Release Date: Wednesday, July 20, 2000

TERRY COLLEGE MBAs TO OFFER NO-COST CONSULTING SERVICE TO BUSINESSES DURING FALL SEMESTER

Guest column written for the Athens Daily News/Banner-Herald
By Dr. Christine Riordan

ATHENS, Ga. — Companies needing to tackle a special project like a customer survey or an employee retention study can now turn to the Terry College of Business. After graduation, many MBA students at the University of Georgia often take jobs with management consulting firms. But businesses in Atlanta and north Georgia can take advantage of the students' expertise for next to nothing while they are still on campus.

The Terry College offers an organizational consulting program for its advanced MBA students. Students are placed into six-person teams to address a variety of organizational issues such as: conducting employee or customer surveys; examining customer, supplier and competitor relationships for businesses; or evaluating and making recommendations about job design, employee motivation, employee turnover, work teams, work performance, competitive strategy or market-entry strategies.

The MBA teams work under direct faculty supervision, and the companies must sign off on any project the students execute. At the end of the projects, each consulting team provides its host organization with a detailed written report of the project findings and recommendations. Additionally, the team makes a formal presentation of the results to the organization. There is no fee for the consulting services, except for the costs directly associated with the project, final presentation costs, and the students' travel and meal expenses when visiting the client's site. Previous clients have included the Georgia Secretary of State's office, Chipman-Union, Atlanta Valet, Delta Employees Credit Union, Fulton County School System, Goodwill of Atlanta, and EnRev, among others.

To give you an example of one of the recent successes, Delta Employees Credit Union (DECU) approached the MBA consulting program to take on a project involving its phone system and customer service delivery. DECU had experienced tremendous customer growth, which had increased by 95 percent over 10 years. This growth put a strain on DECU's phone service, leading to complaints by customers. Customer satisfaction was of utmost concern to the management and board of directors at DECU, so they asked their student consultants to: (a) explore the inefficiencies associated with the current phone system, (b) identify barriers to better customer phone service, and (c) provide recommendations for improving the phone system and customer service.

To address these objectives, the MBA team gathered information from a number of sources and through a variety of methods, including structured phone interviews with customers, face-to-face interviews with DECU customer service representatives and management, paper and pencil surveys to off-site customer service representatives, and auditing recorded complaints.

The MBA team provided DECU management with specific recommendations concerning changes to the phone system, staffing, and organization of workflow which all contributed to the complaints in customer service. After the project was complete, Rick Foley, executive vice president and chief financial officer at DECU wrote the MBA team and said, "We at the credit union had some suspicions of the problems and potential resolutions. Your evaluation confirmed the same. In addition, you brought additional insight for remedies that we will actively consider. From our viewpoint, this project is a success and we extend our thanks for a job well done."

In another project, Atlanta Valet Parking Services was concerned with the motivation and performance levels of its employees. Atlanta Valet had about 450 employees and operated 50 parking lots around Atlanta. The MBA team collected information by conducting one-on-one interviews with company executives, focus groups with mid-level managers and written surveys with line employees. With this information, the MBA team provided the executives of Atlanta Valet with a comprehensive picture of their employees' attitudes and concerns about the company. Based on their findings, the team made recommendations to raise employee morale and motivation. Specifically, the team made suggestions about performance reviews, communication and supervisory practices. The team also provided the company with detailed job descriptions and a sample newsletter to improve the lines of communication.

The Terry College is currently seeking companies to sign up for the organizational consulting program. Companies typically selected for inclusion in the consulting program have at least 50 employees and an organizational issue that can be completed within the 15-week fall semester. Company representatives can call to discuss the appropriateness of a project for our consulting program.

The projects will start around August 17 and will be completed by December 8. If you are interested in participating in our program, please contact Dr. Chris Riordan at 706-542-3859 or Dr. Ann Buchholtz at 706-542-9465. The sooner you contact us, the better your chances for participating.

Christine M. Riordan, Ph.D., is a faculty member in the Department of Management and the director of the Institute for Leadership Advancement in the Terry College of Business at the University of Georgia. E-mail: criordan@uga.edu.

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