Growth Strategy

• Growth Plan and KPI Performance Assessment

1. 1. 1. How has the business evolved over time? How does the team feel about the past, present, and future of the business?
      2. What key metrics does the company use to run the business and make key strategic decisions? How are these calculated? What does the company envision for the future for each metric? Does that seem to align with management expectations?
      3. What are some key concerns and areas of focus that the host company should consider when preparing for the future of the business?

• Industry Benchmarking Assessment

1. 1. 1. Who are the biggest competitors and how do they stack up against the company's model? Do a SWOT assessment.
      2. Do any companies present interesting opportunities for partnerships? What about potential mergers and acquisitions?
      3. Who are the key thought leaders and media outlets in the space? What are they publishing and how do they interact with companies like yours?
      4. Design a comprehensive industry overview report. Pay close attention to the key players, their growth trajectory, and the major regions where they find the most success.

• Customer Retention & Growth

1. 1. 1. How well does the company address customer needs from a product and service perspective? Do their customers seem happy with their purchase?
      2. What’s the general customer perception of the company’s brand?
      3. How large are the largest accounts compared to the smaller accounts? What makes the difference between these two contract-types?
      4. What percentage of accounts can scale to becoming 50-200% larger? Does the company seem positioned to scale?

• Establish Company Goals & Projections

1. 1. Analyze the company’s growth plan. What areas of the business seem most opportunistic and/or concerning? Consider their growth plan and existing traction.
   2. How does the company today compare to the company months and/or years ago?
   3. What does the company want to look like in the future?
   4. What are the KPIs and how well well do they tie to your assessment of company performance in strategic areas?
   5. How do you think the KPIs will change as the business scales?

PR & Comms

We've included some sample project ideas below. We encourage users to mix-and-match components from various departments for the best cross functional project experience. In all cases, we customize the projects based on company goals and student learning objectives. 

• Analyze the Role of Public Relations on Enhancing Customer Experience

  1. Do similar companies at a similar stage and size have a PR function? If so, how is that role designed? How do they use PR to enhance the overall customer experience? If so, how?
  2. Interview the folks responsible for Public Relations at your host company to get a sense for how they have been doing PR so far. What is the relationship between customer satisfaction and PR at your host company? Are they related at all? Which aspects of the PR activities influence the overall customer experience?
  3. How satisfied are the customers of the company? Administer customer interviews and/or questionnaires to determine how satisfied the customers are with the product, service, and overall purchasing experience.
  4. What recommendations do you have for the company on how they can improve their overall PR process in order to further enhance the customer experience? Are there specific campaigns or processes that can be implemented to enhance the overall PR function and customer experience?

• Analyze and Recommend Improvements of Public Relations Strategy through Social Media

  1. Conduct a comprehensive analysis on what media channels (including social and others) that the company currently uses for Public Relations. To what extent is social media being used for PR purposes as opposed to other channels? How does this compare to their industry peers?
  2. Collect data from the company’s social media accounts and analyze: Does the company differentiate their marketing initiatives from their PR initiatives on their social media? How does the company balance PR and marketing on social? What reach and impact do these two initiatives typically have? How do they compare to one another?
  3. How can the company enhance their PR when it comes to their social media channels? What do similar companies do when it comes to PR through social media? What are best practices you could recommend when it comes to PR through social media?

• Deep Dive on Public Image & Suggest Performance Improvements

1. 1. Establish a way to assess public image through surveys and interviews.
   2. Analyze the difference of company image between current and potential customers.
   3. You may also want to include employees and publicly available information to help with your analysis.
   4. Based on your findings, how urgently does the company need to address their public image?
   5. How would you recommend making improvements to the PR strategy in order to enhance the overall public perception of the company’s brand?

• Crisis Management Process Mapping & Performance Improvements

1. 1. How does the company define a crisis? Have they encountered any public crises yet? How was that situation managed? What did they learn from that experience?
   2. Does the company have a crisis management process? Is this a clear process? Has it been detailed and mapped out including all stakeholders, approvals?
   3. What key criteria need to be analyzed when administering a damage assessment after a crisis has occurred?

