The NJIT SBI Program is part of a national program of small business consulting services designed to match graduate students' interests with small manufacturing firms' needs for assistance in management, marketing, and business analysis through individualized consulting services.

To participate in this program, you must make an application. Each application for consulting services combined with those from other firms and presented to the entire class in a meeting where the students make decisions on which firms they want as consulting clients. Within one week, the students that selected your firm will contact you and arrange for a first meeting. This first meeting and subsequent meetings within the next two weeks will be designed to reach a defined statement of work to be performed. This statement will constitute the contract between you and the students.

The students will then proceed to carry out the work required and prepare a final report of their efforts. The final report will be reviewed and graded by the SBI director and, if it is satisfactory, the students will give the final report to you as both an oral presentation and a written report. A copy of the report will also be given to the NJMEP and your NJMEP field specialist. All of these copies are kept in locked files to assure confidentiality.

The SBI program operates within the structure of the normal work schedule of New Jersey Institute of Technology's graduate management education program. What this means is that all projects begin and reach completion within the period of a one-semester course. Since the academic schedule has two semesters each year, the cases are begun either in September or January and are completed in December or May respectively. Although there is a degree of inflexibility in the start and finish dates, at least you can be guaranteed that the work will be completed by the end of the semester.

Your primary contact with the SBI program will be the students that contact and work with you. They will give you their names and telephone numbers and provide a signed confidentiality agreement.

Additional information about the national SBI program can be found at www.smallbusinessinstitute.org.

If you have any additional questions or comments regarding the SBI program, please feel free to ask your NJMEP field specialist or contact Bruce A. Kirchhoff, Director at: Kirchhoff@njit.edu.