ProgramsNorth Carolina A&T Entrepreneurship Consulting Client Project (Fall 2026)

North Carolina A&T Entrepreneurship Consulting Client Project (Fall 2026)

Program Overview
Program Title North Carolina A&T Entrepreneurship Consulting Client Project (Fall 2026)
Organization North Carolina A&T State University
# of Students Enrolled
0
# of Projects Running
3 Project/s Added (of 1 Project Expected)

Program Timeline

Project Duration

Start Date: 09/16/26      End Date: 12/02/26

3 months
Collaboration Overview
About Students

Students participating in this program are undergraduate business students enrolled in MGMT 345 – Entrepreneurship Consulting through North Carolina A&T State University’s Deese College of Business.

Participants are primarily upper-level students, with many nearing completion of their undergraduate degree and having already completed prior coursework in management and entrepreneurship. MGMT 343 is a prerequisite for the course, meaning students enter the consulting experience with foundational exposure to entrepreneurship before applying those concepts to a real client engagement.

The course is specifically designed to help students develop consulting skills and entrepreneurial expertise by working with real organizations. Students learn how to systematically identify problems and opportunities facing entrepreneurial firms, evaluate business operations, prioritize opportunities to improve effectiveness and growth, and integrate knowledge from prior coursework to create value for a consulting client.

Students are expected to move beyond classroom theory by conducting original research, interacting with external stakeholders, interpreting ambiguous information, presenting findings, and developing practical recommendations. The experience also strengthens professional competencies in teamwork, consulting communication, business presentations, report writing, client management, and ethical decision-making.

The class currently includes approximately 12 students, although enrollment may vary. Students will work in small teams while contributing to a shared consulting engagement.

Student Level:   Bachelor Degree

Student Time Commitment:   Full Time

Team Structure:   3 - 5

Program Goals
Through the Client Consulting Project, students will:
  • Understand and practice the structured consulting process used to identify business problems, opportunities, and strategic priorities.
  • Analyze an entrepreneurial organization, its business environment, industry, competitors, and potential customers.
  • Apply prior business and entrepreneurship coursework to a real organizational challenge.
  • Conduct credible secondary research using industry, market, company, competitor, and customer information.
  • Identify gaps in existing information and translate those gaps into focused research questions.
  • Design and conduct primary market research using methods such as interviews, surveys, focus groups, observations, or experiments.
  • Analyze qualitative and quantitative research findings and translate raw information into useful business insight.
  • Identify unmet customer needs, competitive gaps, organizational strengths, and resource requirements.
  • Compare potential strategic alternatives using evidence rather than intuition alone.
  • Develop practical, defensible recommendations for the client.
  • Create an implementation roadmap or timeline that translates recommendations into reasonable next steps.
  • Practice teamwork, consulting communication, professional presentations, report writing, stakeholder interaction, and client management.
  • Create tangible value for an external organization through specific research, recommendations, methods, processes, approaches, products, services, or other project outputs.
The course specifically requires students to understand the consulting process, critique an entrepreneurial enterprise, establish priorities for improving effectiveness and growth, and create specific value for a consulting client.
Format Structure

Multiple Projects Multiple Teams
Format Title Entrepreneurship Consulting Client Project
Format Description
The North Carolina A&T State University Entrepreneurship Consulting Client Project connects an organization with upper-level undergraduate business students for a semester-long consulting engagement focused on researching a meaningful business opportunity, understanding customers and competitors, conducting primary market research, and developing evidence-based strategic recommendations.

Students in MGMT 345 – Entrepreneurship Consulting work as student consultants to help an organization better understand a real business question or opportunity. The course emphasizes the consulting process, including evaluating the business, identifying operational and strategic planning issues, conducting research, developing recommendations, and communicating findings through professional presentations and a final consulting deliverable.

