Coyote Business Consulting Wraps Up Third Cohort
Coyote Business Consulting is a student-centered initiative at the USD Beacom School of Business designed to help businesses stay competitive in the state of South Dakota and throughout the region. The program enables student-teams, with the guidance of faculty advisors, to help businesses solve a critical problem for their organization. The program is available to all businesses, but a special emphasis is placed on small businesses.
“We are incredibly proud to have had three successful rounds of Coyote Business Consulting,” said Mark Yockey, interim dean of the Beacom School of Business. “Each cohort brings about their own set of skills, and the businesses present unique and challenging problems for the students to solve. One thing remains the same each year, though, and it’s that we are committed to South Dakota’s businesses and helping them succeed. We’re also dedicated to providing our students with hands-on learning opportunities that prepare them for the workforce.”
Seventeen students participated this year, assisting 13 businesses throughout South Dakota in groups of two and three.
- Participating businesses included the following.
- Catch the Wave - Wagner Pool Fundraising
- CSD of South Dakota
- Journey Group
- Missouri Sedimentation Action Coalition
- Mitchell Tennis Association
- NeighborWorks Dakota Home Resources
- Rapid City Club for Boys
- Sanford Underground Research Facility Foundation
- Springfield Historical Society
- USD Speech-Language and Hearing Clinic
- Watertown Area United Way
- YMCA of Rapid City
- Mitchell United Way
Meredith King, a senior sustainability major, was part of the team that worked with the Missouri Sedimentation Action Coalition (MSAC). Among their responsibilities, the team created a social media calendar and dissected economic projections.
“There was a lot of flexibility with this project, so we listened to our client and tried to help as much as we could,” King said. “Our presentation will go over our findings and recommendations for MSAC, and I hope to show the importance of MSAC's work and bring more awareness to the non-profit. I also hope that the complexity of the issue is clearly conveyed because there is not one easy solution to address sediment build-up.”
Junior marketing major Joshua Reynolds was on the USD Speech-Language and Hearing Clinic team. Reynolds and his team partner worked on raising awareness of the clinic as well as getting more patients.
“The USD Speech-Language and Hearing Clinic is an important service on campus and in the community, and it feels good to have completed the work,” Reynolds said. “I’m looking forward to our presentation to be another voice for change and hopefully tip the scales in the clinic’s favor.”
Coyote Business Consulting Group is mutually beneficial for both the students and the business. The consulting services are offered at no charge to the businesses and students have the opportunity to receive academic credits, financial support and real-world experience.
“I took the work we did for MSAC seriously because we were creating deliverables for an actual company as opposed to a hypothetical class project,” King said. “I got to practice communicating over Zoom and email, and I also had to take the initiative to be prepared for our meetings and ask questions.”
"Working with a client and discerning their needs from a business perspective was both a challenge and a learning experience," said Reynolds. "It was eye-opening to see how the medical and business fields intersected. I had to become an expert in both marketing and audiology in order to properly serve the needs of the clinic."
