MBAs explore if Bolivian artisans can enter the US market

Chris Mullen, MBA 2010, states: "We traveled during Spring Break 2010 to Bolivia to conduct our second field study for [our client,] Jalsuri. We spent our first day in Santa Cruz visiting the Jalsuri store, the local art market, and the shops of several competitors. Next, we jetted to the capital city of La Paz, where we spent the remainder of our expedition. While in La Paz, we conducted in-depth interviews with Jalsuri staff to further our understanding of Jalsuri's current operation, customers, top-selling products, and the import and shipping restrictions that apply to Jalsuri's foreign trade. We also met with a Bolivian export company to get information on Jalsuri's options for exporting products. In addition, we were able to visit several Jalsuri trade partners, including the owner of Comart, who shared his experience exporting Bolivian products to the US. Over the span of two trips, we have been able to visit all three Jalsuri store locations (Santa Cruz, La Paz, and Copacabana), giving us a complete picture of customer demand, store layouts, staffing arrangements, and product variety. While in La Paz, we also visited a number of competitor stores to understand customer preferences, product demand, price points, and to help us benchmark Jalsuri relative to other locally-made craft retailers. On our final day, we managed a trip to Copacabana, at the edge of the famous Lake Titicaca.