STAR - Student Teams Achieving Results

UNC Kenan-Flagler's Student Teams Achieving Results program, STAR, sends teams of top MBAs and BSBAs to build comprehensive and actionable strategies for corporations and not-for-profits seeking to strengthen their global competitiveness. STAR teams receive academic credit for their four-month engagement and are guided by both a faculty advisor and an executive from the client organization.

STAR projects are of two types — Domestic Business Projects and Global Business Projects. In the Domestic Business Project (DBP), teams of UNC Kenan-Flagler MBAs and BSBAs work with their clients to develop strategies for growth and profitability. In the Global Business Project (GBP), teams of MBAs and graduate students from participating premier business schools work with US-based organizations as well as local organizations in GBP destination countries (for 20010 - Brazil, China, Japan, Russia, and Poland). GBP teams work virtually for 3/4 of the project period and spend two weeks abroad in the project's targeted GBP country.

* New for academic year 2009-2010 for UNC MBA's and BSBA's
Pilot Global STAR Project: South Africa

STAR teams assist businesses in North Carolina and across the globe. Since its beginning in 2005, STAR-DBP has assisted North Carolina companies to develop strategies that have expanded their businesses and increased jobs. As of 2009, STAR-DBP has expanded outside North Carolina as well. STAR-GBP, which originated in 2008, assists US businesses and some local companies in the GBP destination countries of Brazil, China, Japan, Russia and Poland.

Why We Offer STAR

Project Results

Students' Skills and Experience

Affiliate Organizations

Why We Offer US Organizations the STAR service

STAR is a part of UNC Kenan-Flagler's Leadership Initiative, an integrated, experience-based program that provides multiple opportunities for students to assess and develop their leadership and problem-solving skills and prepare themselves for their future careers. We believe that STAR offers students and clients important benefits in the following ways:

Students develop their leadership skills when they work side by side with business leaders
Students get to apply what they are learning in the classroom to actual business situations with important consequences
The experience keeps students close to real business issues faced by potential employers
Executives at participating organizations can see UNC students in action and assess the contributions they might make as full-time employees
Clients receive valuable strategic advice that is focused, compelling, and actionable

Project Results

All STAR teams, whether working on domestic or global projects, begin the project by developing a scope of work with the client and signing a confidentiality agreement. Over the life of the project, teams typically analyze the market, assess the competitive situation, develop a strategy and define an action plan that includes financials, risk assessment and a detailed implementation plan. For global projects in particular, project work often involves interviewing customers and client employees in the destination country's language and conducting the final presentation in that language.

Read news stories about past STAR projects.

UNC NextRay team places second in prestigious Rice University business
plan competition

Helping a Sawmill Manager See the Forest and the Trees

UNC MBAs "Stop Being Academic and Start Getting Real"

UNC MBAs Helping Steer Young Companies

MBAs and Companies Benefit from New Global Business Project

Global Business Project Links MBA's Around the World

For more detailed summaries of past and current projects, go to DBP and GBP pages.

Students' Skills and Experience

Organizations whose projects are accepted for STAR benefit from the help of students who are skilled at working with others and whose interests and expertise match the needs of each project.

Our graduate and undergraduate business students have met rigorous criteria in order to be admitted to one of the nation's very best business schools.
Many of our students come from business backgrounds; our MBA students work an average of 5 years prior to entering the MBA Program.
UNC Kenan-Flagler MBAs and others chosen for Global Business Projects often come from, or have worked in, the GBP destination country, and at least 2 members of each GBP team are proficient in the language of that country.

Student Eligibility

All UNC Kenan-Flagler MBAs, UNC graduate students, and Kenan-Flagler BSBAs are eligible to apply for STAR's Domestic Business Projects. Only MBAs and graduate students are eligible to apply for STAR's Global Business Projects.

All Kenan-Flagler BSBAs interested in participating on a STAR-DBP team should demonstrate in their STAR application that they have taken other courses and/or had experiences that have provided significant opportunities for team problem solving. Examples of good academic or practical experience include (but are not restricted to) BSBA 554 - Consulting Skills and Frameworks with Professor Paul Friga, an APPLES service learning course, a project management course, and summer internships in consulting or business, with hands-on teamwork.

All Kenan-Flagler MBAs interested in participating on a STAR-DBP or GBP team are encouraged to participate in the Basic Consulting Skills Workshop and/or enroll in MBA 828, Consulting Skills and Frameworks; those MBAs who are selected as a project leader for a STAR team (either DBP or GBP) are required to have taken MBA 828 or its equivalent. To determine if other experience or coursework fulfills this prerequisite requirement, MBAs should contact STAR Program Director Lynne Gerber at or 919.962.2684.

Client Eligibility

The STAR program is open to all US companies and not-for-profit organizations. Those companies chosen for STAR are those that

present a challenge for which there is a good match of interest and experience among student applicants to STAR
commit two senior executives at the organization to work closely with the STAR team to create the project's scope of work, provide pertinent data, respond to and critique team recommendations and progress, and provide feedback to the team and faculty advisor at the project's completion
Agree to cover a portion of the team's travel and project-related expenses *

* for Domestic Business Projects, the fee is based on anticipated direct costs (faculty stipend, team travel costs, and printing costs for final reports). Some North Carolina clients are assisted by other sources, such as the GoldenLEAF Foundation or the Kenan Institute for Private Enterprise. NC clients not assisted by GL or KIPE should plan to contribute $2500 towards the team's expenses; those outside of NC can figure anywhere between $5000 and $10,000 based on where the client is located and how often the team will need to travel there.

* for Global Business Projects, costs vary, depending on where the client houses the students and how much internal travel a team does on behalf of the client while the team is in the project's destination country.

How to Apply

The application deadline for students and clients to apply for a STAR-DBP project is now over.

The application process for students is now closed.

The application process for clients has been extended until November 30.

More Information

For general information not answered by this page, or the STAR-DBP or STAR-GBP site, please contact , or contact Ms. Debbie Williams, STAR Program Manager at or by phone at 919.962.8840.