Bryant students laying groundwork for export growth

Bliss Manufacturing in Pawtucket has been handcrafting inspirational and religious medals, jewelry and other items for more than 100 years.
Now, thanks in part to a partnership with the Bryant University International Business program, those items are for sale in 50 other countries around the world.
Over the past two years, Bliss has tasked groups of Bryant students completing the International Business senior practicum with helping to lay the groundwork for moves into export markets. Each time, the three-student teams researched, gathered and synthesized information that helped open doors to potentially valuable overseas markets, starting with Italy.
“The information they retrieved was very helpful to us in going into the market in Italy,” said CEO Frank Bliss. A second group of students helped prepare a business plan for a move into Mexico and other Latin American countries. “The work they did definitely helped us advance our overseas presence.”
The 6-year-old practicum program was developed by International Business program director Madan Annavarjula as a capstone project required for all graduating seniors.
Gerald Cohen, an international trade specialist at the John H. Chafee Center for International Business at Bryant, said from modest roots of just six companies in 2009, the program has quickly grown in popularity. This past spring semester, more than 20 businesses took part.
In the practicum, teams of three students each are assigned to work with businesses on specific international projects, with oversight from Bryant faculty and staff from the Chafee center. At the end of the semester, they present a written and oral report to both the client and a panel of judges offering specific suggestions for how to enter new markets overseas.
“I like to say it is a win-win-win,” Cohen said. “It’s a win for the student, the client and the university.”
The Rhode Island economy may well be a long-term winner as well. Several companies, such as Bliss, can point to new business opportunities and newly opened international doors as a result of their participation. As word of the program’s effectiveness has spread, Cohen said the school quickly compiled a waiting list of businesses wanting to take part.
With a limited number of students in the IB major – Cohen cites rigorous academic requirements, including overseas study and fluency in at least two languages as reasons why enrollment hasn’t risen more – the program has been expanded to include smaller components in the fall semester and the summer months.
“We made it into a year-round program so we can satisfy the demand tha has built up,” he said. “The more companies hear about the work the students can do, the more demand we expect.”
At keepsake and ornament maker ChemArt in Lincoln, Marketing Manager Allison Houle said four groups of students have now worked on projects there, including a team this spring that was asked to research opportunities in the Japanese market for the company’s Frank Lloyd Wright Jewelry Collection. Students explored the feasibility of expansion into Japan overall and then helped identify possible Japanese distributors.
“We have not yet implemented any of their work, but we do plan to,” Houle said. “Each year we work with the students, we are astonished at the quality and quantity of work they provide. We would recommend the practicum to any local business looking to expand internationally.”
Elena Barkalova was a senior in 2011 when she was part of a team that worked with Natco Products Corp. in West Warwick, helping the manufacturer explore expansion into Mexico.
“We worked with the COO directly, and they let us figure out how to approach the work on our own,” she said. The team found distributors and wholesalers who might be good fits for Natco’s product line. “They gave us a lot of freedom. It was a great experience for us, to put everything we had learned in the classroom to use in the real world.”
Her team won that semester’s competition and during the end-of-project presentations, Barkalova’s professionalism caught the eye of Alex and Ani Group CEO Giovanni Feroce, who offered Barkalova a full-time job before she graduated. “We put in a lot of hard work on the project,” said Barkalova, who is now a senior international business analyst at Alex and Ani, working on overseas projects. “There was a lot of practice, a lot of research and teamwork and team issues to be resolved.
Alex and Ani first utilized the IB practicum program in 2011, gaining assistance for a planned move into Spain. Based in large part on that experience, the company last year announced it would donate $1 million to the International Business program.
At the time, Feroce said the partnership with Bryant had “proven extremely valuable in our global business-expansion strategy.”
While students work closely with Cohen and other advisers at the school, Cheryl Merchant, president and CEO of manufacturer Hope Global in Cumberland, said businesses can maximize the value they get from the student groups by assigning an employee to work closely with the student groups as well.
“Going forward, I plan to have somebody be my eyes and ears and work with them,” she said, noting that Alex and Ani has used that approach with strong results. “If you could take a project and decide, this is really worth it, and dedicate someone to offer hands-on assistance, I think you could get even more value out of it.”
Hope has twice worked with Bryant practicum students and both times received research they could act upon immediately, Merchant said. In fact, one group was busy gathering information on a potential new market when a research phone call nearly turned into a sales call.
“They had to stop the call and hand it off, because they were asking for samples and wanted to place an order,” she said.
Frank Bliss, meanwhile, said he plans to ask the next group of students to help with a planned push deeper into South America, where a large Catholic population represents an attractive market for the firm. He said other businesses with international ambitions should give serious thought to getting involved.
“If somebody is in business and they aren’t getting involved in something like this, they really need to second-guess that,” he said. •

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