The Small Business Institute (SBI) at the Anderson School of Management gives students a hands-on experience in meticulously preparing strategic plans, financial analyses and conducting marketing research studies for local small businesses and non-profit organizations.
An inaugural study of SBI was conducted by the Mid-Region Council of Governments (MRCOG) between 2014 and 2015. According to the results, the institute is responsible for an increase of $8.28 million in personal income and the creation of 195 direct and indirect jobs across the state.
Director of SBI Stacy Sacco said he comes from a numbers background, and was eager to have a study conducted on the outcome of the high probability that these local businesses followed any recommendations from their student-made strategic marketing plans.
“It’s academia, but this crosses the line. We’re helping local communities,” Sacco said, giving credit to the student teams involved. “You hang out with them, you see it. You see one of those reports, you go, ‘damn, this is good stuff. It’s so good, we won awards. We won against those schools.’"
"I love that there’s this success story.”
SBI is a national program with a slightly different marketing strategy in New Mexico because of the local non-profit organizations that dominate well over half of the workforce here.
“Non-profits have a slightly more complicated role because they have customers who use their service and then they have clients who fund their service and they’ve got to keep both of those groups happy,” Associate Professor and Business Administration Dimitri Kapelianis said.
Earlier this year, a student team supervised by Kapelianis and team leader Alex Mansfield won third-place honors in the Graduate/Specialized category for their extensive work to improve business for the local organization "Explora! Science Center and Children’s Museum."
“Every project is different,” Kapelianis said. “They key thing is for students to kind of listen very carefully and say, 'okay these are kind of the issues that’s going on here. Let’s tackle them.'”
Kapelianis and his diligent students have won three years in a row at national competitions and understand what it takes for a successful strategic marketing plan, He described the beginning stages as “detective work.”
“You gotta listen very carefully and go, 'yeah, that’s kind of a symptom of the problem and this kind of looks like an unrelated symptom, too,' but (if) you go down a deeper level of analysis, you’ll see that there’s actually a deep root cause (of the) problem that’s generating all of these symptoms. (If) you just treat the symptoms, other symptoms will pop up,” he said. “You’ve actually gotta go one level down and kind of try and get to the root cause of what’s going on.”
Professor Adjunct Holly Hitzemann won third place just last year in the Graduate/Specialized category for their project for American Realty. She said she is excited about a new class available to students this fall that will provide business students further opportunities.
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“The Special Topics course, MGMT 490 – SBI Business Plans will focus on providing business plans to local firms which address their organizational challenges and/or opportunities,” she said.
The class will meet on Fridays, 9:30 a.m. to noon for the first three weeks and then meet as needed informally, Hitzemann said. Formal meetings will be held with clients to discuss their problems, hopes for the future, concerns or anything that can benefit a strategic plan to better the business.
SBI does charge a small business fee for their services, which goes into a fund used mostly for trips to these annual competitions, explained Sacco.
“If we want to participate, it’s a pretty thick rule book. These books submitted can be up to 100 pages, so a lot of the teams will make it 100 pages. That’s 30 pages of major content, like any other report in class, lots of appendices, reports and studies. These are mostly graduate students so it’s a very different level of work,” Sacco said.
Hitzemann said she knows what it takes to win and provides insight through the course.
“The student teams will meet several times with the SBI clients to understand their specific situation and industry,” she said. “The course will provide students with real world experience writing a business plan and provide an opportunity for each team to enter their final report in the SBI National Project of the Year Competition for cash prizes.”
SBI not only benefits the community, but the students who stay diligent and dedicated to success.
“The SBI project has been cited by many students as being one of the most rewarding of their academic careers – a chance to apply theory and support the local business community,” Hitzemann said. “This opportunity provides students with a solid notch on their resume and more confidence after graduation when the job hunt begins.”
Joining the program requires discipline, hard-work, and presents real life-changing lessons, she said. Students must develop true interest in the problems and show determination to find solutions.
“Perhaps the most significant lesson students have had to learn through working with clients is that it is really hard to run a business,” Hitzemann said. “I founded a firm which grew substantially both nationally and internationally – and never felt the process was 'easy.' When students work closely with the clients they become aware of the myriad of tasks needing attention everyday – and how challenging it can be to address each one well.”
