Monday, we finally we able to visit the two companies that we will possibly get to consult for: Oxfam and Nielsen. It was an awesome experience. First, we took the bus over to Oxfam to see their headquarters and listen to the problems the company is currently encountering, as well as a brief explanation of what they do. For those who do not know, Oxfam is a 280-million-dollar company that specializes in low-end retail establishments similar, yet bigger, to that of Goodwill. It provides necessity items to poorer areas around the entire world. Their next target market is in Vietnam. However, they don’t solely confine their business to retail, but offer assistance when natural disasters like the earthquake in Haiti affect a large group of people. Oxfam is truly a great starting up company. They hope to expand much more in the future, and are asking for our assistance towards using technology to enhance efficiency with communications amongst retail establishments nationwide. On a side note, this was the company I chose to work with based on their mission statement and the overall feel of the company. For example, when we walked into their headquarters it was not like we were walking into a funeral home like some businesses feel. Everything was open and the architecture was astonishing. The ground floor was more like walking into a Macy’s or a nice Dillard’s in a mall except without all the merchandise cluttering everything up, and they had a cafeteria in the corner. In the middle it opened up to the staircase that led to the second floor, IT and marketing, and then proceeds to the third floor where you can find all the employees in charge of the 680 different retail establishments worldwide.
The other company was Nielsen, which, if I remember correctly, is the 3rd largest marketing research facility in the world and researches at least 15,000 products a year for various companies like Proctor & Gamble, Lysol, and Nestle. For Nielsen, you do more of a market research simulation due to customer confidentiality. However, they give you some products that you and on which your team get to use a statistical approach through the process of surveys and other various means to find out which product will be more profitable in the Oxford market. Nielsen is also a little more business-like in the way their facility is structured and known as a high-end market research group. Even though I didn’t pick Nielsen, they are an amazing company with a tremendous share in the marketing-research world, and were in fact my second choice. Both of these companies and the projects we are doing offer a magnitude of experience for, not just the marketing students, but those that want to be well-rounded when they come out of college. Again, thank you for staying tuned in and I can’t wait to let you know my experience at the mini cooper plant on Wednesday. Jeff Bartosh
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