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December 21, 2006
What top business schools are doing to prepare business
students for today's competitive marketplace
Don’t miss Maryland Public Television reporter Mindy Mintz’s
third installment in this three-part series on employment trends.
In this special edition of Smith Business Close-Up we talk to
members of the Smith School’s
Office of Career Management
team about on-campus resources available to both U.S. and
international students and when students should tap into these
resources.
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November 30, 2006
Former Hewlett-Packard CEO and Smith alum Carly
Fiorina talks about revitalizing HP and her experiences in corporate
America.
In the next edition of Smith Business Close-Up, Mindy Mintz
talks to former HP CEO Carly Fiorina about her tenure at HP, her
leadership style and her rise to the top. Carly Fiorina is the author of
the recently published book, Tough Choices. She received her MBA
from the Smith School in 1980.
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November 16, 2006
What type of talent are some of the area’s top companies
and recruiters looking for?
Don’t miss Maryland Public Television reporter Mindy Mintz’s
second installment in this three-part series on job market trends in
2006. In this special edition of Smith Business Close-Up, you’ll
find out what top employers and recruiters are looking for. Corporate
executives and recruiters; members of the Smith School’s
Office of Career Management
team, Peter Brown and Monica Shutte, discuss the
skills and experience recruiters are looking for and the best ways
differentiate yourself in today’s competitive marketplace.
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November 2, 2006
Local Entrepreneurs - and Smith MBA Alums -
Attempt to Break Up Big Game Monopoly
Hasbro is the 800-pound gorilla of the $5-billion board game
industry, owning Parker Brothers, Milton Bradley and dozens of smaller
companies. Under these conditions, the challenges of successfully
marketing a new board game to the mass market are enormous.
In this edition of Smith Business Close-Up local entrepreneurs
and Smith MBAs Dominic Crapuchettes and Satish Pillalmarri,
co-owners of North Star Games, discuss the challenges of starting their
own business and how new start-ups can stay ahead of the pack in an
increasingly competitive marketplace.
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October 19, 2006
Smith's Undergraduate Career Fair
Investors, consumers and businesses have had a number of concerns in
2006:
high fuel prices, less-than-stellar job growth and volatile swings in
the stock market. What are top employers looking for and what can recent
graduates expect? Don’t miss Maryland Public Television
reporter Mindy Mintz’s special report from Smith's Undergraduate
Career Fair. Tune in to find out more about what top employers and
recruiters are looking for and for an assessment of job trends from
Smith’s Office of Career Management team, Peter Brown and Monica Shutte.
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October 5, 2006
How RFID technology is transforming business
RFID (radio frequency identification) employs small tags with
microchips that allow items to be identified and tracked by scanners in
real time. As a result, the technology enables such efficiencies as
instantaneously tracking how rapidly goods are moved to shelves,
monitoring inventory levels and even automatic checkout. RFID has been
embraced as the next generation of bar coding by retailers seeking to
streamline cost efficiency. But RFID's potential goes much further –
with researchers and early-adopters such as the faculty at the supply
chain management center at the Smith School exploring RFID applications
in industries including health care and even agriculture.
In this edition of Smith Business Close-Up, Sandor Boyson,
professor and co-director of the supply chain management center, leads
Maryland Public Television reporter Charles Robinson through an
introduction to RFID and demonstration of the Smith School's RFID supply
chain lab.
Sun
Microsystems has donated advanced RFID (radio frequency identification)
equipment and software, making the University of Maryland's Robert H.
Smith School of Business the only business school in the world with such
equipment and research/educational capabilities on its campus. This gift
has enabled the Smith School to create a unique, end-to-end model of the
RFID supply chain – including tags, readers, and networking hardware and
software that link the scanners to computer databases. The gift
represents a Smith School initiative supporting leading, world-class
academic, government and corporate exchanges and advancements to supply
chain research.
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September 7, 2006
How globalization and localization effect U.S.
businesses
As a global superpower, the U.S. has the world’s best universities
and a strong financial system, but with less than 5 percent of the
world’s population, the U.S. economy accounts for almost a third of the
global economy (or GDP). What does this mean in terms of globalization
and international competitiveness?
In this edition of Smith Business Close-Up, Vinod
Jain -- director of the Center for International Business Education
and Research and senior director for the office of professional programs
and services at the Smith School and a recognized expert in corporate
strategy and international business -- will discuss globalization and
localization – and their role in American companies’ success. To learn
more about globalization and localization, plan to attend the
Digital Economy
Forum 2006.
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August 24, 2006
Feature Fatigue: Overloaded on Bells and Whistles?
Do you use only half the buttons on your cell phone? Did you purchase
your coffee maker because it had so many interesting options but now
don’t know how to use it? If so, you are not alone. In this Smith
Business Close-Up, Professor Roland Rust, executive director
of the Center for Excellence in Service and marketing department chair,
explains why too many product features result in a phenomenon called
“feature fatigue.”
Products crowded with features may be more attractive to consumers in
the store, but too many features ultimately make a product overwhelming
and hard to use, which leads to dissatisfaction with the product and
perhaps even with the company that manufactured it. Why do consumers
initially choose products with many features and do these features
enhance the lifetime value of the product?
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August 3, 2006
What you need to know when buying a used car
In July 2005, new car sales hit a record of 1.8 million in sales; 60
percent of these auto sales involved trade-ins. How much should you
expect to pay for your new car and how much value are you giving to your
current one? In this edition of Smith Business Close-Up Professor
Joydeep Srivastava provides tips on how to negotiate when buying
a new car and trading in your old one. Srivastava is an associate
professor at the Smith School and a recognized expert in managerial and
consumer decision making, bargaining and auctions, marketing
distribution channels, pricing, and behavioral economics.
