Neda Sharp, Director of Program Development
Phone: 312-755-2554
Email Programs@chicagomsdc.org
The PIPE Program
Progress, Insight & Performance Education
The PIPE PROGRAM
The PIPE Program (Progress, Insight & Performance Education) is a collaboration between the Chicago Minority Supplier Development Council and the University of Phoenix. This 8-week, advanced management training program provides participants with the skills and knowledge needed to optimize their business.
Participant Eligibility
Participants must be employed by a company certified as a Minority Business Enterprise (MBE) through the National Minority Supplier Development Council (NMSDC), City of Chicago, Cook County, the State of Illinois Business Enterprise Program (BEP), or certified as a Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE). The PIPE Program is recommended for officers or key employees who would benefit from sharpening their business skills. The courses are designed for individuals who already have basic business knowledge and experience.
Company Eligibility
Companies may only send individuals meeting all participant eligibility requirements.
- Business owner must have at least three (3) years of experience developing/operating their company
- Company must have annual revenue between $150,000 and $50,000,000 (USD)
- Company must employ at least three (3) full or part-time employees
- Priority will be given to food/facility-related businesses that apply
Overview and Benefits
- Week 1, (9/13), Strategic Planning Skills: Optimization starts with effective planning. Whether you are creating your first strategic plan or reviewing the direction of an organization, this course will help you clarify and set goals. Strategic/critical thinking, including the use of business intelligence data to drive decision-making, will also be analyzed.
- Week 2, (9/20), Managing Organizational Goals: Organizational goals can often get lost in layers of management without being communicated to individual contributors. In the absence of goals, employees can feel unmotivated or even set their own goals for achievement, resulting in poor and conflicting team performance. In this course, you will develop skills needed to establish tactical goals for your team based on organizational directives and general goals from management, prompting you to create and manage action plans to achieve such goals.
- Week 3, (9/27), Business Ethics: Pausing in the pursuit of setting strategy, participants review the role moral beliefs play in business assessments. Making the right decisions for the right reasons is critical to smart business growth. This course will also briefly discuss how business ethics influence the strategy of acquisitions.
- Week 4, (10/4), Project Management I: The review of project management concepts and its related skills help attendees envision overseeing certain strategic goals as a formal project that can be monitored and measured. Learn about the project management life cycle, success criteria, common reasons for project failure, setting up strong teams, and risk factors to consider.
- Week 5, (10/11), Project Management II: Based on feedback from cohort one, we’ve added this second course to build on the fundamentals. Areas of discussion to include: the scheduling process, controlling budget deviations, monitoring for project progress, reporting tools, and elements of project close-out.
- Week 6, (10/18), Introduction to Supply Chain Management: This course provides an overview of supply chain theory and explores its importance to your strategy. Also, it identifies how your supply chain plays into planning and monitoring goals. Customized with presenting sponsor.
- Week 7, (10/25), Elements of Supply Chain: Take a deeper dive into the manufacturing and service operations of the supply chain, along with a review of logistics, which gives a more nuanced understanding of effective decisions. Customized with presenting sponsor.
- Week 8, (11/1), Process Improvement: After putting together the concepts taught throughout the PIPE Program, this final class examines process improvement. Utilizing tools and techniques, participants will be empowered to drive toward business optimization!
Overview and Benefits
This 8-week, non-credit Program is designed to save time and improve company performance. Access to an executive mentor/coach (one hour per month during the cohort) has been added. The output of each process (class) flows into the next, concluding with process improvement.
- Week 1 (9/12) - Strategic Planning Skills: Optimization starts with effective planning. Whether you are creating your first strategic plan or reviewing the direction of an organization, this course will help you clarify and set goals. Strategic/critical thinking, including the use of business intelligence data to drive decision-making, will also be analyzed.
- Week 2 (9/19) - Managing Organizational Goals: Organizational goals can often get lost in layers of management without being communicated to individual contributors. In the absence of goals, employees can feel unmotivated or even set their own goals for achievement, resulting in poor and conflicting team performance. In this course, you will develop skills needed to establish tactical goals for your team based on organizational directives and general goals from management, prompting you to create and manage action plans to achieve such goals.
- Week 3 (9/26) - Business Ethics: Pausing in the pursuit of setting strategy, participants review the role moral beliefs play in business assessments. Making the right decisions for the right reasons is critical to smart business growth. This course will also briefly discuss how business ethics influence the strategy of acquisitions.
- Week 4 (10/3) – Project Management I: The review of project management concepts and its related skills help attendees envision overseeing certain strategic goals as a formal project that can be monitored and measured. Learn about the project management life cycle, success criteria, common reasons for project failure, setting up strong teams, and risk factors to consider.
- Week 5 (10/10) - Project Management II: Based on feedback from cohort one, we’ve added this second course to build on the fundamentals. Areas of discussion to include: the scheduling process, controlling budget deviations, monitoring for project progress, reporting tools, and elements of project close-out.
- Week 6 (10/17) - Introduction to Supply Chain Management: This course provides an overview of supply chain theory and explores its importance to your strategy. Also, it identifies how your supply chain plays into planning and monitoring goals. Customized with presenting sponsor.
- Week 7 (10/24) - Elements of Supply Chain: Take a deeper dive into the manufacturing and service operations of the supply chain, along with a review of logistics, which gives a more nuanced understanding of effective decisions. Customized with presenting sponsor.
- Week 8 (10/31) - Process Improvement: After putting together the concepts taught throughout the PIPE Program, this final class examines process improvement. Utilizing tools and techniques, participants will be empowered to drive toward business optimization!
Registration
Class sessions will be held virtually as we recover from the impact of COVID-19. The Program cost is $2,500 per participant and early bird applications are being accepted for scholarship consideration once the application period opens (one participant per company). Please click on this LINK and fill out the application to be considered. Space is limited and registration closes when capacity is reached.
The PIPE Program helps drive the supplier diversity goals of ChicagoMSDC corporate members, as witnessed by Aramark, our presenting sponsor. In the blog link HERE, Aramark shares the history of their purchasing power and ChicagoMSDC engagement with the PIPE Program. The blog is sprinkled with testimonials from a few of the scholarship recipients who were graduates of the PIPE Program. We are grateful to Aramark for the partnership, promotion, and look forward to their sponsorship continuance in 2022.
Class Schedule
Class sessions will be held virtually. The Program cost is $2,500 per participant; however, full scholarships are available through Aramark to qualifying companies on a first-come, first-serve basis (one applicant per company).
Contact Information
Local participants of Cohort 4 celebrating at the ChicagoMSDC 2021 Holiday Brunch.
Cohort 4 participant and ChicagoMSDC Certified MBE Roberto Carmona.
Cohort 4 – Virtual Class #6.
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PIPE Program-Cohort 6 with the support of Fifth Third Bank
PIPE Program-Cohort 6
PIPE Program-Cohort 3
PIPE Program-Cohort 4
PIPE Program-Cohort 5
