For your reference, we've included some sample project ideas below. We encourage educators to mix-and-match components from various departments so that the projects are cross functional in nature. In all cases, we customize the projects based on company goals and course teaching objectives.

Industry Customer Service Benchmarking Assessment

1. Call the customer service line or inquire via email. Document your experience. How does this compare with competitors?
2. What does the company do that makes their customer service more effective than competitors? What could be improved?
3. How important is good customer service in this vertical or industry? How does it affect the lifetime value of the customer?
4. How does the business model affect the level of service required? Is there any automation that can be incorporated into the process to increase efficiencies?

Customer Service Diagnosis Challenge

1. How does the customer service team troubleshoot issues? How effective are their current processes?
2. What is the most time-consuming part of the troubleshooting process? Is there anyway this can be automated?
3. What process improvements would you recommend? Pay close attention to communication tools, knowledge base resources, and follow-up procedures.

Customer Service Process Improvements

1. How long does it take for the issues and cases to navigate through the internal organization before arriving at a resolution?
2. How can the process be optimized? Is information being circulated effectively internally?
3. Should the company consider circulating certain materials externally as well? If so, how? Can we reduce redundancy by leveraging existing resources and cases?

Customer Feedback Driven Process Improvement Recommendations

1. How does the company collect feedback from customers?
2. Can you identify consistent feedback from customers related to the company’s product or service?
3. What is the customer feedback process? How do the customers feel about the feedback process?
4. Does the company use technology or social media to collect customer feedback?
5. How can we better incorporate and address customer concerns before it escalates?

Customer Service Process & Technology Assessment

1. What technology is the company leveraging to administer the customer service process?
2. How does the company feel about the customer service process? Interview key team members inside and outside that part of the organization.
3. What other technologies could possibly improve the process? What is the cost of implementing new tools?
4. Would you recommend implementing new tools and procedures?

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.

Company Data Collection Inventory and Mapping

1. What is the product and business model?
2. How is the business organized from an organizational perspective?
3. What main systems does the company use to organize and execute?
4. What data is produced by the system as a result?
5. What strategic goals does the data help address?
6. What would flow chart of all the systems look like? What are the key data inputs and outputs within each system? How do they all connect to one another?

Create New Metrics (and KPIs) Using Company Data

1. How can data from multiple sources be analyzed, organized, or visualized to provide more insight to internal and/or external users?
2. Are there other potential use cases for the company’s data?
3. What other data points would be useful to capture in order improve the quality and/or relevance of insights?
4. What metrics would be best to use in order to showcase potential benefits and use cases?

Build a Sample Dashboard

1. What company data is available? How reliable is that data?
2. How can data from multiple sources be analyzed, organized, or visualized to provide more insight to internal and/or external users?
3. Can you organize these key pieces of data into a preliminary dashboard?
4. What procedure is required to keep the dashboard up-to-date? Are there any tools that could help with this process?

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.

• Develop Financial Statements

• 1. What is the company’s business model? What are the products? What makes them unique compared to competitors in their industry?
  2. Assess where financial data comes from at the company? What drives cost and revenues? How are these categorized?
  3. Build a set of comprehensive financial statements including a cash flow statement, income statement, and balance sheet. Ensure it’s consistent for the business since origin.
  4. What key insights and metrics can be derived from the financial statements? What types of process improvements and recommendations can you provide to the company’s management?
  5. How can the company continue to manage the financial statements on the go-forward? Provide the company with a step-by-step process when it comes to building and maintaining the key financial statements in for the future.

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  Develop Predictive Financial Model

  1. What is the company’s business model? What are the products? What makes them unique compared to competitors in their industry?
  2. Develop a flexible financial model from scratch dependent on a set of assumptions that they can be manipulated to understand the dynamics of the business.
  3. How do the different cost and revenue components tie to each other? How will this change as the business scales?
  4. How should the team set goals for the next few years?
  5. Use the projections from your financial model to develop a Discounted Cash Flow model. Help the company determine its appropriate WACC and use that WACC and the future cash flows to determine a company valuation. Use industry benchmarks to determine if the valuation is reasonable.
  6. How will the company's growth plan affect the financial model you built in the last section?
  7. Interview upper management and the sales team to get an idea of scale over the next 6, 12, and 24 months. Update your financial model according to their scaling forecasts and goals. Develop these goals into a usable budget.

Financial Records Audit

1. If the company uses cash accounting determine if they should be moved to accrual.
2. If they use accrual accounting, determine if the following accounts are recorded correctly: 1) Deferred Revenue 2) Prepaid Expenses 3) Accrued Expenses 4) Fixed Assets & Depreciation

• Industry Sales Benchmarking Assessment

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. 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?

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  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?