Team of Law, Business Students Will Advise Record Companies

A six-member team of Harvard law and business students, who comprise the Harvard Consultation Project, will attempt to provide tools to aid the recorded music industry.

The team has done extensive research on the challenges facing the industry and developed innovative strategies for refocusing record companies on their core mission, which lead consultant William Griffin describes as "signing high-quality talent, creating winning marketing plans, and selling records."

This project is timely because the recorded music industry just experienced its most tumultuous year to date. The pages of magazines and newspapers were filled with stories questioning the direction in which the industry is going, chronicling high-profile executive firings, political backlash against music companies, artist bankruptcies, and poor sales growth. If seasoned record executives are having difficulties solving these problems, what can be expected from a group of students?
This is no ordinary group of students. Among them is a former member of a national championship debate squad, a member of a national championship scholars' bowl team, a college class salutatorian, and a published author. While their academic backgrounds include studying at Oxford and education in the liberal arts, this team's experience is not limited to the ivory tower. Prior to attending Harvard's law and business schools, one of the team's members offered strategic consulting advice to senior executives at Fortune 500 companies as a consultant at McKinsey & Co. In addition, one of the members worked on Wall Street advising the nation's largest financial institutions and corporations. Yet another team member advised many of the country's municipalities as an analyst at Paine Webber Inc.

The team has an equally impressive roster of advisers. Robert Clark, himself an amateur composer and musician and Dean of the Law School, is one of the foremost authorities on corporate law. Joseph Cooper, armed with a Ph.D. in economics and a law degree from Harvard, is a professor at Tuck Business School at Dartmouth College and will advise the team on human resource management and personnel issues. Finally, Harvard Business School Professor Jeffrey Rayport, who has advised Geffen Records and is a leading authority in the field of marketing, will also assist the students.

The team is now in the process of contacting and selecting the record companies that will participate in the Harvard Consultation Project, and they are accepting requests for consideration.

The Harvard Consultation Project will focus on the $3 billion Urban (R&B and rap) music market because, according to co-lead consultant Kandance Weems, "The challenges facing the Urban music sector are a microcosm of those facing the recorded music industry as a whole: high personnel turnover, intense political backlash, and slow sales growth. As a result of our extensive research, we believe the Urban music market can double or triple its revenue over the next three to five years by implementing strategies that increase efficiency, stability in its executive ranks, and more sophisticated marketing plans."