Saunders consulting group helps local businesses

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A. Sue Weisler

Saunders Student Consulting at RIT enables companies to get a challenging business issue solved by top MBA and MS finance students from Saunders College of Business who work independently of the academic calendar.

Saunders Student Consulting (SSC) at Rochester Institute of Technology enables companies to get a challenging business issue solved by top MBA and MS finance students from Saunders College of Business who work independently of the academic calendar.

“Companies in need of assistance can ‘test drive an MBA,’” said David Laluk, program manager of Saunders Student Consulting. “It’s a customized service for local businesses where MBA and MS finance students gain valuable work experience on actual company problems, while companies benefit from a disciplined and collaborative project consulting team.

“The cost for our services is very low, and student consultants also utilize the RIT connection—Venture Creations and the Simone Center for Student Innovation and Entrepreneurship—that offer the advantage of tapping into university business and technical experts.”

Disha Manocha and ChanakyaDev Alapati, who both hail from India and will be graduating in May 2015 from the Saunders College MBA program, have been working on several research projects—from a health care startup, to market research for Xerox, and research on the “Financial Habits of Millennials” for a financial advisor firm.

“SSC provides an opportunity of an extended experience of working with multinational companies, small business units and startups,” said Alapati. “Working with mentors and industry experts, with years of experience under their belts, gave us the ability to find the core issues and lead clients into new ways of thinking.”

Vanteon Corp., a local electronic systems design and engineering firm, recently enlisted students to help them find new suppliers to support their growth.

“Vanteon was looking for local companies we could partner with, whose capabilities could complement our own in a way that would ultimately add value to our end customers as a singular solution,” said Vanteon President and COO David Wagner.

“The service provided by the Saunders Student Consulting team allowed us to stay focused on our core business, and to utilize the market information they gathered to build local business partnerships that ultimately led to a better solution for our customers.”

For more information on Saunders Student Consulting at RIT, contact David Laluk at 585-748-6297 or dlaluk@saunders.rit.edu.

Note: Saunders College of Business is one of nine colleges at Rochester Institute of Technology and accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business International (AACSB). Enrolling more than 1,000 undergraduate and graduate students, Saunders College works in partnership with RIT’s entrepreneurial Venture Creations incubator and the Albert J. Simone Center for Student Innovation and Entrepreneurship to integrate business education with RIT’s world-leading technical and creative programs. Graduate programs include Master of Business Administration, MBA-Accounting, Executive MBA and master’s degrees in finance and administration.