Senior honors student Grayson Greer conducted some top-level research on the Indian food market through interviews with top-level executives — he gained access to the corner offices of CEOs and managing directors simply by having the audacity to ask.
His hard work paid off in more ways than one: not only has he had lunch with the Vice President of Dillard’s, Inc. since returning from his trip, but he has also landed a job in an Indian banking institution, where he plans to work during a gap year before heading back to the States to attend law school in 2019. Grayson’s schedule in India included co-hosting tennis clinics, meeting with executives and lots of early morning flights. Here, he discusses how this trip shaped his honors research and offers some encouraging advice to students who might worry about being too bold.
My name is Grayson Greer and I am a senior studying finance and accounting in the Sam M. Walton College of Business. For my senior thesis as an honors student, I chose to understand the key drivers of success when foreign companies enter the Indian food and beverage market. Thus I traveled to India with the following objectives: To identify different modes of market entry strategy in general; to understand the complexity of the food and beverage market in India; to examine the entry strategy of 5 foreign companies and conduct a comparative analysis of the cases (Pepsi-Co, Coca-Cola, Starbucks, Nestle, and Pizza Hut); and lastly, to provide recommendations to foreign companies entering India.
