Integrated Business Experience
Date: January 2019 – May 2019
Competencies: Values lv. 1,2,3&4, Teams lv. 1,2&3
Competencies: Values lv. 1,2,3&4, Teams lv. 1,2&3
Summary
In the spring semester of 2019, I participated in MNSU’s Integrated Business Experience. Throughout the semester, students in the IBE program form a company structure and a product, elect officers and source inventory, and then sell their product or service. They also take 3 classes as a cohort, and at the end of the semester, any income the company has raised past their initial loan is donated to a charity of their choice. My company, Riverbend Retailers, sold Maverick flags and wooden Minnesota state signs, and ended up raising over $3,000 to the Boys & Girls Club of Mankato. I was elected as the Chief Financial Officer of my company, and throughout the semester learned a great deal about my leadership style and philosophy, working on teams, leading teams, and how my leadership differed from other Officers and leaders in my company.
IBE Website: https://cob.mnsu.edu/real-world-experience/united-prairie-bank-integrated-business-experience/
In the spring semester of 2019, I participated in MNSU’s Integrated Business Experience. Throughout the semester, students in the IBE program form a company structure and a product, elect officers and source inventory, and then sell their product or service. They also take 3 classes as a cohort, and at the end of the semester, any income the company has raised past their initial loan is donated to a charity of their choice. My company, Riverbend Retailers, sold Maverick flags and wooden Minnesota state signs, and ended up raising over $3,000 to the Boys & Girls Club of Mankato. I was elected as the Chief Financial Officer of my company, and throughout the semester learned a great deal about my leadership style and philosophy, working on teams, leading teams, and how my leadership differed from other Officers and leaders in my company.
IBE Website: https://cob.mnsu.edu/real-world-experience/united-prairie-bank-integrated-business-experience/
Reflection
When I first started the IBE program, I was a little nervous. After hearing all it entailed, I was worried I would not do well, and wondered if I had made a mistake. However, a couple weeks into the program, I was feeling much better.
The first month of our time as a company was spent developing our company organization, values and mission statement, and deciding what products we would sell (Teams lv. 1). I ended up helping run the company in the initial startup phase (Teams lv. 2). Even though I was not an elected leader of the company at this point, my willingness to jump in and help lead probably helped sway people to vote for me as the Chief Financial Officer when we had elections.
At this point, my company separated into four main sectors: finance, operations, marketing, & sales. We split up the work that needed to be done so each sector wouldn’t be overwhelmed, and started working on our preparation for the loan presentation – and later, running the company (Teams lv. 3). During this time, I was trying to provide a lot of input and work into the finance committee, taking on the role of a servant leader (Values lv. 1). As a perfectionist, I have trouble giving up control through delegation, and my finance team felt underutilized (Values lv. 2). After their feelings were made known to me, I made it a major goal to give them more meaningful work throughout the semester so they could be useful and let their strengths and talents shine through (Values lv. 4).
While we were working on the loan presentation part of our project, my company’s executive board ended up doing most of the work. Us not including the rest of the company in the process made them feel unvaluable to the preparation process, which negatively affected morale (Values lv. 3). It also forced us on the executive team to work all that much harder those couple weeks, putting in 8-12 extra hours of work in each week. After we went through our loan presentation, it was accepted with contingencies we ironed out later that week. We were now ready to sell!
The selling portion of my company’s life ended up working very well. After working out kinks in the first couple weeks, we started running pretty smoothly for the duration of selling (Teams lv. 3). We did lose some steam at the end of the semester; most people were ready to be done, and morale started to get lower as we neared the date our company would shut down. The Integrated Experience Program taught me a lot about how my individual leadership philosophy works well and what I still need to improve on to be a great leader. It gave me a lot of real-world experience on the intricacies of running a business and a company.
When I first started the IBE program, I was a little nervous. After hearing all it entailed, I was worried I would not do well, and wondered if I had made a mistake. However, a couple weeks into the program, I was feeling much better.
The first month of our time as a company was spent developing our company organization, values and mission statement, and deciding what products we would sell (Teams lv. 1). I ended up helping run the company in the initial startup phase (Teams lv. 2). Even though I was not an elected leader of the company at this point, my willingness to jump in and help lead probably helped sway people to vote for me as the Chief Financial Officer when we had elections.
At this point, my company separated into four main sectors: finance, operations, marketing, & sales. We split up the work that needed to be done so each sector wouldn’t be overwhelmed, and started working on our preparation for the loan presentation – and later, running the company (Teams lv. 3). During this time, I was trying to provide a lot of input and work into the finance committee, taking on the role of a servant leader (Values lv. 1). As a perfectionist, I have trouble giving up control through delegation, and my finance team felt underutilized (Values lv. 2). After their feelings were made known to me, I made it a major goal to give them more meaningful work throughout the semester so they could be useful and let their strengths and talents shine through (Values lv. 4).
While we were working on the loan presentation part of our project, my company’s executive board ended up doing most of the work. Us not including the rest of the company in the process made them feel unvaluable to the preparation process, which negatively affected morale (Values lv. 3). It also forced us on the executive team to work all that much harder those couple weeks, putting in 8-12 extra hours of work in each week. After we went through our loan presentation, it was accepted with contingencies we ironed out later that week. We were now ready to sell!
The selling portion of my company’s life ended up working very well. After working out kinks in the first couple weeks, we started running pretty smoothly for the duration of selling (Teams lv. 3). We did lose some steam at the end of the semester; most people were ready to be done, and morale started to get lower as we neared the date our company would shut down. The Integrated Experience Program taught me a lot about how my individual leadership philosophy works well and what I still need to improve on to be a great leader. It gave me a lot of real-world experience on the intricacies of running a business and a company.
Artifact
Attached is a reflection paper I wrote at the termination of the IBE program. Also attached are copies of documents my company created throughout the semester, including our business plan, loan presentation visual aid, and a copy of the projected financials.
Attached is a reflection paper I wrote at the termination of the IBE program. Also attached are copies of documents my company created throughout the semester, including our business plan, loan presentation visual aid, and a copy of the projected financials.
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