Educational Objectives

Black-owned businesses are important components of the US economy and in 2016 employed over a million people and generated more than $104 billion in sales. They are essential contributors to the economic vitality of the Black community and their need for help during this turbulent time is both acute and urgent. Ensuring that these businesses survive in the current circumstances will require fundamental shifts in how private-, public-, and social sector organizations come together to support them.

‘Scaling Minority Businesses” is designed to meet that challenge and leverage the intellectual power and community of Harvard Business School to address the vital needs of Black-owned enterprises as they face the twin tasks of surviving and growing. It will provide students with the opportunity to draw upon and strengthen their learnings from a range of RC courses including, but not limited to, TEM, Marketing, Strategy, and TOM. Students will receive hands-on experience wrestling with key issues in scaling a small business and will gain an understanding of the historic and systemic barriers to growth faced by Black businesses.

Course Content and Organization

The course is a mix of traditional case-based classes and hands-on consulting assignments with Black-owned businesses in the greater Boston-area. There are three course modules:

• Challenges of systemic racism and inequities in business and society
• Challenges of access to capital
• Challenges of access to customers

The cases and background readings will examine the range of issues faced by Black businesses including racial discrimination, limited access to capital, and difficulties in establishing government and corporate supplier relationships. Students will also hear from a range of speakers, including policy experts and prominent businesspeople, who will discuss the challenges and opportunities faced by Black-owned businesses.

The hands on projects will entail students working in small teams directly with a scaling Black-owned business (typically > $1m in revenue) to tackle a well-defined challenge or growth opportunity. To facilitate collaboration, students will be required to sign a non-disclosure agreement covering their work in the course.

Course Requirements and Grading

Deliverables: The course will have six deliverables: (1) team launch document, (2) situation analysis, (3) draft presentation, (4) final presentation, (5) peer evaluation, and (6) individual reflection.

Grading: Each student’s grade will be based on (1) quality of team’s final presentation and viability of recommendations, (2) class participation, (3) peer evaluation, (4) situation analysis, (5) draft presentation, and (6) personal reflection.

Pre-Requisites

None

Cross-Registrants/Auditors

The course is open to cross-registrant students.

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