The class will work with one primary Industry Partner, with approximately 12 students divided into small consulting teams. Each team may investigate the same core challenge through different customer segments, strategic alternatives, research questions, or other lenses agreed upon by the faculty member and Industry Partner. This structure allows the organization to receive multiple perspectives while giving students substantial responsibility for their own research and recommendations.

The consulting engagement follows a four-phase process:

Phase 1 – Company, Industry, Customer & Competitive Discovery
Students conduct secondary research to understand the organization, its industry, potential customers, competitors, and the strategic alternatives associated with the client’s challenge. Teams identify gaps in available information and determine what they need to learn directly from customers or stakeholders.

Phase 2 – Primary Market Research Design
Students refine their research questions and develop a primary research plan. Depending on the challenge, teams may use surveys, interviews, focus groups, experiments, observations, or a combination of approaches to investigate their target audience.

Phase 3 – Market Research Results & Interpretation
Teams execute their approved research, analyze the findings, identify major themes and patterns, and distinguish what the research answers from questions that remain unresolved.

Phase 4 – Strategic Recommendation
Students synthesize their secondary and primary research into a final recommendation for the client. Teams evaluate competitive gaps, unmet customer needs, organizational capabilities, required resources, strategic alternatives, and practical next steps, including an implementation timeline.

The strongest projects provide students with a real question to investigate rather than a predetermined answer. Projects may involve a startup, small or growing business, nonprofit, social enterprise, or established company exploring a new market, customer, product, service, business model, growth opportunity, or corporate entrepreneurship initiative.
Benefits For Industry Partners
Participating organizations gain a semester-long research and consulting engagement with upper-level business students focused on a real organizational question or growth opportunity.

Market and Customer Insight
Student teams can investigate potential customers, user needs, barriers, behaviors, preferences, and unmet needs through both secondary and original primary research.

Competitive Intelligence
Students can examine direct and indirect competitors, compare market positioning, identify areas already well served, and uncover potential gaps or whitespace opportunities.

Original Primary Research
Rather than relying exclusively on publicly available information, students can design and execute surveys, interviews, focus groups, observations, experiments, or other research approaches appropriate to the client challenge.

Multiple Student Perspectives
Because several small teams may investigate different aspects of the same client challenge, the organization can receive multiple analyses, interpretations, ideas, and recommendations rather than a single point of view.

Strategic Recommendations
The project culminates in recommendations grounded in the research students have conducted throughout the semester, including consideration of organizational resources, market opportunity, customer needs, competitive gaps, and implementation requirements.

Additional Capacity for an Important Business Question
Partners can investigate opportunities that internal teams may recognize as valuable but lack the time or resources to research comprehensively.

Connection to Emerging Business Talent
Industry Partners engage directly with North Carolina A&T students while observing their research abilities, business judgment, communication skills, creativity, initiative, and professionalism.
Project Modality Fully Remote
Industry Partner Requirements to Participate
Project Topics Growth Strategy Innovation Marketing Operations Product Design & Development Research, Analysis, Evaluation Sales & Business Development Strategic Planning
Target Industries Aerospace & Defense Agriculture & Farming Arts & Recreation Biotech & Pharmaceuticals Computers & Hardware Construction, Repair & Maitenance Consulting & Professional Services Consumer Products & Services Education & Ed-Tech Energy & Utilities Fashion & Apparel Finance & Investment Food & Beverage Government Health Care & Life Sciences Insurance Manufacturing & Industrial Media, Publishing & Content Natural Resources Non-Profit & Social Impact Public Works Real Estate Restaurants, Bars & Food Services Retail & E-Commerce Semiconductor Software, AI & Data Sports & Entertainment Sustainability & Climate Telecommunications Transportation & Logistics Travel & Tourism
Skills & Expertise Business Analysis Business Model Analysis Business Presentations Client Communication Client Consulting Company Research Competitive Analysis Competitive Benchmarking Competitive Positioning Consulting Presentations Consumer Research Customer Discovery Customer Interviews Customer Needs Analysis Customer Segmentation Data Collection Data Interpretation Data Visualization Depth Interviews Entrepreneurship Executive Presentations Experiment Design Focus Group Design Growth Strategy Implementation Planning Industry Analysis Industry Research Interview Design Market Analysis Market Opportunity Assessment Market Research Market Segmentation Market Sizing Observation Research Primary Research Professional Communication Qualitative Research Quantitative Research Report Writing Research Design Research Synthesis Secondary Research Startup Strategy Strategic Analysis Strategic Recommendations Survey Design Target Audience Analysis Team Collaboration Trend Analysis Value Proposition Development
Location Information & Preferences

