MBA Cambridge Venture Project (CVP)

Overview

This hands-on, part-time engagement is based on 5 MBA students working as a team of consultants in a local business, addressing a specific market need. The Cambridge Venture Project is an ideal opportunity for local organisations with limited resources to benefit from fresh, unbiased and objective market research evaluations. For our students, the CVP is a chance to apply their market analysis skills to a real problem, and to get an insight into “Silicon Fen” and the kind of challenges faced by innovators working in high-risk, high-pressure environments.

What types of project are possible?

We welcome proposals from local companies at all stages of development, as long as there is a real and tangible market research need for the students to address and that this is clearly articulated and defined. Projects typically look at financial, strategic and marketing implications of new products or ventures. Previous projects have included a market analysis of a wireless product, strategic opportunities for a new diabetes treatment, and opportunities for mobile phone user interfaces.

See what previous hosts have had to say about us

Explore our mentors' profiles

Important dates

Proposal deadline: 5 Sep 2023

Project takes place: Oct-Dec 2023

Students work part-time with their host company in teams of 5 over 6 weeks from October to December.

The final deliverable is a presentation of findings and recommendations to the client at Cambridge Judge Business School during the second week of December.

What do I do next?

Complete the online project proposal form by September 2024 (exact deadline TBC).

The 2024/25 briefing notes and project terms will be available in July. In the meantime, you may wish to read the CVP briefing notes and project terms for 2023/24 (pdf, 173KB).

CVP project partners

We work with local, entrepreneurial companies and organisations in the Cambridge locale in our Cambridge Venture Project.

What our Cambridge Venture partners have had to say about us:

The project has been incredibly valuable. The team was very quick to understand both Emmaus and the project requirements. From the start, meetings were very insightful with the team members sharing their experiences and bringing them to bear on the project. The passion from the team and their desire to help Emmaus was fantastic.

Alex Cubitt, Emmaus Enterprises

This was a very broad brief – new company, new market. This useful piece of work gave us three scenarios with pros and cons, which we can bear in mind over the coming years. I was impressed by the way the team conducted their research. For non-tech people they did a great job of understanding tech implications. The team was great to work with and I wish they could also do a marketing project for us!

Pilgrim Beart, 1248

The quality of research was excellent quality of research. The team made us think of new avenues of great value and also left us with a few questions on specifics of strategy and its impact on the product/market positioning. We’re not sure how they accomplished so much in such a short time! We will pursue much of the recommendations, which were very original to what we had considered.

Neil Daly, Skin Analytics

The team learnt fast, worked hard, and stayed focused on their goal; by the end of the project they had produced an excellent report. I have paid serious money in the past for work that was nowhere near as good as this.

Peter Steggles, Chief Product Officer, Ubisense

We think the team did an outstanding piece of work; the scope was thoroughly understood and delivered against. The team complemented each other well, and were very proactive and efficient. They generated some good suggestions that we had not considered. Overall, we are delighted with the team’s work and think they did a fantastic job.

Leo de Montaignac, Weedingtech

This was a difficult project to undertake in a complex environment within a short time period. The team produced a comprehensive model and found multiple value propositions … They were great to work with, [had a] professional attitude, and all members contributed over the course of the project.

Lynn Golding, Sentec

From Cambridge’s perspective this is a new business model. Clear input, very high level, and the team elaborated in significant detail as to how the business might work. Fantastic! This work provides a context framework which will allow us to engage with key market participants and a framework which we can evolve into something close-knit with our current strategy. The team ran with the project and did not need any hand-holding.

Alessandro Pastore, Cambridge

CVP mentors

We have the privilege of working with a strong group of CVP mentors who are an integral part of the CVP offering. CVP mentors are experienced business professionals, with expertise in a particular industry. Their role for the duration of the CVP is to be an effective sounding board, offering business guidance and critical support to the student team.