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| Contact: | Suleiman Kassicieh, (505) 277-8881 Steve Carr, (505) 277-1821 |
April 13, 2001
ASMS MANAGEMENT OF TECHNOLOGY PROGRAM HELPS BUILD START-UPS AND EXPANDING BUSINESSES
Economic development within the realm of technology can be a gold mine of
wealth for the southwest region given the types of technological industries
located in the area. The Management of Technology Program at The Anderson Schools
of Management (ASM) is one course of study at the University of New Mexico designed
to benefit and assist technology start-ups and expanding businesses with assistance
from graduate level students.
The program was co-founded seven years ago under the guidance of former ASM
dean Ray Radosevich and Sul Kassicieh, chairperson of the Finance, International
and Technology Management department at the ASM. The program is designed to
take a hands-on clinical approach to real-life companies, and seeks to educate
current and future managers in the areas of assessing technological potential
of innovations.
In addition, the program is designed to manage research and development projects,
forecasting technological needs of the commercial world, build businesses based
on technology, evaluating the strategic impact of technology based start-ups
and to start new ventures based on patents, licenses and other intellectual
property positions. Ultimately the goal is to assist the company with its business
plan to help make it a successful idea and to attract potential venture capitalists
who may be interested in investing in such a company.
Given the economic development through technology in our area, I wondered
how UNM could play a part in the development of new businesses and to work together
with existing companies that may be looking at expansion, said Kassicieh.
There are great research and Management of Technology Programdevelopment
resources in New Mexico, such as Sandia and Los Alamos National Labs, and it
behooves us to take advantage of the competitive edges that we have available
to us. It helps bring in jobs to the economy and its important for the
University to show the community were partners.
From a students perspective, the program is very beneficial in the sense
that it provides hands-on experience to real life business situations. James
Payette, a second-year MBA candidate, has worked on a few of the business plans
for local companies and feels the hands-on learning experience is very beneficial
to students.
Were pretty serious about the work we do on the business plans,
said Payette. We want to provide starting businesses with information
they deem helpful. At first, some of the companies are little apprehensive about
students working on a project of this significance. The clients are concerned
about getting their moneys worth. However, they have been quite pleased
with the results so far, which are typically far and above what they expected
going in.
We base our research on the competition, industry, market size, management
team and the financing. We make minor changes in the business plan based on
our findings and how the client views the information and how we think the plan
would work better. Our goal is to make the business plan more saleable for the
client. Afterward, the client will present the business plan to various venture
capitalists or other funding opportunities.
So far the program has been a big success among students and companies according
to Kassicieh. Through the MOT program, Kassicieh has supervised the development
of over 75 business and marketing plans for technology startups in the region,
providing students with real-life experience and businesses like Wavefront Sciences
and Emcore with the tools to succeed.
More than 50 full and part-time graduate students are currently taking
courses in the program, said Kassicieh. I think we have done extremely
well and have exceeded all expectations with the resources we have.
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The University
of New Mexico
Public Affairs Department
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Albuquerque, NM 87131-0011
Telephone: (505) 277-5813
Fax: (505) 277-1981