Endless group meetings. Countless presentations. 100-page business plans. It’s not the agenda of a corporate executive, just the tasks in the Palm Pilot of a typical Boston University School of Management junior.
As part of required curriculum for all SMG students, the New Product project requires teams of five to seven students to invent a product and create a fictitious start-up company to design, market and sell it. This project is the backbone of the ‘Cross-Functional Core,’ a National Curriculum Award-winning program that integrates the study of marketing, finance, operations and information systems in the first semester of junior year, according to its course description.
Throughout the semester, teams face various deadlines and presentations while creating their ultimate goal of a business plan. Most teams meet every week day to prepare for these challenges, and delegate responsibility among functions. Tasks include every imaginable detail of starting a company and launching a product, from researching its potential industry to predicting sales results and seeking investors’ capital.
The project culminates in the spring with the ‘SMG-AT’T Best Plan Competition,’ which allows the top three finalists to present their business plans before a panel of judges comprised of AT’T executives and SMG professors. The winning team receives $1,000 and the runners-up receive $100 AT’T phone cards.
Professor Jonathan Hibbard, course coordinator and marketing professor, said the underlying course, labeled SM323, ‘is one of the key elements differentiating the BU’s School of Management undergraduate curriculum from other programs.’
SMG Dean Louis Lataif stressed that the fundamental strength of the program over that of other business schools is its notion of ‘thinking systematically,’ achieved by integrating different business tasks through the Crossfunctional Core. He said this program, which was developed in the mid 1990s during the revamping of the undergraduate curriculum, explains the ‘practical – and often unintended – effects of individual management decisions.’
‘[Students] learn to think of the whole, not just the pieces – to think like leaders, not simply managers,’ Lataif said.
Linda Boulden
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