MBA team Amy Nishioka, Shane Suehisa, Takako Ogawa, Felipe Sanchez, Taro Sasaki, and Andriy Aleksandrov were funded by UCLA CIBER for their AMR research project. Their client recently established federation of eight coffee cooperatives in Guatemala. Through grants from NGOs, it was able to build a dry processing facility and is in the process of obtaining an exporting license. Despite the initial grants, the client does not have adequate working capital for its current processing business or its future exporting business and has sought out the UCLA Anderson team to assist with solving this problem.
During their visit to Guatemala, the team conducted research to verify assumptions and investigate solutions regarding-the quality of the dry processing operation-the support and expectations of the member cooperatives and farmers/growers-the availability of credit in local markets and the requirements to obtain credit- and finally, the client's ability to obtain credit in the future.
Since returning, the team is focusing on formulatting the client's financial projections and validating its value proposition so that it may faciliate garnering future business from existing members and new members and obtain financing through local banks and NGOs who concentrate in the coffee growing market.
