Account Management Current State and Benchmarking Assessment

1. How is the account management or client success team structured? Are they split by geographies, verticals or other characteristics?
2. How many accounts are the account managers responsible for?
3. What level of service and interaction is required or expected in this industry?
4. How does the company's model compare with their key competitors?

Improve Current Account Management Process

1. What process does the company use to interact with their current customers?
2. Survey the account managers and create a flow chart of their of what their recurring responsibilities look like.
3. Based on the flow chart, are there any processes that are redundant or inefficient? Anything that can be automated?
4. How can they more effectively keep their customers satisfied?

Optimizing the Account Manager Role

1. What are main responsibilities of Account Managers at the host company?
2. How are Account Managers incentivized? Some examples are: renewals, up-sells, customer satisfaction, net promoter scores, and new business. Are these effective or should the host company consider adding other metrics and/or removing metrics that don’t result in optimal outcomes?
3. How can you best align incentives with internal operations to maximize success?

Cross Functional Synergies Assessment

1. What are some potential opportunities where the host company can align processes between account management and other functional departments in the company? (E.g., sales, marketing, product, and operations)
2. Create a hypothetical case where it would be beneficial for the Account Managers to have a cross-functional team with other departments within the organization.
3. What would it look like? (Map it out)
4. How would the process be different?
5. Who would need to be involved?
6. How would you measure success as a team?

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?

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?

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.

Growth Plan and KPI Performance Assessment

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. 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. 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. 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?

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.

1. What is the company’s product and business model? Does the company have competitors internationally? How do their products and services stack up against international competitors?
2. What regions/countries/cities around the world seem ripe for expansion. Why? What metrics can you use to justify this?
3. What regions seem the most strategic? Why? How would you suggest entering? What resources and/or changes to the business model would be required?
4. What cultural or governmental norms might have an effect on the proposed plan? How can you mitigate negative risk factors?.

1. What is the company’s business model and product?
2. Why do they plan to expand into a new specific region?
3. What is the language, education, religion, values, customs, socio-economic, and geo-political make-up of the new target region?
4. What is the company’s plan to mitigate risks when entering the new market?
5. Would you recommend that they move forward? Why or why not? If so, how would you measure success?

1. What is the company’s business model and product?
2. What competitors does the company have in the country and/or region?
3. How have similar companies entered the market?
4. What risks exist domestically and regionally from a political perspective? How might that relate to the user adoption and market potential?
5. How risky is the opportunity? What is the potential upstate? Do the benefits outweigh the costs?

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.

Legal & Regulatory Assessment

1. What laws and regulations impact the company? (Consider: Industry, product, customer, suppliers on state/local/federal level)
2. How confident is the company’s management when it comes to navigating these laws, regulations and future changes?
3. Is the company compliant? What process is used to check on compliance? Can the process be mapped or organized more efficiently?
4. What sources can be used to keep these regulatory maps organized and up-to-date in the future?

Impact of Future Regulations on the Business

1. What laws are on the horizon that would impact the company?
2. What is the likelihood that these regulations will be enacted?
3. How will they impact the company? What can the company do proactively to manage these changes in regulatory expectations?

Influence on Impending Regulations (Lobbying)

1. Does the company try to impact regulation? If not, should they be?
2. What key regulations are the most pressing to consider lobbying? What events, conferences, and key stakeholders are involved in passing regulations?
3. How costly and/or potentially impactful would lobbying be for the company?

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.

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  Industry M&A Temperature Check

  1. What makes the company unique compared to competitors in their industry?
  2. Review existing data and current plans. Analyze the opportunities that the company is considering through strategic company interviews with key stakeholders.
  3. Hypothesize potential synergies with other players in the market. Is this market ripe for consolidation? How are you making that assessment?
  4. What benefits would these mergers and/or acquisitions present for the company?

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  Competitor (or Target List) Analysis

  1. Who are main competitors in the market?
  2. What unique offerings does each competitor have? How does the company product, service, and brand compare to these companies?
  3. Do any of these competitors see reasonable to acquire? Do any of them seem ripe to acquire you?
  4. Create a detailed profile of each competitor in the industry with a buy/sell assessment.

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  Merger or Acquisition Simulation

  1. Select a company and walk through the procedure of exploring a merger or acquisition. What are the costs, benefits, and likelihood of success with this potential transaction?
  2. Would this potential merger or acquisition be beneficial to your host company if it were successful? Why or why not?
  3. What key strategies would you use to initiate OR implement that merger or acquisition?

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 and Suggest Improvements for Internal Communication and Tools

  1. Investigate current ways the company’s team is communicating internally. How active is the company from a communication standpoint? What suite of tools are they using? How well are these tools integrated with one another? Consider: calendar, chat, email, and project management at the very minimum.
  2. Does the team seem to be using all of the same tools and doing so effectively? How do these tools compare to similar tools on the market? How do these tools affect productivity and employee satisfaction? Note: This assignment requires interviews and surveys of significant internal stakeholders at the company.
  3. Is there a cheat sheet when it comes to communication and project management at the company? If so, review the manual and provide recommendations on updates based on what you’ve learned from the company personnel. If not, produce a rough draft of the manual or cheat sheet and review it with your project managers.
  4. Provide the company with a proposal including the analysis of the status quo of communication in the company and thoroughly examine recommendations for future improvement.

