The Corporate Action Project (CAP) is an in-depth project designed to further learning while also furthering the goals of the sponsoring organization. For this year-long project, each student and their employer choose an issue of major importance to their organization. They work closely with a faculty advisor to research, structure and plan the project; they then work with their corporate team to implement it. This thesis-like undertaking is graded independently of all other assignments in the program. It is expected that the CAP project will make a significant impact on the revenue growth and/or cost reduction efforts at an organization — an impact that more than pays for the executive’s time and tuition. There are a number of deliverables spread throughout the year designed to keep students on track and moving forward with their CAP projects. Examples of past projects include:

 

• redesign of work processes
• market analyses for new services
• new products
• new international markets
• organizational restructuring
• analyses of mergers and acquisitions
• cost analyses
• new product development processes
• customer value analyses
• full-blown business plans
• human resource initiatives

Businesses often see returns in excess of one million dollars through these projects; one recent CAP applied lean-enterprise concepts to a part of the company's operations, yielding a financial impact of about 3 million dollars its first year.