February 23, 2009
Queens Campus -
A team of five St. John's University Tobin
College of Business students who were a part of the 2007 EIRP
class, including Danielle Adler, Noreen Chaudhry, Gustavo
Gamarra, Keith Hoffman, and Anna Mistretta helped Goodwill
Industries come up with a plan for improving their
Manhattan-based courier service.
Goodwill Industries is North America’s leading nonprofit
provider of education, training, and career services for people
with disadvantages, such as welfare dependency, homelessness, and
lack of education or work experience, as well as those with
physical, mental and emotional disabilities. Although Goodwill has
been successful at employing these individuals, with over 1.1
million jobs provided last year alone, in Spring 2007 Goodwill
executives enlisted these undergraduate students from the
Executive-in-Residence Program to help them build a new business
plan--and their suggested plan is now being
implemented.
An accounting graduate of The Tobin College of Business, Noreen
Chaudhry, said, “The executives at Goodwill Industries hoped that
their current system of tracking deliveries, which relied on
handwritten signatures from customers and file folders for record
keeping, would be replaced by a more efficient technology
infrastructure, leading to increased profitability, efficiency,
productivity, marketability, and customer satisfaction.”
The students’ proposal included considerations for on-line
ordering, on-line billing, on-line Proof of Delivery and In Transit
Visibility through the use of a GPS unit. They also proposed
new marketing initiatives as well as staff development and training
programs for employees. The proposals were presented to
Goodwill executives after thorough industry and competitor analysis
by the students. When necessary, the student team contacted
competitor firms in order to understand the challenges they faced
and help them to arrive at an effective solution for Goodwill. The
solutions presented were so impressive to Goodwill execs that
Goodwill is implementing them this year.
Mohsen Badran, Senior Vice President of Goodwill, says, “The
project produced by [Tobin] EIRP students to upgrade our motorized
messenger services is approaching completion. Right now, we are
testing the newly designed system on one daily route and before the
end of February; we will roll out the system to cover all routes.
This is an exciting time for us and we will always be grateful to
[EIRP] and St. John's University!”
Noreen Chaudhry who is currently a Senior Specialist at Bank of
America, feels, “As an Auditor, the analytical skills I learned in
EIRP help me in my current position because I can better identify
the problems that business clients face on a daily basis.
Working closely with these clients in trying to find a solution to
their problems is a skill I learned first in EIRP.”
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The Peter J. Tobin College of Business has provided the highest
quality business education for over eighty years. Many alumni
have risen to senior executive positions in the financial services
community in New York and around the world. Degrees offered
include the Bachelor of Science, Master of Business Administration
and Master of Science. The College encompasses the School of
Risk Management, Insurance and Actuarial Science, which is housed
at the University’s Manhattan location in the heart of the New York
financial district. Recent recognitions for the Tobin College
include a listing by The Aspen Institute among the top ninety
business schools in the United States whose graduate curricula
reflect a commitment to social responsibility and sustainability as
well as representation among the “The Best 282” Business Schools in
America according to The Princeton Review.