“The prospect of defining my personal strategy and mapping out my career path fills me with renewed purpose and motivation.”
The BE-EDGE experience allowed me to find the source of the problem in my family business. After graduation, I went back to my country and applied the knowledge into a practical issue. For example, the consulting case revealed that the culture was critical for my organization – more than other management components. Though I still had a long way to learn and needed to gain more experience, I relied on the BE-EDGE experience to establish myself as a transformational force. I introduced a task force effort to transform the culture, and together with my team, we made it successfully. The fundamental and practical knowledge we have learned from Dr. Ivy was the greatest power and a lifetime skill for us to be the survivor in the future, and it also helped me establish my own voice as a leader.
Henry / “JL Cambridge International, Inc. (Taiwan branch)” Case
Working on the HC consulting case gave me confidence to seek strategic partnerships in my own career. As a commercial real estate agent, I have used the skills learned from the case to form alliances with institutional real estate companies and investors. Working with foreign investors and international companies with an interest in US assets, I have found it very helpful to consider the frameworks discussed in the case when working with my clients.
Ali Choucri / HC Security and Investments” Case
On the BE-EDGE project investment to my personal capital:
While earning my graduate degree at Northeastern, I applied and expanded on my 5+ years of professional experience and growth within the field of Marketing. A crucial pillar of my learning experience, and what makes me the perfect candidate for my role in advertising can be attributed to a consulting case that myself and a group of colleagues completed for the software product LastPass, a password management and enterprise single-sign on solution. I played a key role in tailoring an international market entry strategy for LastPass, and due to the emphasis that needed to be placed on localizing a historically domestic product in a new foreign country, I am confident that I have the skills to work in a role that allows me to apply this same tenacious and thoughtful approach to advertising campaigns.
Ultimately, this class exceeded my expectations for how I personally wanted to use what I learned to help my career. It helped me become more confident in what I eventually want to do with my career, which is to tailor informed marketing campaigns for different brands and companies domestic or international.
John / “LastPass” Consulting Case
Regarding the semester market entry consulting project, I found the experience to be quite unique because I have never been required to conduct a research project before, no less one that involves working with a real company and providing genuine recommendations for its operations and business model.
Besides the fact that I was able to apply information that I learned in the class and gained an understanding of how grueling collaboration can be at times in the workplace, I also enhanced my social and professional capital by learning how to apply my acquired knowledge to a realistic business setting, communicate effectively in a business context, and present a convincing analysis for a dilemma faced by a business.
What’s next?
I plan to utilize this capital by fostering relationships with as many people as possible in a working environment, communicating consistently with those in command, and offering a critical global-minded perspective when dealing with large-scale issues. I hope to implement these skills in my repertoire in order to pursue a successful career in the business sector, and I plan to further investigate world business affairs as well as experiment with my newly acquired competencies in future courses at Northeastern that require realistic evaluations rather than hypothetical solutions.
Joshua / “Threshold.world” Consulting Case
The case writing competition was a very rewarding experience, not just for me, but for those who were involved in the case itself. When we look at an organization on the outside, we actually have no clue of what devious behaviors may lurk on the inside from the perspective as an employee. As a future entrepreneur and CEO, I have learned to never dismiss my employees’ concerns. I believe that the "Making Your Case" experience with Dr. Ivy has allowed me to grow professionally and personally and has given me technical writing skills that will become sharper with time. From here, I will be starting my own corporation 4Q2015. I also want to become a business consultant to Disabled Veterans, like myself, who want to start and grow a business but don’t know how. I would also help existing businesses succeed by isolating organizational issues that may cause dysfunctional conflict.
Edward / “Genesis HealthCare LaPlata” Case
I was thinking about my capstone course at Northeastern University a couple of days ago and thought of you. I really enjoyed your class and I remember mentioning that I wanted to go to Columbia University in my final "personal strategy" assignment. Thank you for making us do this "professional core" exercise and developing a case for GM Développement: Inc. It was an important factor in helping me visualizing getting in Columbia and graduating with my master's in Real Estate Development from there. Thank you again, Dr. Julia!
Josephine / “GM Développement: Inc.: A Partnership of Love and Business” Case
I think it was a wonderful idea of Dr. Ivy to let us choose a consulting case to work on for the master course, especially in biotech. The industry isn’t clear on how someone could move from a site to a corporate position and with an MBA that’s where students really want to be. The professional capital perspective, this case helped me outline my biopharma trajectory. It also helped me improve in my love for solving problems and collaboration to learn different perspectives.
On the social capital investment, I find people’s stories to be fascinating and working with four wonderful people who I would never have had the opportunity to work with otherwise was very interesting. I feel that when working on a project, if you can understand where someone is coming from or how they are looking at the same problem, then we can solve the issues of the problem more efficiently than if we were just strong-arming our own perspective.
What’s next?
I think I’m going to use this case in interviews when I move on from my current role. It covers a variety of situations from the PESTEL model that affect a drug going into market or a company building a facility in a country. Understanding social implications also help when being audited by different regulating countries while being a US manufacturer. Being aware of their values, norms, and beliefs will allow me to not make an error that could be seen as unprofessional.
Jenn / “Novo Nordisk” Consulting Case
The consulting project was yet another way for me to get a hands-on experience of applying the concepts I have learned, especially considering my group chose to explore a very close family friend’s company. This meant that I was responsible for gathering the necessary data from my connection and I had a large role of responsibility for the project. This alone taught me how to properly communicate with high-level executives of a company, despite me knowing the said person for my entire life and being as close as family.
It really showed me how the business world operates outside of class and the knowledge I had learned in class helped me outline the project in greater detail and it gave me a solid foundation to pitch the project from. By the end of the project, I really felt as though I worked for a consulting company on this project. Ultimately, I felt that the project was a great way to demonstrate the importance that all the little, minute details that we explored in class and that all of the little things must be accounted for in order to successfully evaluate the “going global” decision. In my future, I can see myself referencing this project.
Nicholas / “Threshold.world” Consulting Case
“Every student should take as it forces you to identify your current career options against your aspirational career options and finetune your reasons, rationale, and step to get to where you want to end up.”
