Multicultural Consulting Course
   In Partnership with University of Washington Bothell - Business Economic Center
 
     
     
   

2009

Redapt

Founder Dave Cantu and Jamie Rosvall of Redapt Services meet with student team members: Samruth Reddy, Matt Rosenfeld, Gabriella Nagy, Patty Concannon and Joe Gordon. They recommended search engine optimization and additional features to Redapt's website. Rotary mentor John Strathy provided great guidance.

Nature's Pantry

Business owner Pam Hay worked with Meelin Nakata, Shana Greggs, Agatha Lam, Monty Singh and Chai Saeyang on a comprehensive plan for penetrating the organic food market and capitalizing on the excellent raw bar at Nature's Pantry. Mentor Gary Guenther worked intensively with the team.

Amici

Jackson Mason, Brent Soffey, Natasha Ehlers, Amici business owner Ashok Mehta, Kevin Dang and Michelle Liu. The student team provided competitive and market analysis to increase revenues for this upscale Italian restaurant. Mentor Jeff Chen provided great support.

Simplicity

Rotary mentor Jim Hogue gives the thumbs up to Team Simplicity Decor with Marissa Kraus, Jennifer Lynch, Becky Stevens, Hye Mi Cho, Rani Thykkuttahil and Alana Odell. They worked with business owner A. Liengboonlertchai, the Thai American owner of a furniture and interior design retail company. 

2008

Platinum group

Dan Seydel (right) CEO of The Platinum Group and a BCC alum worked with Eliott Davison, Ryan Lee, Joanie Leverett, Jim Hogue (Rotary mentor) and Jere Priebe on a market analysis of the construction training industry.

Signs Now Team

Owners Willy Peters and Sergio Monctezuma (front) work with Anne Schiefley (front), Fendi Wang, John Sonderland, and Constance Blood on a marketing and promotion plan for their SignsNow Seattle store. Chuck Doland was their Rotary mentor.

Lams Seafood

Yen Lam, CEO of Lams Seafood and BCC alum (center) work with Daphne Tai (left front) Rotary mentor, Miyuki Nakamura, Justin Wells, Barbara Peters (Rotary mentor), Deb Grove and Kevin Dagel.

2007

Western Fish

Alex-Hung Tran is the CEO of Western United Fish, a $100 million wholesale fish business which is testing a retail concept. The student team is mentored by David Laub, CPA and Mike Meyers, a financial planner, both from Bellevue Rotary.  Although not all the details can be disclosed, this could be the start of another Starbucks.  Click here to see the TV ad featuring our BCC students.

Clicktoeat

Clickeats.com was founded by Julia May and has mentors James Karr from The Boeing Company and Eric Veal from Siemens. The company hopes to be a portal for restaurant websites and ordering.

Antonia

Aztlan Home Décor (a high-end Mexican art and jewelry business) with owner Antonia Lopez-Vasquez. Team mentors were Christopher Porter (who teaches at the Seattle U entrepreneurship program) and Chuck Doland of CDA Group. Both mentors are members of the Bellevue Rotary which has been a strong supporter of this course.

 

2006

Marketing plan for Milt's BBQ. Students are developing a marketing plan for a catering service and a separate marketing plan for a BBQ sauce for an African-American owned restaurant.

Students created an awesome feasibility study for a start-up podcasting business with multicultural content for entrepreneur Phil Lee.

Marketing plan for The Aguiar Group. Students will provide research, customer surveys and competitive analysis for a marketing plan that will allow a Latina-owned financial planning and accounting firm to expand regionally and nationally.

Students are providing a process analysis so that a Latino-owned Point of Sales hardware and software company, C&S, to standardize its procedures for exponential growth.

Students are providing marketing analysis in the gourmet food market for an African-American-owned retail food start-up, EvZe. Update: See the coverage on EvZe in the Seattle PI http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/food/328038_retail18.html

Marketing plan for Musicworks, a nonprofit music academy. The team investigated the feasibility of a music program for seniors. They conducted surveys of seniors in the community, evaluated competitors and came up with a promotional plan.

Process and management analysis to improve efficiency and communication for MMM, a woman-owned company that manufactures coated fabrics.

Marketing plan for The Gemologist. Students conducted a market analysis for high-end, customized jeweler.

2005

Students worked on a marketing and distribution plan for the Eastside Business Weekly.

Circle of Friends, a nonprofit senior care facility for Russian immigrants, asked for assistance in developing a marketing plan for a for-profit service.

BCC Video Services asked a student consulting team to develop a plan for marketing and promoting their services.

A student team worked on process analysis for the NWCET, a nonprofit organization for workforce training.

Marketing plan for tutoring business Academic Edge. Students have conducted extensive parent surveys, redesigned marketing materials, conducted a focus group, and are working on the redesign of the website to get more visibility for this business.

Feasibility study of an eHealth search engine. The students have been working hard to conduct market research including interviews with a number of health care facilities and large enterprises.

Update: Healia (www.healia.com), creator of an award winning health search engine, has been selected as one of the winners of the 2007 Tibbetts Awards. Dr. Tom Eng, President & Founder of Healia, accepted the award today at the Westin Washington in Washington, D.C. Healia was acquired by Meredith Corporation in 2007, one of the nation's leading media and marketing companies with businesses centering on magazine and book publishing, television broadcasting, integrated marketing, and interactive media. The Meredith Publishing Group includes Better Homes and Gardens, Ladies' Home Journal, Family Circle, Parents, American Baby, Fitness, and More.

