Hello everyone!

All of us Nielsenites had an exciting time in Minneapolis this past weekend. The purpose of our trip was to visit two companies in the area - McKinsey & Company and General Mills. So on Thursday night we piled into a bus and headed northwest. Along the way, we grabbed dinner at a Mauston, WI favorite - the Roman Castle. After arriving at the hotel, some of the group hit a nearby bar, the Local, to celebrate TAPS away from home with students from the Brand Center who were also in town.

To describe Friday's site visits, I asked two first-year Nielsen students - Erin Wilson and Veronica Kehoss - to come on as guest bloggers. I bring on guest bloggers every once in a while to provide you, the reader, with a new perspective on events and life here at the Wisconsin School of Business. Enjoy!

McKinsey & Company
By Erin Wilson
Our group walked a few blocks to McKinsey's office which was on the 38th floor of a downtown building. The high floor was conducive to beautiful views of the Minneapolis skyline. I wondered, "Who wouldn't be inspired to work at a company like McKinsey?" Not only was the company a leader in marketing research, but its Minneapolis location was inspiring.

After introductions and breakfast, Michelle Lukes from the Minneapolis office and Chauncey Holder (alum of the Center) from the Atlanta office gave an overview of McKinsey's CSI department and walked through an informative and entertaining report of "A day in the life of a CSI Analyst".

To close our visit to McKinsey & Company, John Copland, a senior expert at McKinsey, led a case study of a typical consulting engagement. What I took away most from the discussion was that the "traditional" demographic market segmentation approach is not always the right approach. John's example showed that if you segment solely based on demographics, you might end up with Ozzy Osbourne and Prince Charles in the same segment (both in their 50s, Caucasian males, British folks, etc.). Clearly, however, they are vastly different people with different needs and preferences. John then walked us through a needs-state segmentation approach and discussed the advantages to this approach.

After some Q&A, the case wrapped up and we all headed off to General Mills...

General Mills
By Veronica Kehoss
Our host for the day was Ned Winsborough, the director of Consumer Insights for Progresso Soup. Our first stop was to the General Mills store! The store offers a range of General Mills products at a bit of a discount from prices found at a typical grocery store. As graduate students strapped for cash, we were like kids in a candy store. After a little shopping, we were joined at lunch by several Wisconsin alums who work at General Mills. Then it was off for a tour of the headquarters. The tour was filled with surprises, including restaurants, test kitchens, a bank and even a salon!

We then went through some Sensory Training with Jennifer Kamerud of General Mills, judging tastes and textures of different liquids and foods. The group then listened to a presentation by Laurie Clauson on the different Touchpoints General Mills has with its consumers. To wrap up our visit, we headed to the Discovery Center, where Tara Hutchinson led us through a consumer taste test and the Corner Market. The Corner Market is a full-scale reproduction of a grocery store designed to simulate realistic shopping experiences.

Our day ended with happy hour at a local tavern, where we were joined by our friends from McKinsey and General Mills. What a day!

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This week, I thought I'd talk about teamwork. I bring up the topic because we just finished analyzing and preparing a report for a finance case study. Like each project before, this one presented a unique set of challenges and learnings for our team. And while our performance has really improved over the last few months (as evident in our project grades), our process is something we all recognize still needs improvement. But that's what's great about teamwork - it's always a learning experience. No matter how many teams you've worked on in the past, each new one presents a unique set of skills, personalities, and dynamics - creating different synergies and challenges.

Teamwork is a huge component of the Wisconsin program. A majority of our course assignments are completed within groups. These groups (of 5) are assigned at the start of the semester and are composed of people from different specializations. For instance, in my group there is a student from finance, real estate, supply chain, brand management, and (myself) marketing research.

The purpose of this group system is to get us used to working on cross-functional teams. Regardless where we end up at the end of the program, and regardless of our particular specializations, we will all be making decisions within cross-functional teams or at least with that mindset.

For many, the idea of marketing researchers working closely with brand managers makes sense. However, marketing researchers also have to work closely with finance to secure budgets for research. In addition, we have to work with Research and Development to ensure that desired customer changes in the product are even feasible given the company's capabilities. And these are just a couple examples.

The other benefit of this team system at Wisconsin (and something that I really value) is the learning that you gain from working with people outside of your primary field. You begin to see how differently people process information and the unique knowledge bases and skill sets that each member possesses. A transfer of knowledge between members is something that happens at every meeting, through each discussion.

Well that's it for this week. Have a great week everyone. Talk to you again soon!

-Sunaina