Experiential Learning Program Yields Fresh Ideas for Executives, Hands-on Experience for MBA Students

When Cisco Systems was looking for innovative and cost-effective ways to market its products, the company turned to the Haas School for an influx of fresh ideas. The school's Haas@Work program dispatches teams of Berkeley MBA students to tackle just such competitive challenges as the one faced by Cisco.

To better link the Silicon Valley network and communications technology company to its lucrative but fragmented small- to medium-sized business market, the Haas students suggested a Match.com-like "dating portal" connecting Cisco's resellers to these businesses. The recommendation went live early this summer.

Haas@Work clients to date include:

Cisco Systems
The Walt Disney Company
Lam Research
SunPower

Haas@Work focuses on teaching students to implement innovations in actual companies. To date, these companies have included SunPower, Lam Research, and Disney in addition to Cisco.

How it works
Once a company partners with Haas@Work, students begin several weeks of in-depth preparation and research. Guided by faculty members and external partners with industry and subject expertise, the students build a foundation of knowledge about the company and market conditions that will spark ideas.

For example, students researching challenges for Disney worked with Professor Rashi Glazer, co-director of the Center for Marketing and Technology, while those preparing to work with Lam Research partnered with Andrew Isaacs, executive director of the Management of Technology Program. Catherine Wolfram, co-executive director of the Center for Energy and Environmental Innovation, and Steven Tadelis, associate dean for strategic planning, guided students in their study of SunPower's challenges.

This work culminates in a full-day workshop at company headquarters, where the brainpower of 40 part-time and full-time MBA students is dedicated entirely to generating ideas and honing recommendations. Five student teams--constructed to achieve an optimal combination of creativity, skills, experience, and perspective--partner with company employees to tackle different aspects of a key company challenge.

Students propose their recommendations directly to the company's top executives, who deliberate them on the spot and immediately identify the best ideas. But, as Adam Berman, executive director of the Institute for Business Innovation, notes, "The goal is not a final report, as in most consulting projects, but an opportunity for a smaller student team to then spend 100 days turning the top recommendations into concrete results."

Building out Cisco's Online Strategy
For Cisco, those fast-tracked student recommendations included the creation of product Wikis, personalization widgets for customers, and a Match.com-like "dating portal" for uniting Cisco resellers with small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). Eight students from the Evening & Weekend MBA Program readied some of the ideas for piloting with customers during the first quarter of 2008. The dating portal and personalization widget sites went live in summer 2008.

Michael Metz, Cisco's senior director of web marketing and strategy, sponsored the Haas@Work program and, together with other executives from Cisco, selected the team's top recommendations.

"The students were astounding. It was like cavalry coming over the hill," remembers Metz. "The students extended the kind of energy and enthusiasm that we hire people for, and Cisco is considering hiring some of them."

Metz was also impressed with the creativity and the outside perspectives the students brought to the project: "We've been working on this for over a year, and the students came in and understood right away what we were trying to do, and in a creative way expanded on it."

A New Revenue Stream for SunPower
Another group of Berkeley MBA students generated recommendations for SunPower, a $1-billion solar-technology provider. At the November 2007 on-site, students were challenged to assist SunPower in generating new revenue streams by leveraging its new performance monitoring system.

Company executives chose six recommendations to pursue. One proposal would make use of viral marketing and web-based communities to increase awareness of SunPower offerings and another would engage valued consumer evangelists to spread the word about their positive experiences with SunPower, through parties at their homes or sharing information on their energy usage.

"I decided to participate in Haas@Work because I have a tremendous interest in the space SunPower works in, but more importantly, I knew that I would be presenting to C-suite members of the company," says full-time student Michael Martin, MBA 09. "What was most rewarding was being able to work side-by-side with my classmates in a real world, tension-filled situation where we ultimately produced some great deliverables. We weren't discussing theory. We were doing the real thing, and we were succeeding."

Already a market leader in the US, SunPower decided that the company needed to expand its new homes business internationally. SunPower's Director of Business Development Ed Roseberry asked one of the student implementation teams to research potential markets around the world and admits he was positively surprised at the level of detail of the team's research. "The solar industry is booming worldwide, but SunPower needs to focus on key markets in order to realize continued growth," Roseberry said. "To have people of this caliber come in and help us identify the best markets was of significant benefit for us."

A Growing Program
"Haas@Work gave me an opportunity to think out of the box," says Saranya Babu, a 2008 graduate of the Evening & Weekend MBA Program who worked with Cisco. "I had the chance to learn the internal workings and culture of a big corporation and actually put my creativity to practical use by helping Cisco deal with a pressing business issue."

Berman notes that after five successful partnerships, the number of Haas@Work projects is expected to double in 2008-2009.

"It makes sense that the program is so popular," says Berman. "Students gain exposure to corporate executives and the opportunity to work collaboratively on an actionable business challenge, while companies get an infusion of fresh ideas and the opportunity to scope out prospective employees and to generate concrete results in just a few months."