Spring Theory is working with faculty from the Master of Science in Business Analytics program at the USC Marshall School of Business to develop a company-focused partnership that allows students to solve complex data-driven challenges.
The degree program blends both technical and "soft" skills to prepare students as they receive broad and in-depth training of big data, modeling, data management, optimization, and visualization.
The 3-month project will involve a team of top MSBA students and a dedicated faculty advisor. The project is designed to take on challenging and complex business problems that allow students to use creative thinking, analysis, and faculty expertise to deliver actionable solutions.
Until December 15, 2020
January 11-April 30, 2021
Dr. Abbass Sharif
Graduate
5 (50 total)
Company provided
Until December 15, 2020
January 11-April 30, 2021
Dr. Abbass Sharif
Graduate
5 (50 total)
Company provided
Leading expert faculty
Custom project suited to company's needs
Access to the perspectives of top students
Extensive research and analysis
Provides an unparalleled learning experience for students
Client-focused experience
Travelers Haven partnered with students to create a process map defining paths of client requests, based on specific KPIs that impact the likelihood of conversion. The overall goal of the project focused on optimizing conversion percentages and likelihood of fulfillment.
Universal Music Group collaborated with students on a project aimed at developing and delivering an automated data anomaly detection process. The overall goals of the project centered around increasing data availability and consistency while reducing data defects.
RAPP worked with students to assign values to identified data categories among a large data set involving website visits and other consumer and competitive data. Students leveraged these values in predictive modeling to determine likelihood of churn or purchase intent.
Under Armour worked with a team of students to analyze the data created by their fitness app to develop a prototype model that predicts the most likely users to purchase Under Armour products.
The USC Marshall MSBA program is a data science STEM program with a business lens. It is one of the longest running MSBA programs in the nation, and top ranking in the world. The program emphasizes project-based learning in the classroom, so that students acquire deeper business analytics knowledge through active exploration of real-world business challenges and problems. These projects are in collaboration with industry partners, and cover a range of business areas including finance, operations, marketing, management, supply chain, and HR.
The company commitment would consist of approximately 10 hours over the course of the project.
Clients are always welcome, and encouraged, to devote more time beyond these 10 hours if they have the ability to do so. The 10-hour commitment includes: a project planning meeting, a kick-off meeting with your student team(s), a mid-point meeting or report review to provide feedback, and attending (virtually or in-person) the final presentations.
This also includes time spent at various points throughout the semester on emails and calls to answer students' questions and provide project guidance.
This is typically established based on what the client company and the student team are able to accommodate.
We have found that projects with standing weekly (or bi-weekly) conference calls and/or email status reports have the most success as it allows for the most client visibility into the student team's progress, and for the students to obtain timely feedback.
The main forms of communication include email, conference calls and video conferencing.
Examples for this specific opportunity can be found in the "Past Project Examples" section above.
For examples of other collaborations set up by Spring Theory, please feel free to visit the Past Collaborations page on our website by clicking here.
The primary benefit of working with Spring Theory is our expansive network of opportunities through top-quality university programs and courses. We are heavily involved in establishing the connection with the professor, and in the project scoping and planning conversations. We help establish a clear timeline and project milestones on a formal planning call with the client representative(s) and the professor that will be overseeing the project.
Once the project starts, we check in around major project milestones to ensure the project is meeting all expectations and that the client representative(s) have sufficient visibility into the project progress. We also send surveys and have a mid-point call to further gauge these aspects. While this rarely occurs, if the project has gotten off-track or the client is unclear of where a project stands, we are happy to intervene to get the project back to meeting expectations.
Generally, we try to strike a balance between being involved enough to provide sufficient support, while still allowing the project to progress naturally and being mindful of the client's time. We are always available, however, as a resource throughout the entire project.
The benefits our clients have experienced through working with student teams have included a combination of the following:
