Team Journal

June 2008

Project Highlights
The first month of our consulting project with TechSoup Canada focused on understanding the needs of our client, the skill sets of the consulting team members and the project schedule. Through aggressive research on marketing models and the experience of the founding partners in the U.S., the consulting team will develop a marketing plan in hopes to maximize the penetration to the Canadian non-profit market by TechSoup Canada.

Our First Client Meeting
In early May, we were very fortunate to be the first team meeting with Jane Zhang, the program manager for TechSoup Canada. The meeting took place at 215 Spadina Avenue during EVCN's orientation, the same location where our client engaged the non-profit business partners. Given TechSoup's financial constraint in its development phase, our project scope was narrowed to developing a marketing strategy that outreached non-profits with a minimum financial input. We also learned that business engagements between Jane and the non-profit organizations were underway. Understanding TechSoup Canada's initiatives, we were very excited about this opportunity as TechSoup Canada's success would translate into more economical computing technologies available to Canadian non-profits.

Preliminary Research
Our preliminary research will highlight the following categories:
1) Marketing Strategies/Models that ensure maximum non-profit awareness without any associated marketing cost.
2) A compilation of non-profit organizations targeted by TechSoup Canada.
3) Product varieties available on TechSoup's website.
4) The registration process encountered by non-profit clients when purchasing products via TechSoup's website.
Ann Armstrong, our project advisor, has suggested that viral marketing being a possible strategy for TechSoup Canada.

The Next Step
The first month of this consulting engagement presents us with a clear objective on how to move this project forward. Through continuing research, the consulting team will continue to explore marketing plans in hopes to develop a strategy suited for TechSoup Canada. Most importantly, we will communicate with our client consistently to ensure maximum feedback acquired from our client. We are very excited to contribute our skills to this project and will keep you updated on our progress.

-- David Sin, Consultant

July 2008

Project Developments
After a few months into our project, our team has made tremendous progress; not only in building a more tangible goal for the project, but the development of a much stronger client-consultant relationship.

TechSoup has recently penetrated the Canadian market and would like to continue to grow within the Canadian industry. After discussion with Ms. Zhang, we decided to take on this challenge and assist them in this regard; by helping TechSoup become more knowledgeable about the Canadian market, and to develop an implementation plan that will allow vast expansion to the other major provinces across Canada.

Current Approach and Strategy
Our team believed that the most effective way to approach this project was to allocate the task into 3 separate Phases (Phase 1, Phase 2, and Phase 3; respectively). After each phase, we will follow up with Ms. Zhang and Ms. Armstrong (our team's knowledable advisor) to evaluate its standing. The decision on separating the project into 3 Phases was based on our client's constant change in marketing strategies and other newly received information that may affect our final results. This approach will therefore allow us to adapt and be more in sync with these changes.

The 3 Phases are designed as follows:

Phase 1 - Research and information gathering process. We decided to allocate specific topics for each team member to research on, based on everyone's self interests. We will accumulate as much raw data as possible that may be relevant to our task (i.e. competitors in the market, lists of qualifying charities, etc…)

Phase 2 – Rationalization of the data and evaluating qualitative strategies. We would take this opportunity to filter out our large amounts of data, and to brainstorm different types of techniques and strategies that TechSoup can adapt, based on our received data.

Phase 3 – Implementation and evaluation. This will involve our team to design an implementation strategy in respect to the given time frame of TechSoup's initiatives. We will then evaluate its validity and its effectiveness through possible simulation and feedback from our project advisor.

Obstacles and Challenges
One challenge/obstacle our team does continue to face has been trying to agree on a mutual group meeting time and location. However, as a team and through the great leadership by Raj (our engagement manager), we have tried our best to adapt to everyone's schedule and have been using other alternative forms of communication such as teleconferencing, and online messaging. As a proud member of this team, I am very glad that my fellow teammates have been very understanding with one another with this regard, while continuing to work well under these difficult settings.

What's Next?
Presently, our team has branched off to conduct furthur research and analysis on our assigned parts. Our team will be assembling together in a week's time to discuss our developments and findings. Furthurmore, we will be looking forward in meeting with Ms. Zhang and Ms. Armstrong to converse over Phase 1 of our project. Upon their pending approval, we will then follow through with Phase 2 of our initiatives.

-- Chuck Siu, Consultant