School of Management students provide support to businesses looking to export

Small- and medium-sized businesses from New York’s Southern Tier have a valuable asset to assist them in achieving their exporting goals: students from Binghamton University’s School of Management (SOM).

Begun in February 2018, the ExportNY “Launch into the Global Marketplace” program provides businesses from the region the knowledge and resources needed to export their products.

As she was developing the curriculum for the program, Elena Iankova, founding director of the Center for International Business Advancement (CIBA) and an adjunct assistant professor in SOM, saw an opportunity for collaboration between the participants of the program and Binghamton University students in her global business risk-management class.

As participating businesses developed their own executable export plan during the program, SOM students would provide research and consultation support. The collaboration would lead to benefits for both the students and business executives in the program.

“It’s a two-way street,” Iankova said. “The students provide the companies research assistance and consultation, and the companies provide the students real-life experiential learning opportunities, helping them develop their management research and consulting skills.”

The beginning of the program coincided with the beginning of the new semester, so Iankova invited participating businesses to present their exporting goals and the international markets they were targeting to the students. She then assigned each group of students to a specific participating business and target market. The groups conducted research and presented recommendations throughout the semester.

“Everything is becoming global,” said Nino Kvaraia, an MBA student in the class. “Having a global mindset is very important. You need to be aware of what’s going on in the world around you in order to succeed.”

Kvaraia, who is from the country of Georgia, said she was drawn to Iankova’s class because it was directly related to her career goals. She hopes to one day start her own import/export business and wanted the hands-on experience the class promised to provide.

“This project has been very interesting. It’s a great way to find out what kind of implications exporting has, as well as learning about the challenges businesses of this size face as they explore this option,” she said. “Import/export can be perceived as tedious because there is so much involved. But it’s very important that you have everything perfect.”

Exploring international markets is what drew Daniel Shuster, a master’s in accounting student, to the class.

“In my recent internship, we dealt with teams in other countries, so we had to learn about how business is conducted in those countries, as well as how to deal with those risks,” he said. “It was so interesting, and in today’s business world you never know where around the globe you’ll end up, so it’s important to know these things.”

The participating New York companies for the inaugural run of the program were CMP Advanced Mechanical Solutions from Binghamton, Awestruck Ciders from Sidney and Cascun Farm from Greene.

“We think it’s important to the local economy to expand our view of the market on a global scale,” said Patti Wilcox, co-founder of Awestruck Ciders. “We’re fascinated by this idea of an international cultural exchange, and we think doing so commercially is very valuable.”

Awestruck Ciders produces hard ciders made from New York state apples. By targeting the South Africa market, Wilcox believes exporting could open up new opportunities.

“There is a huge spectrum of knowledge needed, and having access to that is invaluable,” she said.

And by having access to Iankova’s class, the participating businesses have an opportunity to learn from teams of outstanding SOM students.

“You know that exporting isn’t going to be easy, but you don’t really realize how many risks there are just to get something out of this country,” Shuster said. “We have an opportunity to help real businesses by looking into these risks and sharing our knowledge with them.”

Iankova said the feedback from the participants in regards to the student involvement has been very positive. She said the student research was referenced multiple times in the final presentations and export plans.

“We’ve gotten so much information from this program,” said William Hoover, product realization manager at CMP Advanced Mechanical Solutions. “And we’ll take this information back to our company and it’ll help us make better decisions when it comes to these opportunities.”

As for opportunities, Iankova’s class is a testament to how the School of Management utilizes experiential learning to prepare students for future careers.

“Companies are always looking to hire people with global mindsets,” Kvaraia said. “This class is a great example of how the School of Management helps us develop that mindset by giving us hands-on experiences.”