CSUN Nazarian Consulting Attraction and Operations Plan

[ABSTRACT ONLY; NO FULL TEXT] This report marked the culmination of a consulting project, entrusted to us by Nazarian Consulting, operating within the bounds of California State University, Northridge Nazarian College of Business and Economics. Nazarian Consulting uniquely capitalizes on the insight of students from diverse academic tracks: Undergraduate, Business Honors, and MBA, to offer innovative consulting services. Philanthropic donors, invested in the economic success of San Fernando Valley's small businesses, predominantly fund the program. Despite the program's noble intent and potential, it grappled with concerns in client recruitment and internal operational fluidity. Our approach was based on a blend of internal and external investigative methods. I conducted in-depth interviews with over ten faculty and staff directly associated with the consulting program as part of the primary research. These interviews unearthed strengths and weaknesses that dictated the program's operational dynamics. Meanwhile, our competitive analysis, leveraging tools and data from sources similar to IBISWorld and US Census Bureau, provided insight into the marketplace's opportunities and threats. Initial findings underscored an imperative need for a twofold strategy: increasing client attraction while refining operational processes. In response, we crafted a bespoke attraction and operations plan. This strategic document delineated actionable steps to augment the program's outreach efforts and enhance the internal workflow mechanics. In achieving these dual objectives, we aimed to augment the program's overall efficacy, ensuring a tangible impact in the communities it served. Throughout this venture, my contributions were numerous. I was instrumental in coordinating and conducting faculty interviews, synthesizing insights from the competitive landscape, and architecting major segments of the attraction and operations plan. Furthermore, I assumed a leadership role in obtaining and refining the narrative threads of our report, weaving a cohesive story from start to finish. On average, I devoted upwards of 20 hours weekly, immersed in research, ideation, or crafting content for this project. The success of Nazarian Consulting hinged on its ability to nimbly adapt to changing business environments, harnessing its inherent strengths while offsetting its operational limitations. Our recommendations, grounded in extensive empirical research and strategic foresight, aimed to create a renewal for the program. By tapping into a resource of student potential and fortifying operational processes, Nazarian Consulting is poised to usher in a new era of excellence, amplifying its impact on small businesses in San Fernando Valley. At the conclusion of our consulting engagement, we presented our findings and recommendations to the client

Economics and Electronic Commerce

F or economists who study markets—whether wholesale or retail, goods orservices, commodities or highly differentiated products—these are extraor-dinary times. The Internet and related technologies have caused the costs of many kinds of market interactions to plummet. As with any dramatic technolog-ical change, the most obvious and earliest effects are incremental: we find easier and less costly ways of doing the things we are already doing. Over time, however, the shifts are more drastic: we discover that we can do entirely new things, or completely restructure the way in which certain business activities are carried out. Such long-term impacts of technological change are always hard to forecast, but that task is especially difficult in the case of e-commerce, where markets are currently very far from equilibrium. In the “land rush ” to secure Internet real estate, to gain first-mover market position and other advantages, many firms are pursuing strategies that are properly interpreted as the payment of one-time, largely sunk entry costs. In some cases the focus of these expenditures is on “customer acquisition, ” through pricing that is not likely to be sustainable, while in others it is building infrastructure to achieve minimum efficient scale. These expenditures—fueled by inflows of venture capital—may represent reasonable investments for a chance of a future stream of profits that might accrue to th