Grad students offer diverse suppliers a better shot at growth

When Frank Meleca, vice president of sales and marketing at Laboratory Products Sales, hired employees in the past, the process took five to six months.

Now Cornell student-consultants are helping him to reduce the hiring time for a new sales rep to three months – and to have a better shot at hiring someone who will increase sales.

“The group took our dream and literally put it into a plan for us,” Meleca said. “How do you take hiring a sales rep from being a crapshoot to being a little bit more odds-in-your-favor? They did that for us. … I’m very thankful.”

Meleca and three other diverse Cornell suppliers listened avidly May 5 as student-consultant teams presented their recommendations on how to expand their businesses. All the companies are owned by women, veterans or underrepresented minorities and supply Cornell with everything from travel services to office interiors.

This is the fourth year that diverse businesses have collaborated with Cornell Procurement Services and BR Consulting, a nonprofit, student-run consulting firm based at the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management. The consultant teams worked for two semesters to come up with solutions to a business problem of the supplier’s choice.

The collaboration meant a win for everyone involved. Cornell Procurement Services paid for the projects, so there was no cost to the suppliers. The students gained valuable experience in real-world consulting. And Cornell partners with better-run vendors.

Read the entire article on the Cornell Chronicle website.