This week, we partnered with OMBA (Operations Management & Business Analytics) Society to welcome Cat Thoreson from BioBuzz, a talent recruiting company that specializes in supporting the life science workforce. During this meeting, Thoreson explains BioBuzz’s growth model and dives into an interactive workshop where students come up with solutions for the company through a marketing and operations management lens.
AMA and OMBA start with introductions of their respective clubs and transition into how Marketing and Operations Management & Business Analytics (two majors offered at Smith) work together in the business world.
Optimizing Customer Experience: Operations ensure smooth delivery, marketing attracts the right audience, and analytics reveals customer preferences to align both
Data-Driven Decision Making: Analytics transforms data into insights, guiding operations to streamline and marketing to target effectively
Enhancing Profitability: Operations cuts costs, analytics finds improvements, and marketing drives revenue—together boosting profits
Thoreson then takes over and talks about Biobuzz’s mission and values.
Who is BioBuzz?
Founded in 2009, BioBuzz fosters a diverse and expansive life science workforce through community building, innovative hiring solutions, and storytelling. What started as a networking event to encourage laid-off life science professionals evolved into a valuable source for community and hiring within three of the leading biotech’s hubs. BioBuzz has 400k+ annual website visitors with unparalleled organic search, 30k+ member network of industry leaders and professionals, and 15k+ social media followers with primary focus on LinkedIn.
Strategic Engagement Model
BioBuzz summarizes how its platform attracts and delivers talent through a three-level model depicted as hexagons (or honeycombs) placed within each other:
Global Platform: Centralized hiring platform, community, and intelligence engine
Hub-Based Markets: Regional Ecosystem Engagement Model
Private Talent Networks: White-labeled, custom SaaS talent communities with AI-powered talent recommendations
Poised to Disrupt the Market
After describing the strategic engagement model, Thoreson delves into how BioBuzz will make a substantial impact in the market for talent recruiting companies, emphasizing their AI matching, contractor management, hiring time, private talent pool, and more. In comparison, Thoreson comments that consulting and staffing firms, job boards, and other freelance marketplaces may lack in these areas.
Activity - Case
For the last part of the meeting, students are separated into four groups. Provided with prompts and guiding questions, each group brainstorms ideas for how BioBuzz could improve its platform utilizing marketing and operations management methods.
Marketing
How can BioBuzz incentivize growth across the network, platform, talent pool, and employers?
How can Biobuzz incentivize engagement through user-generated content (like expert articles, training programs, submission of and attendance at events), talent vetting, and more?
Student responses:
Build up a social media presence (Ex. Create a LinkedIn group where members can post their accomplishments)
Have employers consistently post content that they want to be seen by potential employees
Rewards tier for referrals (incentivizes growth)
Tracking attendance through a membership point system
Operations Management
Unlike their very manual prototype which launched this March, BioBuzz’s commercial-ready platform will utilize their team and technology to streamline processes. For each of the following operational goals for BioBuzz’s transition, identify any specific metrics or KPIs you would monitor to drive efficiency, optimize resource use, and reduce operational costs.
Share data between operations and marketing 20% faster within six months.
Automate 30% of repetitive tasks in operations within six months to save time and reduce manual work.
Student responses:
Goal 1
Ask what platforms are being used the most (click rate)
Ask how much time is spent on calls and emails
Automate content performance results
Data filtration system
Shared dashboards between departments to make sure similar tasks are not repeated
Goal 2
Chatbots
A composite agenda to hold cross-departmental meetings resulting in fewer meetings overall
Track how much time each person spends on a task
Internship Opportunities
Continuing to develop as a company by raising its Seed Round and pursuing non-dilutive grant options in various markets, BioBuzz is looking to grow its team by hiring interns with interest in these areas:
Social Media: Management, audience engagement, digital strategy
Content Marketing: Storytelling and translating complex ideas into engaging content
Multimedia: Optimize video content while helping to build out a larger strategy
AMA wants to thank Cat Thoreson for visiting us today. If you want to connect with Thoreson, check out her LinkedIn. We hope everyone considers the combination of majoring in Marketing and OMBA to further their career in the business field!
- Chaewon Cheon
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