Successful Strategy
"Good market research takes teamwork," said Jacob Kissaw, who earned his Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Millikin University on May 20. Kissaw, from Monticello, Ill., was one of 21 students in Millikin's most recent Executive MBA cohort.
Millikin's Executive MBA is a program designed for professionals who want to advance their careers by developing executive thinking and performance skills. At the end of the program, students engage in an international immersion trip to enhance their global connections; recent trips have included visits to China to Fudan University in Shanghai and Peking University in Beijing to do case competitions and simulations.
Things were different for this year's cohort as students were given a challenging but yet groundbreaking opportunity. For the first time in the Executive MBA Program, students were tasked with advising a company on how they could sell their product in the U.S. market.
Thanks to a connection from Dr. J. Mark Munoz, professor of international management at Millikin, the MBA students worked with G&G Plant Protection and Trade Ltd., a Hungarian-based company that specializes in chemical weed control on railway tracks.
The students created a market entry strategy to help G&G sell their innovative railway weed control technology to the U.S. The students met with G&G executives at the WHU-Otto Beisheim Graduate School of Management in Koblenz, Germany in May to present their strategy. The students spent six months researching and preparing their presentation.
"Being able to work through different ideas with people that think about things differently proved to help our class come up with a comprehensive market entry strategy for G&G," said Kissaw.
The presentation to G&G covered several aspects of the market the company would serve if they entered the United States. The students presented on everything from competition, customers, partners, marketing and market size to laws and regulations.
"We were able to give G&G a list of key challenges or hurdles they may face when they enter the United States," said Kissaw. "This was in an attempt to better prepare them for certain pitfalls that they might not see coming because of how different the market is in the United States."