UNC Kenan-Flagler announces expansion of consulting projects to India

MUMBAI, June 25, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The University of North Carolina's Kenan-Flagler Business School announced today the successful completion of its inaugural global business consulting projects in India.

MBA students from UNC Kenan-Flagler and 13 other MBA programs in the U.S., Brazil and China completed 12-week long projects last month provided by three U.S. multinational corporations and an Indian-based multinational as part of the Global Business Project (GBP) consulting program. GBP gives students the opportunity to apply what they learn in the classroom to real business problems with real corporations. While the GBP program, created and led by UNC Kenan-Flagler, has focused on China and Brazil the past five years, this is the first time it has been applied in India.

With the help of GBP Partner school, the Indian Institute of Management – Bangalore (IIMB), four MBA student teams provided recommendations for business challenges faced by GE Healthcare, Westinghouse Electric, PPG and Dorf Ketal.

• GE Healthcare tasked the GBP team to help them improve after-sales service related to medical equipment sales into rural India.
• Westinghouse Electric Company, a nuclear power plant design company, asked the GBP team to explore strategic options for expansion in India.
• Asian PPG (APPG) is an Indian joint venture between PPG of the U.S. and Asian Paints, India's largest paint manufacturer. The company tasked the students to look at margin improvement opportunities.
• Dorf Ketal (India based specialty titanate and zirconate chemical producer) asked the GBP team provide recommendations to help reduce costs in their current supply chain.

"GBP lends credence to the saying 'Practice makes perfect.' Students practice global consulting, in teams that work virtually over the Internet for ten weeks as well as face-to-face in the GBP country, for two weeks," noted Lynne Gerber, GBP director and director of action-based learning at UNC Kenan-Flagler.  "They receive guidance from a faculty advisor as well as from a corporate mentor, who help each student learn what it takes to get it right this time, and in the future."

All four companies who engaged GBP teams said the teams met or exceeded their expectations across all four assessment dimensions including integration of language and culture into the solutions, quality of work, how actionable the recommendations are and overall value of the team's work to the client, Gerber added.

About The University of North Carolina's Kenan-Flagler Business School

Consistently ranked one of the world's best business schools, UNC Kenan-Flagler is known for its extraordinary learning experiences and innovative research, and developing results-driven leaders who use business as an engine for global change. UNC Kenan-Flagler prepares people at every stage of their careers to manage successfully in the global business environment through its five MBA programs (full-time residential, Evening and Weekend MBA Programs for Executives, global OneMBA® and online MBA@UNC); Master of Accounting; undergraduate business; PhD; non-degree Executive Development; and the UNC Business Essentials certificate program. Its Frank Hawkins Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise helps business and government tackle problems with impact on society through its operations at UNC and in Bangkok.

SOURCE University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School