Marketing plan for the Washington State Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. The Hispanic population and Hispanic businesses are experiencing tremendous growth rates. The students are doing process analysis, competitive benchmarking and business interviews to see how WSHCC can be positioned to be a crucial part of this growth.
Update: In 2007, the Washington State Hispanic Chamber of Commerce has grown to almost 300 members and many successful partnerships.

 

2004

For the second year in a row, the BCC has offered multicultural consulting (which links student teams with under served businesses) as a capstone course for both business professional technical and transfer students. The program is turning out to be a great success. Students work tremendously hard and love it. Each team put in 400 to 600 hours and all of them said it was one of their best learning experiences. After the presentation, many complimentary comments and emails were received from members of the audience, which included executives and economic development officials, about the quality of the projects. 

Indea Exim

Raghu Rankaran (center) started a promotional product business last year. After a very successful start, he hopes to increase sales by ten times in the next two years. The team did an extensive marketing and competitive analysis that included interviews with potential customers Starbucks, Costco, Boeing, and smaller local high tech firms. Several of the companies interviewed by the team expressed an interest in doing business with Raghu. The team's industry advisor is Dave Halverson of The Boeing Company (second from right). Student team members were Yen Lam, Noriko Tomita, Andy Herrara, and Sky Vong.

Rachel Norbache

Rachel Norbache (second from right) is a Persian-born lawyer who specializes in immigration and family law. The team did market and competitive research and devised a marketing strategy that included logo design and a web site in English, French, Farsi and Arabic for expanding her practice. Rachel has already implemented the web site. The team's industry advisor is Tara Van Vleet (second from left) of the Port of Seattle. Student team members were Jimmy Cha, Francisco Fagaoga, Jason Bruni, and Lynn Arvivais.

2003

The Spring 2003 teams made their final presentation to an audience of over 50 people including professors from the University of Washington, City of Bellevue officials, King County officials, business owners, and a reporter from the Seattle Times. The teams did a fabulous job of presenting and the audience was amazed at the quality of the work

 

Bellevue Entrepreneur Center Marketing Plan

From left to right, Chris MacDonald, Susan Cochran, Ellen Miller-Wolfe (Manager, Economic Development, City of Bellevue and client business), Kathy Sabin, and Guillermo Cano (former venture capitalist and now Manager, Frank Russell and Co., Advisor)
The Bellevue Entrepreneur Center is a nonprofit organization with a Board of Directors that includes individuals from the City of Bellevue, King County Economic Development, University of Washington Bothell, Bellevue Community College, Port of Seattle, Key Bank, Eastside Bank, and many community leaders. The organization was started to assist underserved businesses in the eastside.

The team created a marketing plan that assisted the organization is developing a consistent brand image to the community. This included a logo and website. They also organized a community forum that drew many interested groups to the organization. As a result of the team's work, the organization has had many events and gotten press coverage.

"This team did work that a business would have to pay tens of thousands for, "  says Guillermo Cano, their advisor. "Not only did they save the organization a lot of money, but they did a better job than many consultants I've worked with."

"Our future is bright if all students are like this team," says George Northcroft, Deputy to the King County Executive on Economic Development.

 
Asian Pacific Language Services - Feasibility Study for Preschool

Left: Severn Bailey consults with  advisor, Christina Chiang (Washington Federal International Bank) while Trang Huynh looks on. Right: Business owner, Sharon Gao talks to Severn Bailey. Shalyn Johnson and Celia Buyco were also on the team.

 
Asian Pacific Language Services is a business that has been in operation in Bellevue for over ten years. The business owner Sharon Gao has run both a language school and tutoring center with a translation service.

Dr. Gao wanted to investigate the feasibility of starting an Asian language preschool. A student team conducted a market survey of parents in the Bellevue area and found that there was interest and demand for an Asian language preschool. Using Census data, they determined the neighborhoods with the highest concentration of Asian or mixed race children. They also identified those parents who had adopted children from Asia as a possible market.

"I couldn't imagine that I could ever get this kind of help," said Sharon Gao, when the project concluded. The team's work was featured in a Seattle Times article.  Click here to see the article.

 
Russian American Network - Creating a Business Model and Strategy
The RAN team talks to their advisors. From left to right: Jerry Buntz and Dave Halverson of Boeing, Nawarat Likhitranant, Ray Moser of King County Economic Development, Bea Ornelas, and Scott Cochran.

 

The Russian American Network (RAN) is a for-profit organization whose mission is to be the definitive bridge between the Russian-speaking population and American businesses in the Pacific Northwest. RAN identified the Russian-American market to be both fast-growing and underserved. The Russian-speaking population in the greater Seattle area is estimated at 130,000, growing at approximately five to seven thousand annually.

RAN was formed in 2003. The core of the organizational structure is the owners, Valentina Kiselev and Dmitriy Kiselev.  Dr. Valentina Kiselev is a physician and the Executive Director of Circle of Friends, Adult Day Health Center in Bellevue and Renton. The principals of RAN secured the services of the BCC student team to assist them in developing the business. Scope of the project involved the marketing portion of the overall business plan.  The team was to help conduct a market analysis of the Russian-speaking population in the Northwest, complete a competitive analysis of other firms engaged in similar services, and identify areas of high potential for the firm.  The areas of potential would focus on the target markets of the Russian-speaking population and American businesses which provide products and services to this market.  The team would also work on brand positioning and the creation of a website.

 
Last updated 4/13/09