Dana World Headquarters:
My visit today was for the purpose of researching for my financial model; in other words, I need to figure out what I will include in my model and any other potential issues or parts of the model that I will need to keep in mind. This falls into what I have referred to as the second part of my intensive: finding relevant information that pertains to an expansion. I discussed the two other parts of my intensive on my Introduction and Overview page.
Here is a picture of something that Dana makes:
My visit to the Dana World Headquarters began with Mrs. Yustick taking me on a tour of the main building. She pointed out what Dana does and the history of the company. Even though I learned more about Dana today than I had ever known about the company previously, I’m already considering Dana as a career option because of their free soft drinks for employees (yes, they have a soda fountain that is free and unlimited). Mrs. Yustick also took some time to explain how finance has to do with her job, which expanded upon what I learned yesterday.
But the main reason why I visited Mrs. Yustick today was to interview her so that I could get her perspective of what a business opportunity for the school would involve. She talked about the need to completely think through a business opportunity and its implications. For example, she said that one always needs to consider “what if” questions when thinking about a business expansion. Such potential problems for a Maumee Valley satellite campus could be “What if fewer students enroll at the location than we expect?” or “What if the economy changes while we’re in the middle of the expansion?” or “What if the company who owns the property that we’re renting goes out of business?” While some of them are unlikely, these types of scenarios cannot be ignored when one is in the decision making process of investing a lot of time and money in a huge project.
One thing Mrs. Spurgeon suggested that I ask everyone the question of which three financial metrics are the most important to them when considering a business opportunity. Mrs. Yustick said that her three most important financial metrics are profit, return on invested capital, and the time to cash flow neutral. It will be interesting to see what other individuals think.
I particularly liked the response that she gave me for a question regarding the market and demand if Maumee Valley were to perhaps expand with a satellite campus. She thinks that to evaluate the market for a satellite expansion, we would need to strategically survey individuals with young children. It would be unwise to ask questions like “Would you send your kids to Maumee Valley?” We instead need to ask questions such as “What are your top three important factors in looking for a school?” and give them several answers with boxes to check. If our survey returns results such as “an experiential, hands-on education,” “quality of teachers,” “school culture,” or even “college acceptance,” then it probably wouldn’t hurt to look into the idea of an expansion. But if the answers we received were “size of learning institution,” “price,” “Division I OHSAA athletics,” or even “religious faith,” we would definitely know that it wouldn’t be a good idea to expand with a satellite campus in that area.
Mrs. Yustick’s responses to my questions will keep me thinking over the next couple of days about the model I will create and how to approach these problems that the school needs to keep in mind about evaluating business opportunities.
I will also be interviewing other business professionals who are connected to Maumee Valley, as well as other MV administrators, to get other perspectives on what should go in my model. You can expect some posts on these types of interviews within the next week or so…
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