During the fall 2021 semester, the Student International Business Council (SIBC) introduced nine exciting consulting projects in collaboration with both domestic and international companies across a variety of business sectors. Over the course of approximately three months, students worked closely with one another to conduct relevant research, analyze their findings, strategize for the future, and propose innovative solutions. We caught up with the project leaders of each team to uncover what drew them to their selected project, and what they learned from their experience.
Tamarindo Foundation
“The Tamarindo project stood out to me as one that gave a real opportunity to truly help people and improve their quality of life. Becoming project lead meant that I felt even closer to the community in El Salvador and it was a role that I thoroughly cherished. I feel that my tenure as project lead has provided me with various organizational, interpersonal and communication skills that I can now bring forward into my future career.
Over the course of six weeks, our team delivered three workshops on accounting principles to a group of entrepreneurs in El Salvador. The workshops were facilitated by the Tamarindo foundation, an organization that is dedicated to breaking the chains of poverty and forced migration and improving the quality of life for the people of El Salvador. The premise of our workshops is that these entrepreneurs will take what they have learned through our workshops and apply it to their own business practices which will in turn help to grow their respected businesses.”
- Cian Condon, Business Administration ‘23
Naturway
“Naturway is a team-building, tourism company located in Lisbon, Portugal and has been an active client of SIBC for the past two years. Last year, our team focused on researching relevant Destination Management Company (DMC) contacts in the United States, and any large MICE industry events hosted in Portugal. Building off of that list and expanding our reach, our current goals for this semester are to provide our clients with an extensive list of relevant contact information for Destination Management Companies (DMC's) in the United States, Mexico, and Brazil in hopes of generating sales growth in each of those regions. We also intend to grow Naturway's social media and online digital presence in the coming semester, which our team of savvy tech wizards are all very excited about doing!
I began working on the Naturway team in Fall 2020, and have since been project leader for the past two semesters -- Spring and Fall 2021. When I first joined this team, it was because the scope of work seemed of interest to me, and the hopes of traveling to Portugal in the future were very enticing. Since my entire first year of working with SIBC was online, I sadly did not have any travel opportunities due to the COVID-19 pandemic; however, I am hopeful for the possibilities of the future! I am so happy to once again be working as the project leader for the Naturway team this semester as this project and team are held very dear to my heart. Being able to transition from online to in-person SIBC meetings and presentations has been transformative for me and has helped me grow as a leader. Through this experience provided by SIBC, I have gained a broadened perspective on the cultural and generational differences between our team and our clients, as well as gaining several opportunities for me and the team to think creatively and innovatively. I hope to continue leading the Naturway team next semester, and build an even better community amongst team members and our clients than we had this semester. I feel that growing and maintaining friendships and mentorships is essential in our roles as business consultants and leaders of the Student International Business Council.
- AnneMarie Rodgers, Finance and Business Analytics ‘23
Jars of Delight
“To me what differentiated SIBC from other clubs on campus was the opportunity to gain hands on experience with a real client. As a person who hasn’t had an internship, I was keen to get some sort of experience within the field of marketing. It was especially nice to know that I had a choice in what project I chose to pursue. Out of the many fascinating projects, I decided to join the Jars of Delight team for two reasons. The first reason is that I would be helping a minority-woman owned business. The second reason is that Jars of Delight’s whole mission is promoting sustainability within the environment and the community which are things that I value. It was also a great learning experience to manage a team and maintaining the groups morale high. From this leadership experience, I’ve learned to stay organized and manage my team’s time efficiently. I would also like to mention that each team member helped me look at a challenge from a different angle. I learned so much from them on setting social media goals and the different types of content we could make that would benefit Jars of Delight. I believe this SIBC experience has helped me to be a more proactive and less intimidated person within the field of marketing. My hope is to continue learning from the remainder of this project and to of course keep promoting peace through commerce.
This past semester, I worked on creating a social media marketing strategy for a sustainable catering company known as Jars of Delight. During these past couple of months, my team and I created a customer profile, set social media goals, designed content for its social media accounts, along with a posting schedule, and a budget. Our main objective with Jars of Delight was not only to strengthen its social media presence but to also communicate its mission of sustainability more effectively to its audience.”
- Ashley Dafferner, Marketing ‘22
Atlas
“I decided to join SIBC because one of my friends was in it and could not stop raving about the business experience the club gave her. I was instantly drawn to Atlas' project scope stating research into the AI market. Every single person on my team, including myself, did not know a single thing about AI and were intrigued by this undiscovered market. My leadership experience in SIBC will help me in the future be able to talk about my leadership skills and ability to work with a deadline for a project. These skills would help me land me a good job as a project leader for the future company I wish to work for. Furthermore, the connections I have made with SIBC clients is building my network base in the business world. The goals I hope to achieve as project lead are gaining the ability to work with a large group of people, be able to use my organization skills to have the project run smoothly with deadlines clearly stated, and at the end of the project have my group tell me they enjoyed working with me.
My Project is for Atlas, which is a AI translation company based in Turkey. Atlas was established in 2004 and centers around the Automative, Legal, and Finance industries for AI translation. During this project my group has researched the AI industry, done industry analysis' for all regions of the world in the translation market, conducted a company S.W.O.T analysis, and developed a Sales & Marketing strategy for the company. The key takeaways from this project are learning the different subdivisions of AI and machine translation, how vast of a market AI is, being able to develop a S.W.O.T analysis, and learning how to outline a Sales & Marketing plan for a company.”