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  Automation Assessment & Recommendations

  1. What suite of tools is the company currently using? How well are these tools integrated with one another?
  2. How can the company be better automating certain processes to improve productivity?
  3. Find 2-3 areas that could use automation.
  4. Select one area of potential automation to focus on. Build automation or suggest step-by-step process of how automation can accomplish the desired business objective. How would this automation save money and/or time for the business?

Cross Functional Departmental Cooperation Assessment & Recommendations

1. What are the different functional areas?
2. How do they interact with each other?
3. What improvements could you recommend to improve internal interdepartmental communication? Think standing meetings, internal newsletters, new checklists, and other mechanisms that might help improve cross functional department collaborations.

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.

Organizational Structure Assessment

1. How has the company evolved to its current state? What growing pains have they experienced to-date?
2. Visually map the company's current organizational structure.
3. How effective is this layout for a growing organization?
4. What competencies is the company missing that it really needs? What should be the highest priority in terms of hiring?
5. Create a leadership profile highlighting some of the management team’s biggest strengths and weaknesses. Be sure to highlight the areas of the company that can leverage their strengths.

Company Culture Pulse Check

1. Create a survey for a few existing employees to measure company culture and analyze the resulting data: Is there a positive culture? Are there any red flags that the company needs to address?
2. What are their favorite and least favorite parts of the culture? (Consider workspace, benefits, and other perks).
3. Based on the survey results, what are the essentials for company culture? What are the cost implications of keeping these benefits as the company scales?
4. What might not be scalable within the company culture? Does this cause a concern?
5. How might the company need to modify and scale company culture in the future?

New Office Launch

1. Assess the need for a change in office/organizational structure. If a company is preparing to expand operations into another city or add/change working protocol, asses the potential impact.
2. How would company culture be impacted by this addition/change?
3. What are some best practices for opening up new offices? What are some of the major challenges they can expect to wrestle with as they prepare to launch in the new city?
4. What tools and resources can be used in order to efficiently launch and maintain company culture?

Growth Trajectory & Future Org Culture Evaluation

1. How has the company changed over time from an organizational culture perspective? How does the company expect to change/grow over the next 1-3-5 years.
2. Assess the ways this might impact your host organizations. What key investments might need to be considered?
3. What new roles and positions might be critical for them in the future? Where can you find these types of people?

Assess the Diversity and Inclusion Initiatives

1. What types of standards exist around diversity and inclusion? Does this differ internally vs. externally?
2. How does the company’s standards compare with competitors and/or other similar regional companies?
3. What areas can be improved? Is there a plan in place to make improvements?
4. What tactics would you use to make the environment more inclusive? Consider: events, recruitment strategies, trainings, rewards, etc.

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.

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  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?

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  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. 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. 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?

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.

• Raw Materials Audit

  1. What raw materials are being used? Where are they getting the raw materials? How is the relationship with these suppliers? How do current key stakeholders feel about these raw materials and/or suppliers?
  2. What is the cost of raw materials? How does this compare with other suppliers?
  3. Explore potential new raw materials providers. Do any of them present potential benefits for the company (improved quality or reduced cost)?

• Manufacturing to Distribution Process Mapping & Improvements

• 1. How does the company get their products to distributors?
  2. How is the company currently manufacturing the products?
  3. What is the process of preparing the final goods for distribution?
  4. How does the distribution system work? How long does it take to get from destination to destination?
  5. Can any of this be automated or optimized? This about increasing efficiency and/or reducing costs.

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  Distribution System Testing

  1. How does the company distribute their products?
  2. How reliable are the distributors?
  3. How far-reaching are these distributors?
  4. Are there better potential distributors? What about potential new distributor relationships?

New Distribution Partner Assessments

1. Understand the current distribution partner relationships. Map out how products get to end customers and in what quantities.
2. Assess potential new markets for the product. What regions seem the most appealing? Why? Select one region and make the case why this is the most ideal region to enter.
3. What distribution partners would be able to help you reach your selected region? What other products are they distributing?
4. How does entering this new region impact revenues and costs?

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?

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 Talent Skills Mapping

• Organizational Vision, Values, and Goals Temperature Check

• 1. Get up-to-speed on the current business model and organizational structure.
  2. Does the company seem to have a clear organizational vision, mission, and goals? How does this differ when speaking to folks in different departments that are at different levels within the organization?
  3. How does the organization come up with the vision, values, and goals? How does management share this vision with the rest of the organization? Is this an effective process?
  4. Is there a way to measure progress when it comes to adoption of organizational vision, mission, and values?

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  Talent Management Troubleshooting

  1. Get up-to-speed on the current business model and organizational structure.
  2. Interview key stakeholders and learn more about strengths and weaknesses of the current organizational set-up. Be sure to assess whether the organization has addressed any of these challenges previously.
  3. Synthesize data and distill challenges to 2-3 concrete challenge statements that need to be addressed by management. Why do you feel these are the most important based on your research?
  4. How can the organization address these challenges? Are there specific tools or tactics that might be able to help?

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  Talent Optimization

  1. Get up-to-speed on the current business model and organizational structure. Where is the company most productive? Where is the company struggling?
  2. What are the main challenges that exist for struggling parts of the business? How far are they from meeting expectations?
  3. What is the final level of output that is needed?
  4. Map the output gaps.
  5. Map the inputs and processes that will be needed to achieve the desired outcomes.

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  Recruiting Process Assessment

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  Training & Development Program Creation