Research & Development

We've included some sample project ideas below. We encourage users to mix-and-match components from various departments for the best cross functional project experience. In all cases, we customize the projects based on company goals and student learning objectives. 

• Market Research

• 1. How much information does the company have on the market? What about their target audience and customers?  Use this information to get up-to-speed on the business.
  2. What does the competitive environment look like? How would you benchmark your company against competitors? What are your competitors’ current market advantages, weaknesses? Create a competitor research reports including products, pricing, market share, and marketing tactics.
  3. Create a broader industry and market environment research report, which includes: market size and trends, market demographics (e.g. age, gender, income), regulatory landscape, marketing channels and strategies, and sociographics (e.g. beliefs and attitudes, interests, lifestyle factors)

• Customer Research

  1. Who your current customers? How well does this align with the company’s defined target audience? Who are the potential customers? What, when, where and how do they buy your products?
  2. What strategies does the company currently use to attract new customers? To what extent are these strategies effective? What other strategies could the company use to attract more potential customers? Why do you think your new strategies would be effective?
  3. Create a customer research report including customer demographics, social and lifestyle trends, needs and expectations, attitude towards you and your competitors.

• Product Development & Updates

1. 1. What existing products does the company offer? How satisfied are current customers with the current product offerings?
   2. What improvements could be made to existing products? How would you suggest updating current products to meet existing and potential customers’ needs?
   3. What new products does the company have on the horizon? Do you expect that these products will meet customers’ demands? What are the product guidelines and regulatory specifications that need to be followed while developing the new product?
   4. Can you project how well products will fair in the market? Does this align with management expectations? Why or why not?

• Business Innovation Assessment

1. 1. How has your company improved over time?
   2. What are key ways for the company to improve overall performance?
   3. How might you be able to reduce expenses and/or increase revenues?
   4. How will expanding affect current operations? Do you have a reliable operations (think HR, implementation, and operations)?
   5. How would you compare your performance with competitors?
   6. What KPIs is the company tracking? How does the growth plan address these KPIs?

Sales & Business Development

• Industry Sales Benchmarking Assessment

1. 1. Familiarize yourself with the company product and business model.
   2. Create a comprehensive list of key competitors and industry stakeholders that sell similar products and/or services. Compare your host company with competitors in the following areas: pricing, features, services, regionality, customer demographics, etc.
   3. Who are the biggest competitors and how do they stack up against the company's performance? What do the biggest competitors in the space tell you about the industry?
   4. Do any companies present interesting opportunities for partnerships?
   5. What additional channels can the company tap in order to scale more effectively?

• Sales Process Assessment

1. 1. How has the company’s business model change over time? What has changed about the product, service, and team?
   2. What is the current status of the sales process within the company. Do you think this is more or less effective than previously? How does the team feel about the sales process and overall performance?
   3. Where does the company hope to be in 1-3-5 years from a sales perspective? How will the sales process, team, and structure need to change in order to address these changes?
   4. How satisfied are the current customers with the product or service?
   5. Craft a survey and administer customer interviews to help identify where the company can improve. Pay close attention to how the company may be able to provide additional value to existing customers.

• Prioritizing Sales Initiatives

• 1. What is the company’s sales strategy? How many different lines of business exist? Are they separated by different products and services or divisions?
  2. What lines if business are providing the most revenue for the company currently? How was this book of business built originally? How does the company expect for this to grow over time?
  3. What new sales opportunities are on the table? Is the company prioritizing this sales initiative? What do you think the potential is for this new line of business?
  4. Are there alternative ways to sell that the company hasn't considered? Would they be more effective? What data do you have to support your reasoning?
  5. How would you prioritize the sales team’s time and resources with regards to the sales plan?

• Inside vs. Outside Sales Strategy Assessment

  1. What’s the difference between an inside and outside sales strategy? What  has the company tried to-date? How effective was that process? What types of results did it yield? What resources were required? Can you measure the ROI and growth rate?
  2. How could you adapt the sales process to include either more inside OR outside sales tactics?
  3. How would you go about implementing this sales strategy? Do you think it would produce better results?
  4. What goals would you set for the new team over the next 3-6 months and/or 1-3 years? How would you measure success?