This past summer, a class of 14 MBA students from the College of Business at Northern Illinois University conducted a consulting project for Sarasota-based consumer products firm, Aqua Mitzer. The MBA students broke into four teams to focus on Aqua Mitzer’s business model, marketing strategy, and operations, and presented their findings in a competition at the end of the class.
After disappointing revenues for a new patent-pending product, the company was looking for innovative solutions. The MBA class project was set up by an Aqua Mitzer investor who is friends with a professor at Northern Illinois University. The vice president of branding and marketing at Aqua Mitzer said, “Despite the firepower on our management and investor team, these young entrepreneurs opened our eyes to some marvelous opportunities. They reinforced ideas we had but hadn’t used. It was a great experience.”
The project was more than simply academic as Aqua Mitzer has since implemented some of the ideas the students came up with, including expanding their market to India. “We hadn’t put India at the top of our list,” said the vice president,“But they showed us a whole market and how to get to the top of that market.”