I am working in Bogota with TES America, an engineering services company with clients in the telecommunication, cartography and telemedicine’s sectors. In this first part my project consisted in defining a market strategy to expand TES America’s telemedicine service, currently implemented in one Colombian department, where it connects 28 rural towns to the capital’s hospital.
As a former consultant I had some doubts on what a single person could do for a company in only 10 weeks; being used to corporate, months-long programs with tens of people I thought the result of my job would necessarily be incomplete or superficial. After 4 weeks at TES America I realized why this is not true; I know already that my final deliverable will not be a huge, exhaustive guide for the entrepreneur but on the other side I’ve understood how the eMBA program forces the company into a time for self-reflection. Something that in the rush of daily deadlines it’s difficult to do.
I have only scratched the surface of all the work that could be done and yet, after sharing the first results, I saw the entrepreneurs changing significantly their vision about the best way to go about marketing the solution and the next steps. I believe putting someone with a fresh perspective on making sense of a company strategy brings great value.
I also believe this is also a good value for the eMBA. In the few weeks I spent here I could see and experience first-hand all the work that is needed to deliver to the client. In some sense a 100-people company makes transparent what in a 10.000-people enterprise was a black box. Furthermore the dynamic environment in which a small-mid company competes brings almost daily new elements to the table, which need to be taken into account.
I am sure in the next weeks there’ll be developments that now I wouldn’t suspect but I believe that it’s right in that “chaos” that the eMBA brings, and gets, value.
P.S. By the way, I don't just work, here you can find some pics I've taken around Colombia!
