News Flash - New you can use - University of Maryland's consulting program - Brief Article

T+D, May, 2002

Are you tearing your hair out trying to compare and select e-learning solutions? Read on to find out how Matt DeFeo of Black and Decker called in help from an unusual source--the University of Maryland.

Second-year students in Maryland's MBA program spent a semester consulting for Black and Decker, trading 600 hours of work for course credit. (Black and Decker also covered administrative costs.) The students' mission: to evaluate and select an e-learning solution for the company.

The team analyzed the market and created a scorecard to rate the strengths and weaknesses of each solution. That enabled them to rank the various options. They narrowed a long list of providers down to 12, saving Black and Decker the time of meeting with company after company. In the end, Black and Decker chose Vuepoint, which offers an LCMS, an LMS, and collaboration technology.

Would DeFeo use Maryland's MBA students again? "Absolutely," he says, citing cost savings (the project cost a tenth of what it would've had he used a big consulting firm) and the unbiased nature of the student consultants as advantages of the program.

To learn more about the University of Maryland's MBA consulting program,

* rhsmith.umd.edu/mba.consulting/index.htm.

Questions?

Email program co-director Dorothy Gardner at dgardner@rhsmith.umd.edu.