Located Anywhere

Preference will initially be given to organizations located in Greensboro and the surrounding North Carolina region, particularly when an Industry Partner may be able to participate in an optional site visit, classroom visit, or in-person final presentation.

However, projects may be located anywhere. The course has successfully supported remote client relationships, and project quality, client engagement, and fit with the learning objectives are more important than geography.
Sponsorship

Sponsorship Requested (Optional):

Large Enterprise an exact contribution amount of $500.0

Government Organization an exact contribution amount of $500.0

Non-Profit an exact contribution amount of $500.0

Pre-Revenue Startup an exact contribution amount of $500.0

Growth Startup an exact contribution amount of $500.0

Small to Medium Business an exact contribution amount of $500.0

Compensation

No Compensation Required
Other Requirements
The strongest Industry Partners will bring a real, current business question that students can investigate through research and use to develop an evidence-based recommendation.

Projects may involve startups, early-stage companies, small and growing businesses, nonprofits, social enterprises, or larger organizations exploring new products, markets, customers, services, business models, or internal innovation opportunities.

Industry Partners should be prepared to:
  • Provide a meaningful but appropriately scoped business challenge or strategic question.
  • Allow students sufficient room to investigate the question rather than providing a predetermined solution.
  • Designate a primary point of contact for the student consulting teams.
  • Participate in an initial project kickoff or introduction.
  • Provide relevant non-confidential company background, organizational context, existing research, customer information, or other materials where appropriate.
  • Help students understand the organization's current goals, capabilities, constraints, and strategic priorities.
  • Provide timely clarification when students have questions about the organization or challenge.
  • Support reasonable access to customers, employees, users, stakeholders, or subject-matter experts when practical and appropriate.
  • Review or provide feedback on key student findings during the project.
  • Participate in the final presentation whenever possible.
Projects should allow students to complete a progression from secondary research → primary market research design → research execution and analysis → evidence-based strategic recommendation.

The Industry Partner does not need to arrive with a fully developed project scope. The faculty member and CapSource can work with the organization to translate an important business question into an appropriate student consulting engagement.
Expected Time Commitment For Project Managers 1 Hour per week
Key Program Dates Due Date
Request for Proposal published

Collaboration request published. Industry Partners may express interest in participating.

Aug 19 2026, 12:29 AM UTC
Interview

Educators will begin interviewing interested Industry Partners to discuss project ideas.

Aug 21 2026, 12:29 AM UTC
Proposal Application Deadline

Final date for Industry Partners to express interest in participating.

Sep 07 2026, 12:29 AM UTC
Finalize Project Charter

Educators and Industry Partners finalize project charters, legal documents, and background materials.

Sep 10 2026, 12:29 AM UTC
Official Program Launch

We’ll find a time on this day for you to meet with the students to kick off your project.

Sep 16 2026
Official Program End

We’ll find a time on this day for you to meet with the students to wrap up your project.

Dec 02 2026

Program Timeline

Due Date
Activities
Deliverables
Status
Action
Wed, 09/16/26
Program Kickoff
No Deliverables
No deliverables are required for this action item.
Location:

Projects

Filters
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Program Managers

Name Organization
Christina Tupper North Carolina A&T State University

Teams

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