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.

Define Corporate Social Responsibility Strategy

1. Does the company currently engage in CSR?
2. How well does the company’s CSR Strategy intertwine with the company’s core competencies, offerings, and business mission?
3. Is the CSR strategy being effectively communicated throughout the marketing, HR, and PR departments?
4. Does management seem to be aware of the overall CSR strategy?

Team Buy-in Assessment and Engagement Strategy

1. How well does the average team member know about the company’s CSR initiatives? To what extent are they involved in the company’s CSR strategy?
2. How can this be improved?
3. What metrics are used to measure success? What alternative metrics should be included to enhance the feedback loop strategy on CSR?

External Partners Assessment

1. Who is the company helping with regards to their CSR strategy? Who are the end user beneficiaries of the host company’s CSR initiatives?
2. What third party partners are involved in helping reach this group?
3. Are there others out there that could also be helpful?
4. How mission-aligned are these third parties with your CSR goals and overall company mission?
5. How can you profile and evaluate the relationships built through CSR initiatives? How does this set the tone for future endeavors? Are there key criteria for evaluating third parties with regards to CSR initiatives?

CSR Impact Assessment

1. How does the company currently measure reach, impact, and value of CSR initiatives?
2. Is the company fully capturing this value? If not, how can they improve the overall process of measuring impact and results?
3. How should the company report and communicate their impact both internally and externally?

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.

• Industry Marketing Benchmarking Analysis

  1. What is the company's target demographic, product, and business model?
  2. What is the customer’s problem and how the company's product or service is solving that problem?
  3. How would you compare the company's products with the rest of the providers in the industry? Pay close attention to how other companies are marketing their products and positioning the brands.
  4. How would you compare the company’s marketing performance to competitors?
  5. What improvements would you recommend based on your assessment?

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  Marketing Strategy Impact Analysis
  1. Examine the company's past marketing strategies. What worked? What did not? How would you showcase progress over time?
  2. Compile data into a visualization to track trends of successful and less successful strategies.
  3. Compare the company's marketing tactics with competitors to showcase what works effectively - or not effectively - with certain customer demographics
  4. What other marketing strategies could be used to benefit the company?
  5. What technologies could be involved in different marketing strategies? How can you use them most effectively? How would you measure success?

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  Marketing Strategy Development

• 1. What are the company's past marketing strategies? What worked? What did not? How would you showcase progress over time?
  2. What is the customer’s perception of the company’s brand, product, and services?
  3. Propose 2-3 digital, experiential, or social, marketing strategies for the company to consider. Assess cost, reach, mediums, and any other components needed for a full understanding of this investment.
  4. Select one campaign and develop a road-map that will prepare the company to launch your campaign. Keep in mind timing, required resources (budget, people, etc.), projected results, and how you would measure ROI.

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  Customer Brand Perception Analysis

  1. Does the company assess their brand perception at all? If so, what do you find interesting about the process or findings?
  2. Conduct structured customer interviews to gain a better understanding of their customers’ preferences, purchasing habits, and decision-making processes. Consider: Demographics, Discovery Channels, and their Product Aptitude
  3. Suggest a new effective process to collect more customer data on brand perception and customer experience.

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  Marketing Mix Assessment & Recommendations

  1. Consider a 360 marketing approach when deciding the appropriate channels to utilize. What is the current marketing mix for the company? Analyze where the company spends the most and where the company performs bests.
  2. Propose an alternative marketing mix for the company that you think will work best for the product, industry, and customer type. Where should the company allocate resources to generate better performance? Consider paid advertising, social, display, content, guerrilla , experiential, affiliate, partnerships, etc.
  3. What are the costs and benefits of using your strategy? What are the key risks and costs? Compare these risks with potential reach and benefit.

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)

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  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. 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. 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?

• 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?