develop a better sense of its own brand advantage.
Now a consultant at the Boston Consulting Group, Uynicky says that her experience at the Wharton SBDC confirmed that consulting was the right career path for her. "The thing with consulting is that you don't know if you'll be happy just giving advice and not implementing everything yourself. I found that I do enjoy this and I'm good at it," Uynicky says.
The Wharton SBDC provides consulting to 600 Philadelphia area entrepreneurs and small businesses each year. The consultants include dozens of Wharton undergraduate and MBA students who work under the guidance of experienced staff members. Therese Flaherty, director of Wharton's SBDC, says, "Whether they are starting a restaurant, a biotech company, or a major IT-based high growth company with VC backing, all clients come here aspiring to excellence for their business."
For the students, it is also an opportunity to apply what they learn in the classroom and to develop their leadership skills. "There is a big difference between having a case study in the classroom where all the numbers are in front of you and working with a real business where you must listen to the entrepreneur to understand their challenges, goals, and what they are willing to do," she says.
Leslie Mitts, managing practice leader at the Wharton SBDC, agrees, "There is a component of learning that happens when students share responsibility for an actual business where the stakes are real. If we are effective and successful, the students take something from here that changes their lives."
Like Uynicky, Wharton undergraduate alumnus Dan Kallman says that his consulting work at the SBDC helped launch his current career path. After teaching English in China for two years, he is now in the process of starting up Xuan Tea, a tea export business with his wife in Shenzhen.
Kallman was first introduced to consulting in a Management 100 project for urban produce stand operator, Farm to City. His student team came up with practical solutions for keeping track of previously lost orders. Kallman found it personally rewarding and later applied to work at the SBDC as an undergraduate consultant. (To learn about the Farm to City project read the GIS article, Getting Their Hands Dirty.)
"I try to keep thinking back to what I learned as a consultant," he says. "For example, we always told our clients, 'Test, test, test, test!' We talked to clients at the SBDC about doing cheap, efficient market tests that would give them information, like calling 10 people who are potential distributors of your product and see what they say or try to sell 10 of your items on eBay and see what works," he recalls.
"I'm thinking about that now as I roll out my Website. It's based on things I learned in my Wharton classes and applied at the SBDC," says Kallman.
Former student consultant Scott Hillyer, who graduated with his MBA in 2007, says that the Wharton SBDC also helped shape his career path. His consulting projects ranged from helping a residential and commercial oil buyer negotiate prices with suppliers to assisting a local printing business with a complex product line to create a brand niche.
After graduation, he joined a large consulting firm and is now looking to acquire a small business in the Philadelphia area through his company, Akeria Capital. "Good consultants can look at a problem holistically and isolate where it makes sense to make changes to add value. The Wharton SBDC definitely provided me a platform to develop that mindset and skill set."
Hillyer says that perhaps the most significant take-away from his time at the Wharton SBDC was an appreciation not only for clients' challenges but for their growth opportunities. "A larger company can be a bit like a boulder rolling down a hill; radically changing direction is extremely difficult," he says. "But if I can go in and grow an entrepreneurial business, the rewards are quite attractive."
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Posted April 2009