Small Business Digitization Services

How Business School Expertise Helps Your Organization

Many small businesses and non-profits are rethinking business models and purpose. To help these organizations remain viable and healthy during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, The Business School at WPI created a new service. Leverage a regional ecosystem of business resource organizations and teams of students and faculty, we will help businesses digitally transform from onsite to remote operations and from in-person to online customer engagements.

In partnership with the Massachusetts Small Business Development Center (MSBDC) at Clark University and the Center for Women and Enterprise (CWE) in Westborough, we will offer no-cost digital service consulting to small businesses and non-profits to help them transition to a digital revenue or operating model.  Using a triage approach, our corps of volunteers will help organizations by identifying resources, implementing solutions, training, and pointing to sources for future support.

CONTACT
Phone: 508-831-5218
Fax: 508-831-5866

The Digital Services Include But Are Not Limited To:

· Create or modify a website.

· Analyze and recommend enhancements to current website.

· Create or modify a digital storefront for e-commerce.

· Implement or modify a scheduling system (e.g., for appointments or e-commerce delivery business).

· Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

· Social media consulting

· Logo design

Our student consultants will assist remotely on a variety of digital tools and resources available on the cloud/web. Depending on client digitization priorities, we aim to complete projects within 3-4 weeks once a team is available and the project begins. Students and clients typically meet virtually once a week during the duration of the project. If needed, we will provide owners/staff guidance on how to manage their web platform once the project is complete. Please note that onsite hardware or software installation and configuration is currently not available.

The Initiative In Numbers

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Accolades From Clients

The WPI student team was able to recommend a viable core solution to automate customized initial responses to all incoming inquiries from our website by assessing various tool capabilities in the market, subscription plan costs versus budget, and easy integration among the suite of tools needed to accomplish this objective. – Diane Quinn, Founder and CEO, Awayte.com

 

The work performed by the student team exceeded my expectations in terms of professionalism, quality, and timeliness. I also would add that the students were a delight to work with. – Dan Genis, General Manager, Bratt Sports 

 

The Student Experience

For me, the value comes from learning to communicate with clients and figure out their needs…along with bettering your team dynamic skills. [The projects are] a great way to pick up some local Worcester connections! I get a lot of offers to stop by clients’ businesses so they can thank me for my work - many are really appreciative. – Cole M., WPI Computer Science

 

Being a part of the SBDSI team has been a very rewarding and fulfilling experience. I’ve been a part of this great program since my freshman year and being able to provide assistance to small businesses and propel their growth has provided me with satisfaction in my work while also creating a sense of purpose! I’ve also enjoyed the new experiences in getting to know all my clients and working with my co-workers through each project. - Shivaani Gopal, BS Mechanical Engineering

 

WPI reserves the right to choose which businesses and non-profits we work with as we do not have the capacity to assist everyone who submits a request.