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The Capstone of the Bryan MBA Experience Creating and Sustaining a Competitive Advantage (MBA 741)

In your final semester of the program, you will enroll in Creating and Sustaining a Competitive Advantage. This course will be the culmination of your Bryan MBA experience. In this course, you and your classmates will be organized into consulting teams and assigned to local organizations where you will develop strategic solutions to the selected challenges of your assigned organization. At the completion of the course, you and your team will formally present your research findings and recommendations.

Click here for Consulting Testimonials.

Click here for Teambuilding Exercises before Consulting Projects.

Below are some samples of recent consulting projects.

Bryan MBA's in Action - 2013

Amarr

Amarr is the third largest garage door manufacturer in the western hemisphere. Owned by the Brenner family since 1951, Amarr makes residential and commercial sectional doors and sells garage door openers made by others through its network of 75 company-owned distribution centers.

Bryan MBA students assessed Amarr's current marketing strategy for its largest sales channel and offered implementable recommendations to enable Amarr to achieve potential growth objectives for the next three years.

Bank of Oak Ridge

Established in 2000, Bank of Oak Ridge is a community bank dedicated to delivering Banking As It Should Be®. With five Triad locations in Oak Ridge, Greensboro, and Summerfield, North Carolina, this bank focuses on providing personalized, convenient banking services close to home and work.

Bryan MBA students helped to identify potential market opportunities for Bank of Oak Ridge's newly implemented CRM system. Students were asked to determine potential monetary opportunities from the bank selling its CRM to leveraging this platform to become a brand building tool.

Greensboro Children's Museum

Located in the heart of downtown Greensboro, the Greensboro Children's Museum is a hands-on destination designed to inspire learning through play in an energetic and safe environment. Serving nearly 127,000 annual visitors, the mission of the Children's Museum is to "provide children and families with fun, interactive, educational experiences that enrich their daily lives, contributing to their growth and development." Bryan MBA students were asked to create a quantified understanding of the Museum's economic impact on the Triad and to develop a plan to increase awareness of these benefits among key stakeholders. In addition, students conducted a market analysis of the community's interest in the Museum having a greater emphasis on STEM related activities and exhibits.

Gilbarco Veeder-Root

The global leader in retail and commercial fueling and payment equipment, GVR is headquartered in Greensboro and is one of the largest business units of Danaher, a Fortune 200 company. GVR acquired the Gasboy business seven years ago, and with this acquisition expanded their leadership to fleet, government and commercial fueling. With the potential for strong growth opportunities, Bryan MBA students were asked to research and evaluate the mobile commercial fueling market and identify both launch and business development strategies.

Industries of the Blind

Industries of the Blind, Inc's (IOB) mission is to provide opportunities for employment and personal development for people who are blind or visually impaired so as to achieve greater independence. The organization accomplishes this mission primarily by creating employment opportunities within IOB. Since many blind and visually impaired people served by IOB have had little training or assistance with respect to their blindness, Bryan MBA students were asked to conduct a study to determine if a need existed for potential employment training and what community resources were available to assist with this type of training.

Memios

Memios, LLC, is a privately held, Greensboro based firm. Memios developed a new waste management solution that represents a significant improvement to out dated current waste management business models. The Memios high speed pneumatic transport coupled with the Memios clean stream waste to energy technologies provide the world's first end-to-end holistic waste management solutions that not only eliminate the need for waste truck haul off but also eliminate the need for landfill solutions going forward. In addition to the elimination of waste trucks and landfills Memios Clean Stream provides a renewable energy solution boasting some of the highest waste to energy levels in existence. Bryan MBA students were able to assist in the development of a strategic launch market, including launch methodology, for Memios' significant investment in its newest technology.

Raffaldini Vineyards & Winery, LLC.

Bryan MBA students worked with this N.C. based non-profit organization of agricultural and commercial real estate and wine production facilities to determine potential growth and expansion opportunities. This included benchmarking similar businesses' practices and developing financial models to be used by management for investment decisions.

Tanger Outlets

Tanger Factory Outlet Centers, Inc. (NYSE:SKT) is a publicly-traded real estate investment trust headquartered in Greensboro, North Carolina. The company operates and owns, or has an ownership interest in, a portfolio of 39 upscale outlet shopping centers in 25 states coast to coast and in Canada, totaling approximately 11.9 million square feet leased to over 2,500 stores operated by over 430 different iconic, global brand name companies. Bryan MBA students conducted market research on college-age students to determine potential for market share growth and identify long-term brand loyalty trends among this market segment. This research included recommendations of multi-channel communication strategies and cost implications as compared to corporate ROI targets.

TE Connectivity

An industry leader with an entrepreneurial spirit that strongly encourages forward thinking. A $14B company, which manufactures over 500k products that flow power and data to products that touch our lives from consumer products, automotive, electronics, energy and healthcare. Bryan MBA students were charged with the task of developing a more efficient method of delivering price quotes to the TE Automotive sales and product teams. This newly developed tool would combine historical data and cost models to enable the sales team to pick parameters that allow development of final pricing in significantly less time.

TigerTek

TigerTek is a nationwide servo motor and industrial equipment repair company located in the Triad. TigerTek provides repair services to manufacturing plants, both locally and nationally and enlisted the help of Bryan MBA students to develop a strategy to increase local repairs. This required a strategic analysis of the market opportunities and competitive strengths, as well as identifying areas for improvement, pricing optimization, and new revenue streams.

Volvo Group

One of the world's leading manufacturers of trucks, buses, and construction equipment, Volvo Group employs about 100,000 people, have production facilities in 19 countries, and sales in over 180 markets. The corporate headquarters based in Greensboro supports activities such as design, finance, marketing, sales, and distribution and supply chain operations. Bryan MBA students helped to identify, develop and prepare for implementation a set of tools and methodologies to increase efficiency and effectiveness in managing purchasing projects, leverage Tier 1 and other industry best practices. In addition, this project also required students to identify the best practices related to management control of project cost, timeline, and associated KPIs and processes, as well as leverage benchmarking and process mapping to develop recommendations and gain organizational support for implementation.

If your organization is interested in arranging a consulting project, please contact Mr. Richard Browne at jrbrowne@uncg.edu.