Lab Courses

You'll have the chance for hands-on learning as you face actual business challenges in lab courses.

• Management Labs - You'll tackle consulting assignments that focus on strategic thinking, management, and research skills. Working in teams with executives at major companies, you'll work on new product development, business strategy, and operational research. Recent Management Labs teams have traveled overseas for extended periods of time to manage projects on site. Recent projects have included work for Honeywell International and paint company Valspar.
• New Venture and Small Enterprise Lab - You'll work closely with senior management at early-stage companies on strategic and operational projects. You'll be directly involved in helping them take their ideas to market. Students have worked on competitive analysis, marketing plans, market research, strategy development, consumer studies, pricing models, and marketing messaging for companies.
  • Bias Power, an angel-backed technology company that has patented low-wattage power supply technology
  • TVCompass, a venture-backed start-up developing an exciting new consumer electronics product and content services platform for the broadband, WiFi mobile messaging, and interactive TV markets
  • Windy City Harvest, a transitional jobs program and urban horticulture production business in the North Lawndale community of Chicago
  • Ella Style, a home decor company featuring unique tableware from artisans from around the world

  • Café Too, a nonprofit that helps the homeless through providing a culinary job-training program in a restaurant setting. 

• Private Equity/Venture Capital Lab - You'll intern 15 to 20 hours a week on projects ranging from evaluating new market/business opportunities to specific issues and opportunities for portfolio companies. The classroom component features guest lecturers from private equity and venture capital companies. Companies that have participated several times in the lab include Sterling Partners, Dunrath, Duchossois, OCA Ventures, Lake Capital, Essex Woodlands, Roundtable, WHI, Seneca Partners, Arch Development, and Prism Capital.

We also have courses that that provide experiential learning opportunities. These courses incorporate assignments from outside companies that allow you to put your classroom learning into practice.

• Marketing Research - This course will provide you with a toolkit of market research approaches and techniques to help them define key research questions that underlie strategic marketing decisions. You will collect and analyze data and develop the strategic implications of the research findings. View a sampling of past sponsors. Under faculty supervision, you will work with their client sponsor on a project and present their final analysis to management. Past projects have included:

• Estimating market potential
• Segmenting the market to identify target customers
• Improving advertising and pricing policies
• Designing and positioning new products
• Identifying opportunities and obstacles in current market performance

• Consumer Behavior - You will learn about the psychological underpinnings of consumer decisions to buy or consume a product or service. By employing a variety of research tools and techniques, you will help uncover deep insights about consumer attitudes and motivations. View a sampling of past sponsors. Past projects have included:

• Uncovering consumer perceptions and attitudes toward a brand relative to competitors
• Understanding consumer experiences with a product, service, or inside a facility
• Uncovering the underlying motivations and unmet needs for new products
• Understanding the drivers of brand loyalty and advocacy

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