Checking in on 2010's Recommendations

One of the downsides of MBA projects is that one rarely gets to see the outcome of a recommendation. For example, I've had the opportunity to compete in many case competitions, where the "recommendations" are merely academic exercises and will never come to fruition. I've also had internships in which I made strategic recommendations that would be implemented so far down the road it was hard to tell what affect they would have.

As a member of 2010 GLOBASE Peru, my team worked with a metal fabricator in Lima, focusing on many sectors - education, health care, mining etc. The experience was fantastic, but as the team left we wondered if any of the recommendations we made would ever be implemented and if so what impact they would have - be it positive or negative.

As a member of 2011 GLOBASE Peru, I was fortunate enough to have these questions answered. My team is working with the same client we worked with last year and yesterday, on our first full day in Lima, we were able to visit his factory, which was bustling. As we toured his offices we noticed some new faces. Our client had implemented our recommendations from 2010; to focus efforts on the mining sector, and hire a sales person to solely focus efforts on this sector. In fact, our client had hired not one, but two sales people.

These new hires and renewed focus on mining have resulted in many new sales, which have necessitated hiring more factory workers. It became very evident that last year's GLOBASE efforts had in fact met the mission of GLOBASE - Global Business through Social Enterprise.

By helping the President of a company align his strategic efforts we were able to assist in an increase in sales which in turn resulted in job creation. It was a great feeling to see our work pay off for so many people, and gave me renewed confidence in our efforts this year. I have no doubt that all of the 2011 GLOBASE teams will find an equal amount of success with their projects this year.

All good things must come to an end

It was a bitter sweet moment when I placed my foot back on American soil. I was happy to be returning home to see family, yet I already missed the food, weather and people I met in Peru.

GLOBASE was an amazing experience to take my MBA skills and apply them to a business in Peru. Working with Mili Blume and her staff was a mutually beneficial experience. I learned about the Peruvian business climate, exportation strategies, and how businesses compete on a local level. Hopefully, Mili benefited from our consulting recommendations in attending trade shows, e-commerce, and inventory management. I cherish my relationship with Mili and hope to remain in touch with her for a very long time.

Finally, I cannot forget to mention the two highlights of my trip; Machu Pichu and Paragliding. I am forever thankful for the opportunity to see one of the 7 Wonders of the World as well as having my heart beat through my shirt while floating 300 feet above the ground below.

The next time I got to Peru, I will bring my wife and consider buying only a 1 way ticket!

A Picture is worth...

I can write for days about my experience here in Peru. In lieu of boring you; take a look at these six thousand words:

To All the Single Ladies:

Sunday is the best day to find a fiancee. This is according to Selena, our tour guide in Cusco and Machu Picchu. We met a very nice family of locals dressed in local attire. The women, both named Susan, were carrying three babies and had yellow flowers in their hats. As Selena explained, the color of the flowers signifies that they are married. White flowers signify that a woman is single, but not necessarily a virgin. It's like a really big wedding ring, or lack thereof. The locals can go to Machu Picchu for free on Sundays, so they occasionally do. And if they are having a good day, they find a fiancee. All of us GLOBASE-ers had a pretty great day, but I don't think any of us will be switching to the yellow flowers because of our expedition. 

Guess who?

Our hotel hosted a surprise guest for a private party tonight...Marc Anthony, a.k.a. Mr. Jennifer Lopez. Although he was here in our hotel, we had a scheduled event to meet one of our distinguished alum. I must admit, meeting Marc Anthony would have been nice, but we had a great time meeting Alphonso Brazzini, a Kelley School of Business alum from 1969. Mr. Brazzini is the owner of the JW Marrriott here in Lima. Senor Brazzini is an amazing host and shared many of his personal stories with us. His hotel is the best in Lima and has hosted President Bush on several occasions. As a matter of fact, Colin Powell was staying at this hotel on the day of September 11th. Spending the evening with Mr. Brazzini at his beautiful hotel is another example of the great time we are having in Lima, Peru.



