Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/58915
One example is a student team that traveled to Dalian, China, to meet with the managers of HiSoft, one of the most successful information technology providers in China. Its managers wanted to enter new markets, particularly the U.S. However, their attempts to attract U.S. customers had been so far unsuccessful. Through research and interviews, the students found that saving money was not enough of an incentive for U.S. com- panies to outsource their IT to a Chinese supplier. Instead, U.S. companies also wanted to extend their capabilities and expand their business knowledge. Our students recommend- ed that HiSoft take time to develop more sophisticated ser- vices, gain further traction in their existing markets, and win smaller U.S. accounts before pursuing larger opportunities. HiSoft made the perfect client for our global student consultants. It was located in a challenging business environ- ment, had a history of success, and presented a compelling problem for our students to solve. New Experiences, New Possibilities I've found that the Global E-Lab experience can change the career paths of participants. For example, Liesbet Peeters, a 2005 graduate from Sloan's MBA program, worked with companies in the Ivory Coast, Peru, and India as a Global E-Lab participant. That experience led her to a job with the World Bank Group. She spent the summer after her gradu- ation traveling throughout West Africa for the International Finance Corp., a subsidiary of the World Bank, teaching entrepreneurship skills to young adults and helping young artisans improve and market their products. Stephen Hazelton, another 2005 graduate, worked with a venture capital firm in Vietnam during his consultancy. Today, Hazelton is creating a securities industry business in Hanoi, Vietnam, that will provide the basic trading and institutional support that we take for granted in Western countries. As Peeters' and Hazelton's experiences illustrate, global student consultancies not only provide valuable services that many companies could not otherwise afford, but also open students' eyes to a world of opportunities. Students may enter our program planning to pursue careers in the Fortune 500 companies or on Wall Street; but at graduation, many decide to take a pass on Wall Street to seek out the career options that emerging economies have to offer. Richard Locke is the Alvin J. Siteman Professor of Entrepreneurship and Political Science and a founder of the Global E-Lab at MIT's Sloan School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. For information on the Global E-Lab, visit entrepreneurship.mit.edu/glab/. The Tuck Global Consultancy: Reaping the Rewards by John Owens During the ten years that we have operated the Tuck Global Consultancy, MBA teams have completed 104 assignments for more than 70 clients in 51 countries. In that time, the Tuck Global Consultancy has become our most popular sec- ond-year elective. Unfortunately, our main difficulty is that we cannot satisfy demand—for every six students we enroll in the course, we need one cash-paying client. As a result, half of our MBA class wants to participate in the program, but we can only enroll about a third. For those who are selected, however, the experience is life-changing. At graduation, most participants tell us that the global consultancy project was the most important experience they had at the Tuck School. It's a highly visible program with very tangible results. How the TGC Works Clients hire our students as they would hire any corporate consultant. Each company pays a $23,500 administrative fee, which only partially covers the cost of the program, as well The interdisciplinary TGC team that worked on the MUCHS pharmaceutical project in Tanzania included, from left to right, Lorelei Wall and Allison Sekikawa, Tuck MBAs; Sarah Schuster, a student from Dartmouth's Center for the Evaluative Clinical Sciences; Greg Butz and Kelly Tschantz, Tuck MBAs; Doug Madory from Dartmouth's Thayer School of Engineering; and Eduardo Santos, Tuck MBA. BizEd JULY/AUGUST 2006 37