- Alexis Labrinos, Business Administration ‘22
Xecue Winery
“SIBC is one of the greatest opportunities within the business school to join because it allows students to gain real world experience at their own pace. This is what intrigued me about SIBC because it offered me the room and ability to explore different areas of business in application to the real world. This semester I wanted to further my commitment to SIBC and so I became a project lead. Being a project lead has been helpful in advancing my organization skills and project management skills. These were important skills to advance since they are so influential in the work place.
Currently, the project I am working on is for the Xecue Winery located in Mexico. The project has been separated into two sections, first beginning with the Situational Analysis of Xecue in the Valle de Guadalupe. The Valle de Guadalupe is a region within Mexico which contains various wineries. This section of the project includes noting the industry best practices within.the region and accumulating research surrounding unique value propositions for wineries. The second section which will be tackled next semester includes using the research gathered to form a proposed destination marketing plan for Xecue.”
- Maria Klostrakis, Marketing and International Business ‘23
Hewlett-Packard
“I decided to join SIBC because I had heard great things and am planning on going into consulting in the future. I was interested by the scope of work for the HP project and also wanted to work with a big cooperation. I learned a lot from being the team lead from organizing groups and to meeting key deadlines. I also learned a lot about myself as a leader and what I am good at and what I can improve on.
The project that we worked on was a marketing research project for HP. This was looking into their instant ink service and whether or not it would be smart for them to target college aged students with this service. We studied HP and especially their instant ink service and used this to make a survey and conduct a focus group. The key takeaways we got was that college aged students were not a good market to go into using B2C but rather targeting colleges and creating an HP partnership with them.”
- Grayson Wright, International Business ‘23
Tin Marin
“Being a Project Lead for Tin Marin has been an extremely rewarding experience. I joined SIBC my junior year during Covid. I remember I was taking a semester off and I wanted to stay on track with my career so I joined hoping I would have something to keep me going while I took personal time off. Im glad that I did! I wanted to gain some experience working with international companies, learn more about consulting, and take on leadership positions. I did not realize I would stick with it for so long and SIBC has taught me so much!
I joined Tin Marin specifically because I loved its concept, its unique story, and I loved that it is a woman owned business. I'm interested in the fashion industry and felt called to this role! When I started project lead, I hoped to gain management skills, time management skills, professional skills, and presentation skills. I definitely did and I am so grateful to my team for their input and help throughout the semester.
This semester we got to work on developing a marketing strategy and social media content for Tin Marin's current and potential costumers. We did an extensive industry analysis to highlight trends and drivers that suited Tin Marin. We accessed Tin Marin's value proposition and made recommendations on how to best suit that given proposition to truly highlight all the values of Tin Marin like its sustainability, giving back to the community, quality, and functionality.
We ran a social media, SWOT and competitor analysis and focus group and consumer survey to better understand what our approach should be for Tin Marin's marketing campaign. We also researched consumer profiles to put together the main values that three generations: Gen X, Millenials, and Gen Z have in common and what they'd like to see in Tin Marin.
Lastly, we created mock ups of content and ideas for Instagram stories, posts, product optimization, website changes, etc.
Overall, it was a great experience to be able to work with a client that is so passionate about doing good and that has such a unque concept. Our team learned so much from working with Tin Marin and we're excited to continue in the Spring!”
- Sofia Ford, International Business and Marketing ‘22
IPE
“Each year, the three universities (USD, Notre Dame and Benedictine College) that are fortunate with the privately endowed student-run Student International Business Council (SIBC), participate in an exclusive flagship event at the national level to showcase their research on a particular global issue. This year's International Political Economy (IPE) topic for USD was "how can the real estate industry can help combat climate change?" The team gathered unique insights on the subject using the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals as a guide; we also emphasized on the goals and targets the Real Estate industry should ideally focus upon to make progress by 2030. Real Estate's value-add in the context of combating climate change was highlighted using specific examples of practices adopted by sustainability leaders and expectations from the industry moving forward were discussed in line with the key takeaways from the ongoing COP26 at the time.
As the project leader for IPE, the experience was nothing but phenomenal! Undertaking this project certainly had a uniqueness to it as it was distinctive from the other projects of the semester -- with IPE, it wasn't about strategizing for a company's success rather brainstorming ways an entire industry can help contribute to a global defining issue of this era. This compelled the team to get creative but simultaneously also increased our collective environmental awareness. Being a part of SIBC surely educates one on several different topics and also provides its members with the opportunity to be exposed to multiple perspectives that they wouldn't have otherwise been offered throughout their academic courses.”
- Yashve Kalati, Business Economics ‘22
TKB Medical USA, Inc.
“I was the team leader of the TKB project. We signed an NDA so there is little that we can discuss about it but, in this project, we worked with a Japanese company that wishes to expand into the honey business. This project was very interesting since we were able to understand a lot about the honey industry, everything from production to bottling and selling, learning all about the logistics of the industry. Since we worked with a Japanese company, we were also able to study a market that I knew little about, learning a lot about the Japanese consumer culture and the market as a whole and a lot about the Japanese culture.
Having the opportunity to be a team leader, especially of such a big team (10 people) is something that is going to help immensely in my future career. Having the opportunity to learn how to lead a team during university is something that only a lucky few have the chance to, and I consider myself one of those ones. I joined SIBC with the idea of expanding my network and gain some experience and there isn’t a better way to do it than literally working with real companies in real projects, getting in touch with other students with the same interests as me and getting to know some companies and real-world professionals and learning with them. Being a project leader expands on this notion, in the sense that it helps us expand our range of skills and we can share with other people the experience that we acquired in the years before being a team leader. Being a team leader also helped me figure out some of my leadership and working weaknesses, some of those weaknesses that I intend to work on further projects as a project leader and improve.”
- Joao Pires Coelho, International Business and Supply Chain Management ‘22
