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Open Minds and Fresh Perspectives Professor Madhu Viswanathan’s International Immersion
Trip is a life changing experience for those students with the credentials and the will to learn about subsistence
marketplaces. Lasting some ten days, the trip allows
students to leverage a semester of study and preparation
to visit rural and urban houses, educational institutions,
social enterprises and businesses in Chennai and
other cities in India and to interview consumers and
entrepreneurs living in subsistence. Incredibly, these
students witness firsthand how active subsistence
marketplaces work in an emerging marketplace while
guided by a celebrated professor. Every year, during the winter break between semesters,
Viswanathan takes a group of students to India as an extension to
the fall semester course BUS 590: Sustainable Product and Market
Development for Subsistence Marketplaces. The course challenges
students to understand these marketplaces through their studies and According to Viswanathan, this unique opportunity begins with classroom instruction in the fall spent on understanding subsistence contexts through virtual immersion and on emersion of principles of business, engineering and design for these radically different contexts. Students receive visits from technologists, social workers, and entrepreneurs who provide useful insights. Along with case studies, research and classroom exercises, students develop models of poverty, and of needs and products based on their research. They then apply them to research projects to develop products intended to function in a subsistence marketplace. Most of what students learn from their other courses at Illinois applies readily to fully industrialized business contexts— typical Western markets. Viswanathan goads students to think deeply about how the business and engineering practices they already understand are affected in a subsistence context. What students learn creates a foundational shift in perspective and opens their minds to a world of new business possibilities. Viswanathan describes it, “Together, we connect the dots in the classroom and understand about subsistence marketplaces. But the magic happens when students connect the dots for themselves across the world. With open minds and fresh perspectives, and the drive to learn and to make positive change, they see solutions that escape others.” At the conclusion of the semester, secure with a research plan for assessing new product ideas and a youthful exuberance, students travel across the globe to witness and experience a subsistence environment. Once there they engage emotional realities that ultimately temper their academic ideas of the world and how people exist in the marketplace with products situated within economic, ecological and social realities. Though it is difficult to convey the meaning and experiences students have when studying Indian subsistence markets, Viswanathan recalls one telling event while students interviewed villagers. “One woman scheduled to be interviewed hid from them. She came back later explaining, ‘I have nothing to offer you; I don’t know anything so I was very afraid.’ But because the woman’s sister was interviewed earlier and treated so well by students, the woman changed her mind. ‘No matter what happens I decided to come back because they have come 10,000 miles just to see me’, she said.” Viswanathan believes, “You see the amazing resilience of people living in poverty. It reminds you of why we do what we do. It helps you understand how business touches lives.” Following their trip to India, students can extend the course through the spring where they work to convert early concepts into workable prototypes while developing manufacturing, marketing, and business plans. At the conclusion of the second semester, they present prototypes and business plans to companies like Microsoft, Motorola and Kraft and social enterprises that sponsor the programs. If you ask any of his students, they will tell you that Professor Viswanathan is a gifted teacher who believes in his work. William Smith, a second year MBA student, describes Viswanathan, “He is more than a teacher, he is an inspiration. Madhu loves his work and his students and it shows in an abundantly transparent array. We are very lucky to have such an amazing individual sharing his work with us here at Illinois.”
Entrepreneurial course taught by Professor ViswanathanBADM 532, Product and Market Development for Subsistence Marketplaces (Visit Subsistence Marketplaces Initiative website) Sustainable Product and Market Development for Subsistence Marketplaces - Students in business, engineering, industrial design and other areas will spend five weeks of virtual immersion in subsistence contexts, including analysis of life circumstances in subsistence through interviews, simulation, and videos, and development of conceptual models of poverty, needs, products, and market interactions. Next, the course will focus on emersion of principles for business and engineering using a rich set of cases and a wide range of guest speakers. Student groups will formed to balance technical and business skills and match interests with our company sponsors. Groups will generate and evaluate a long list of possible ideas, and design market research to be conducted during an optional international field trip over part of the winter break. Students have the option to enroll in a spring course which will focus on taking the product idea to a prototype and a business plan. This course is differentiated from other courses offered at the university in the extent of experiential learning and in its highly cross-functional nature. It is differentiated from cross-functional experiential new product development courses offered elsewhere in the nation by focusing on products for low-literate, low income individuals in subsistence marketplaces, such as in transitional economies, like India and China. Visit Course Catalog website for course availability
About Professor ViswanathanRead more:
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Madhu Viswanathan