My PBM Days: Second Time Lucky – by Israel Ambe Ayongwa

16 Dec 2009 | Posted By: JIBS Stories

Second time lucky, that’s aptly how I can describe my admission — along with fellow research partner — Evgenia Zabrovskaya, to carry out a research project for Saab Natech AB after receiving notification about the interview panel’s verdict sometime back in June 2009.

The Business Acceleration Project (BAP), erstwhile known as Project Based Model (PBM), is the umbrella initiative under which this research was carried out for an advanced mechanical engineering company called Saab Natech AB. This BAP business research laboratory (or institute) gives an opportunity for companies seeking solutions to bring their problems to the academia. From the school, a select number of students are assigned these cases. It is an opportunity to deal with real-life ongoing problems in the company which is a step away from the theoretical concepts churned out in lecture amphitheatres.

This the type of research opportunity I had for Saab Natech AB.

The major challenge I witnessed during this three-month project from August to November was making a transition from a business school background (JIBS), to carrying out research for a company dealing with advanced mechanical engineering, which is no child’s play.

But what saved the day for me and my partner was the fact that this research demanded us to carry out an internal analysis, a market review and investigate new areas of diversification.

First, we had to become used to new jargons and acronyms from the field before falling back on the marketing models and theories used to solve our case.

Thus, research and marketing tools like SWOT and Porter’s Value Chain analysis came handy and we were able to structure our work by setting milestones, defining the scope of our work and then clearly defining the purpose of our work. All of this was made possible thanks to the regular consultative meetings with project coordinator, Olga, and meetings at the turn of each milestone with the company officials.

All in all, in the course of our work, we got to meet our project coordinator at least once a week, and our Marketing & Sales Director, who served as our main liaison officer with the company, at least twice a week.

Originally this research project was set to run for two months, but was extended to three due to the rigorous nature of the exercise. To obtain information and experience, we had to tap the resource of Professor Mike Danilovic, an expert in this field, and we had a number of interviews with the Production & Quality managers of the company and specialized consultants as well. All this provided a valuable vault of expertise.

This research even took us as far as attending a technical conference in Stockholm, in our never-ending quest for more knowledge.

Despite my ease in giving an account of my experience, this exercise was no easy task at the end of the day.

Carrying out research in an area where empirical literature is sparse is never easy, and sometimes the only options is to rely on information from websites and make sense out of buzz words like flexibility, efficiency and effectiveness, which can mean anything and everything. Interviewing Swedish-speakers while I can make do only with English makes the communication process a near-impossible feat.

Above everything, I consider myself to have been the steel that has been forged and purified by passing it through the fire of PBM. Although I have had to bear an extra month of the programme and long nights of staring at computer monitors until my back ached, it has been worth the salt.

I have learned that being a consultant can sometimes seem like one step away from madness. You are placed in a position where you have to feed an ever-hungry and unsatisfied ‘beast’ (the company) with ideas and information in a never-ending process. It’s been so crazy that at times I have felt like screaming obscenities, but then the words a clergyman once told me come running in my head, ‘All that strengthens, hurts…’

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