by Matthew Felske

February 13, 2025

Nowadays, improving your Boutique Employability is more important than ever, especially for younger people. I had never thought of increasing mine prior to taking my international business course, but after learning more about it, I was able to improve it throughout the semester.

During my second year, I was assigned a semester-long project for my international business course where myself, and seven other members of my team had to consult a company on their options for going global. This was a daunting task, as I had never done something quite like this before, and at the beginning of the year I felt that I hardly knew anything about international business.

When it came to choosing the company, one of the international students from Russia who was in my group offered to do a hotel called, Valo Hotel City, since she knew the CEO. Her knowing the CEO facilitated communication between our group and the company, and allowed for us to get a better understanding of what the company’s goals were.

My Experience

As I said previously, the company that I worked with was Valo Hotel City, located in Saint Petersburg, Russia. There are two different departments in Valo, there is a construction department that constructs all of the buildings used, and the management department which is the actual hotel part. In Saint Petersburg, Valo has eight buildings which all serve different purposes. Two of the buildings are apartments which people can buy or rent to live in, two of the buildings are dedicated to the operation of the hotel, and as of right now, the other four buildings are preparing to start operation in Summer 2023.

I personally did not know much about the hotel industry, the country Valo was in, and the countries Valo was considering moving into, going into the case, so I was looking forward to learning more about those topics. I was first able to do this when  I researched the hotel industry in the United Arab Emirates, where I looked at the size of the market, growth, competitors, and more. Along with researching the hotel industry in the UAE, I also researched cultural differences between Russia and Turkey, and gave suggestions on what Valo should do differently if they were to move to Turkey. The last thing I worked on for the case was the implementation strategy, where I analyzed the company’s strengths, looked at all of the options for entry, then decided which entry mode would be best given all of that information.

My Takeaways on the Experience

I had personally never considered consulting as a career path for myself, but this project was a great introduction into the field nonetheless. The project helped me grasp what consulting is, and helped me invest in my professional, social, and personal capitals.

The capital where I improved most, and the one that I value most currently since I’m about to go on co-op, is the professional one. Despite the professional one being the most helpful short term, investing in all of those capitals will greatly help me in the long term.

Personal Capital

My professional capital increased significantly throughout the semester as I worked on the case. One of the aspects of this case that helped me increase my capital was that I was working with an actual company, and their CEO was the one looking at our work and taking it into consideration. This being said, I had never had an experience like this before as many of my previous academic projects have been me developing the product and service, so there is not much at stake. The stakes being much higher on this project helped me to increase my professionalism, and to assure that my quality of work was satisfactory by of course doing the proper research, then having my group mates go over it as well to ensure accuracy.

Another aspect of this project which helped me increase my professional capital was the fact that I had a large group, which had international students from China and Russia. In a way, there was a slight cultural barrier as there were different cultures working together, so learning to get over those barriers and to find what works best for everyone was a great experience.

Social Capital

One of the biggest regrets during this project was not directly reaching out to the CEO of the company. I knew what the CEO wanted, and what direction the company was headed towards, but I feel that if I had actual conversations with the CEO, as opposed to simply being told what the CEO said, I would have been able to better invest myself in the CEO’s wants.

Despite this, I was still knowledgeable on the CEO’s goals, so I was able to research the desired industries and markets, and come to a conclusion as to which one was the best.

Professional Capital

Throughout this case, I was able to enhance my analytical skills many times. I did this through analyzing different cultures, markets, and what actions Valo should take. This analytical experience is something that I will most definitely continue to use in the future since I am going to be a tax analyst for my first co-op, and after that, I would like to go into the financial analysis field.

Another thing that was great about this project was simply being able to tackle another challenge that I hadn’t done before, and I recommend that everyone try a consulting case to invest in their capitals, and to learn more about consulting as a whole.

About the Author

My name is Matthew Felske, and I am currently a second year student at Northeastern University majoring in Business Administration, with a dual concentration in Finance and Business Analytics. 

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