Recently, Sunnyland Outdoor Living worked with MBA students at Southern Methodist University Cox School of Business in Dallas on a business analysis as part of the students’ work to help them earn their degrees.
The students analyzed Sunnyland’s business for an entire semester while asking them questions conducting market research and even “secret shopping” at the store.
At the end, they gave Sunnyland a proposal and showed them the things that they were doing well and things they could improve on. They also helped the retailer analyze its local market and make adjustments to improve business. The best part? It was all free of charge and nearly anyone can do it
Deborah Holt, marketing director at Sunnyland, says tons of schools around the country offer programs and they are looking for partners to work with to earn their MBAs.
“It’s nice because you get an outside perspective, and they’re all professionals,” Holt says. “We had a real estate agent, an HR professional, someone that worked in D.C. in politics. So you get a mix of all these people and they have so many different perspectives. It’s so nice to have those ‘aha’ moments when you get someone else’s perspective.”
So what did they discover?
Holt says Sunnyland asked them to do a complete market analysis for the Dallas-Fort Worth area as they were looking to see how to best position their business in the current market.
“They found that there was a shift in demographics, which we were kind of already seeing from our Google Analytics, and that it’s skewing a little bit younger than it used to be. With that, they gave us some ideas of how we could target a younger demo with different styles and more entry-level furniture. They did a deep dive into that age group and found that they don’t care about warranties as much, they don’t care about brand names as much.”
They even found that there was a shift in ZIP codes that the store was delivering to, which also indicated that older people were moving out and younger people were moving in.
They also did some secret shopping and offered real feedback on how they felt like the store looked and how the salespeople spoke to them or presented themselves.
“They also gave us a few ideas for improving the store layout and how things were set up, how salespeople approach them and more, so it was very helpful. You’re hiring a professional who needs to be doing this work and get it done efficiently because they’re invested in it.”
She adds that these aren’t typical college students; they are people ages 30-60 working on their graduate degrees and they take these projects very seriously.
“They want to be successful themselves so they work hard to come up with some ideas for you, or different ways that you can improve. Even if you only walk away with one or two things, it’s still worth your time.”