BTW, you can check out the JW Marriott in Lima here:

http://www.marriott.com/hotels/travel/limdt-jw-marriott-hotel-lima/

Why we are here

Although this is spring break, the real reason we are here is for our GLOBASE project. GLOBASE is a course that matches up a small Peruvian company with MBA students from Kelley. Yesterday we met with Apomipe, which is a non profit agency that serves rural companies in Peru. We had a presentation from Inter Cooperation which is a division of Apomipe which specifically works with natural resources in Peru. You can see more about them here:



http://www.apomipe.org.pe/contenidos/que_es_apomipe.php



My team is working with a silver jewelry manufacturer, Mili Blume. I will fill in the details about her shop later today. For now, check out her website at:



http://www.miliblume.com/



After Apomipe, we decided to go back to the hotel to change clothes and then depart for dinner. Several members of our group found several restaurant choices about 1/2 mile away. The weather was great, so we decided to walk instead of taking a taxi. After watching a beautiful sunset over the Pacific we decided to eat at Magoe's restaurant. The restaurant was situated high on a cliff overlooking the ocean. We couldn't ask for a better location.



The group all ordered the local drink favorite-a Pisco. I am not sure what is was made of, however it was quite tasty. Dinner was a variety of ceviche, calamari, and kabobs. The food was by far the freshest you could imagine. I also became aquanted with Cusquenos, the local beer-similar to Bud Light.



After dinner, we decided to make a "quick" stop at the casino. The interesting part about the casino is that they do not accept soles (the local currency), they only accepted American dollars. It really didn't matter because I only ended up donating my $25 to the Peruvian economy.



Next up...the details from Mili Blume. Buenos tardes!

Lo siento...

"Lo siento, digame in ingles por favor." These were my first words when we landed in Peru. I was apologizing to someone for my lack of understanding because they were speaking too fast in spanish. Stepping foot onto the South American continent for the first time was great. After a 6 1/2 hour flight, I am happy to be off the airplane.

After spending 40 minutes in immigration, we loaded a bus ride to our hotel. Our tour guide, Ralph, shared a few intersting facts along the way; Lima is home to 9 million people (that's 1/3 of the entire population of Peru), it never rains in Lima, and Lima is directly on the coast of the Pacific Ocean. Travling through Lima I noticed several familiar signs including KFC, Papa John's, Citibank, and Starbuck's (are they everywhere?)


The hotel is great-free WIFI, nice stores, and a great bar/lounge. I am thankful to be on this trip and I look forward to the next 9 days...until next time, Adios!

Peru At Last!

I still can't believe that we're actually going. March arrived before I knew it ever could, but it seems like a long time since last August when I decided to join the GLOBASE planning team.

My desire to do a project like this dates back much further than August. Back in 2005, I spent some time teaching English in Africa. As with any trip like that, you go into it thinking that your life will probably be changed in some way. My family likely feared that I'd stay over there and I worried that I might not want to go back into business when I returned. Interestingly, neither of those changes occurred with me.

One of my main take-a-ways from the experience was that my personal volunteer efforts couldn't actually make that much of an impact. The areas of Kenya and Ghana where I lived needed better education and economic development on a broad scale before the situation could be improved. I knew that I would be a much better use once I could offer more sustainable aid...

Fast forward almost four years...

After Africa, I returned to my job at a software company. I really enjoyed my job and was privileged to coach high school basketball on the side too, which helped satisfy my desire to include social service in my life.

My first year of business school was so busy that I barely had a chance to realize I missed coaching and something was missing in my life. By the spring of that year (last year), I started to look for that next opportunity to get involved in a challenging service project. I looked into the idea of taking MBA's to Ghana but just ran out of time to plan it.

I then heard that Tania and Monica were creating a new program focused on providing service to entrepreneurs in developing countries... I was immediately interested.

As soon as we returned from our summer internships in the fall, Tania and Monica began to recruit additional people for the leadership team. I quickly expressed interest and joined the team.

Since then, the leadership team has been creating and adapting a social enterprise focused program with the goal of helping entrepreneurs in developing countries. We are joined by 15 very talented first-years, 1 PhD student, a faculty advisor and a videographer. The last 6 months have been eventful, but we're finally here.

I look forward to sharing my side of the experience...