What’s an MBA Consulting Project Like?
How we teamed up with the NBA’s Sacramento Kings on international expansion
With international expansion a lucrative frontier for fan growth and revenue for NBA teams, the Sacramento Kings' partnership with my UC Davis MBA student team for a winning strategy was nothing short of a slam dunk.
Postcard from Berlin: Our International Consulting Experience in the Heart of Europe
Presenting to clients in a city brimming with cultural diversity, warmth and innovation
MBA students Mary Wen and Faye Wu share their journey to Berlin where their teams presented recommendations to consulting clients and visited top companies in the historic German capital.
My Mission: Rival the Snack Industry with Nutritious Food Startup
“Make the world a better place for the next generation”
Double Aggie Peter Barrick MBA 16, CEO of snack food startup Rivalz, is focused on reversing the global pandemic of malnutrition, insulin resistance, diabetes, and obesity propagated by Big Snack companies over the past 50 years.
Client Turns to Our MBA Team for New Cryptocurrency Market Opportunity
Identifying solutions for international peer-to-peer cash remittance
Jeffery Criddell MBA 23 shares how his team explored opportunities for a large coin-counting service looking to expand into new business lines as part of a 10-week IMPACT project.
How Our Consulting Project Moves UC Davis Future Forward
Helping the top 5 research university thrive in a post-pandemic world
Mika Shang MBA 23 shares how she and her IMPACT project teammates distilled UC Davis' values into strict criteria within a framework to effectively determine which business project ideas will generate substantial revenue or savings in the short term and strengthen the university for decades to come.
VinZymes, Inc.
- VinZymes is pursuing the discovery of enzymes and data algorithms to help improve measurement and remediation of smoke taint in wine. The project’s focus was to develop a business model and plan specific to measurement of smoke taint as an initial product offering including a cost structure for analytical testing, key customer deliverables, pricing and roll-out strategy.
UC Davis Finance, Operations and Administration
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This project sought to modernize the interview process as part of the talent acquisition system in the Human Resources department. The student team conducted research and provided recommended solutions for standardizing and updating the interview process in order to meet institutional compliance and strategic goals.
Starbucks Coffee Co.
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As the U.S. workforce continues to evolve and change, how will Starbucks continue to attract and retain top talent? Through an analysis of partner (employee) sentiment, management interviews, evaluation of current market trends and competitive analysis, the team identified gaps and provided recommendations for a three-year talent retention plan.
The Beachbody Company
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Market-leading American health and wellness enterprise wanted to explore how they might enter the personalized nutrition market to improve user health outcomes and create a new growth trajectory. The team developed recommendations based on discovery findings and company capabilities to deliver a financial analysis and business case for market entry.
AEye
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Manufacturer of world-class LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) sensing devices for a variety of vertical markets sought a team to identify how autonomic vehicles could transform the relationship between domestic overland transportation and the logistics ecosystem, and to demonstrate cost-and lifesaving ideas based on the capabilities of LiDAR usage.
SAP
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The MBA team was asked how this Business Process Intelligence unit should position itself through a competitor positioning analysis and an examination of market sizes (TAM, SAM, SOM); the team identified market trends, industry-specific user needs and pain points, and created an evaluation framework for selected industries to assess market maturity.
MedSim
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MedSim is a web-based patient simulator developed by UC Davis cardiovascular and thoracic anesthesiologist allowing trainees and practitioners to gain experience in a replicable, low-risk setting. The goal of the project was to provide recommendations on how best to commercialize the product, develop market analysis and marketing strategy, pilot with user base to test viability of marketing strategies.
Community Grains
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This boutique startup contracts with farmers to grow heritage wheat locally, fairly, and sustainably to make flour, breads, and pasta. The company received a thorough analysis of variables that inform pricing strategy, customer segmentation analysis and recommendations on product pricing, consumer education and brand strategy.
United Nations
- Project was to create an overall business strategy encompassing marketing, outreach and partnership to reach objectives for their Knowledge Graphs for Social Good (KG4SG) initiative.
Olam Food Ingredients
- Provided direction surrounding opportunities to expand the scope of demand for spices in a targeted $20B+ industry including segmentation, identifying possible entry points, product format recommendations, and go-to-market and channel positioning strategy.
American Honda Co.
- Identified three, high-value opportunities for the company to pursue in the energy solution space to make effective use of renewable energy to meet carbon neutral company goals, specifically, opportunities that utilize renewable energy such as solar power generation, offshore wind power generation, fuel cells, mobile batteries, and battery systems for electric vehicles through a PEST analysis.
Harrando & Co
- Explored exporting products to the U.S. with the goal of positioning high-end Moroccan olive oil to be competitive with European brands through market research (including FDA requirements and process for U.S. market distribution), competitive assessment and target markets, buyer value analysis, go-to-market plan and delivery roadmap.
Genentech
- Project supported the Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) team; interviewed team members to understand and codify internal best practices, determined pain points and analyzed solutions, integrated market-leading best practices and recommended Agile approach for the organization.
Destination Davis: Onboarding Our Full-Time MBA Class of 2023
10-day orientation introduces our collaborative culture, UC Davis MBA experience
Our incoming Full-Time MBA 2023 cohort began their UC Davis journey with a 10-day, in-person onboarding experience in Davis and beyond.
Square Partners with MBAs to Dig into Sustainable Cryptocurrency Mining
Will cryptocurrencies enable eco-friendly economic empowerment?
MBA student Christine Dillman shares the challenge posed by Square: Create a financial model for Bitcoin mining that takes into account important environmental goals.