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July 20, 2006
Utility Crisis Cause for Concern
When Baltimore Gas & Electric (BG&E) distributes their next billing
statements, Maryland customers are expected see a cost increase of
almost 75 percent starting this month. In this edition of Smith
Business Close-Up, Professor Charles E. Olson, a recognized
expert in the field of energy economics, will discuss the growing
concerns of rising utility prices
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July 8, 2006
How Technology Can Make A Difference During A Natural
Disaster
In the wake of natural disasters, such as Hurricane Katrina and the
2004 Asian tsunami, efficient data management programs are critical; but
these data management systems can be costly and difficult to manage.
In this edition of Smith Business Close-Up,
Louiqa
Raschid, professor in the department of
decision and information
technologies at the Smith School and a recognized expert in
information management, data integration, health information systems,
and humanitarian IT applications, will discuss how technology can make
the difference between success and failure when it comes to disaster
management.
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June 22, 2006
The
Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship
In this special edition of Smith Business Close-Up, find out
how the Dingman Center
for Entrepreneurship has supported entrepreneurship in the
Washington, D.C. area for 20 years.
The Dingman Center and its team of about 20 people, which includes
entrepreneurs-in-residence, senior fellows and MBA students, offers
students and regional entrepreneurs assistance evaluating business
plans, mentoring, early stage capital networking and a host of other
services.
The Dingamn Center has helped students develop a company that sells
university-branded jewelry; a board game company that has just put out
two games called “Cluzzle” and “Wits and Wagers,”; and a beer company
that’s up and running and on tap in restaurants in the D.C. region – and
these are just a few examples of how the Dingman Center encourages
entrepreneurship in a practical way. Reporter Lou Davis talks to Dingman
associates and scholars, providing a history and overview of the
successful center.
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June 8, 2006
What companies and managers need to know about successful
internationalization
Though much research shows that companies learn strategic processes
from experience, little is known about the content of that learning and
how firms actually learn over time. Relying on country entry data from
technology-based entrepreneurial firms headquartered in Finland, the
U.S., and Singapore, Smith School professor Chris Bingham’s latest
research explores the intriguing insight that the creation of strategic
processes involves following simple rules rather than honing detailed
routines.
In this edition Smith Business Close-Up
Christopher Bingham, assistant professor of strategic management
at the Smith School and a recognized expert in new venture
internationalization and strategy in highly dynamic markets, will
discuss the strategic processes required for successful
internationalization.
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May 25, 2006
How managers can create a culture of trust in the workplace
Managers applaud innovation, but many supervise, poised to slap
wrists. Does rewarding employees who repeatedly try new things and fail,
lead to more innovation and more long-term success? Often the
mixed-message style of management leaves employees intimidated,
ultimately taking fewer risks and “innovating” less. How can managers
help employees address workplace fears and remain competitive?
In this edition of Smith Business Close-Up, we’ll discuss how
to create a culture of trust and why businesses are turning to this
approach more and more frequently.
Joining us is
Gerald Suarez, PhD, executive director of the
QUEST program and
executive education senior fellow at the Smith School, and a recognized
expert in organizational redesign and quality management.
Prior to his work at the Smith School, Dr. Suarez served with
distinction for eleven years at the White House under two
administrations. He served as its Director of Presidential Quality and
as Director of Customer Support and Organizational Development.
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May 18, 2006
The Biodiesel
Phenomenon
Because of rising gasoline prices and environmental concerns,
Americans are constantly searching for alternative energy sources.
The Dingman Center for
Entrepreneurship at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith
School of Business has partnered with Silverthorn BioFuels and the
Maryland Soybean Board to create a mobile biodiesel education and
production lab to promote awareness of this renewable fuel.
In this edition of Smith Business Close-Up we’ll discuss why
biodiesel is becoming increasingly popular in the U.S. with
Dan Goodman, Executive Director of the Biodiesel University and
a Technology Commercialization Fellow at the Smith School.
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April 27, 2006
Is what you
say more important than how you say it?
Message content vs. creative execution has been a longstanding debate
in advertising circles. Over the past decades, prominent advertisers
have continued to debate this issue.
How and why do certain components of ads trigger responses from
consumers?
In this edition of Smith Business Close-Up, we’ll discuss
message content with
Hank
Boyd, a Tyser Teaching Fellow in the marketing department at the
Smith School.
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April 13, 2006
How
disruptive innovations spur growth
When companies keep improving their existing products and services to
meet their best customers' needs, they eventually run into major
challenges. By doing everything right, they create opportunities for new
companies to take their markets away. Established companies historically
have struggled when trying to create new markets. Success seems fleeting
and unpredictable. How can companies stay ahead of the competition in an
increasingly competitive marketplace?
In this edition of Smith Business Close-Up, we’ll discuss
disruptive innovation with
Cheryl
Druehl, an assistant professor of decision and information
technologies at the Smith School and a recognized expert in operations
and supply chain management.
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March 30, 2006
Increasing the bottom line - effective strategies for supply chain
management
In recent years, a lot of publicity has been generated regarding the
term “supply chain management.” Businesses that implement effective
strategies to manage the supply chain are more competitive and
profitable. But what exactly is supply chain management and why does it
matter?
In this edition of Smith Business Close-Up we’ll discuss what
businesses need to know about supply chain management. Joining us is
Phil Evers,
associate professor of logistics management at the Smith School and a
recognized expert in two critical aspects of the supply chain: inventory
and transportation.
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March 16, 2006
Why are consumer product returns on the rise?
Consumer product returns reached $100 billion annually for the United
States alone. These returns affect retailers, manufacturers, and
consumers. Why is this a growing concern for retailers and manufacturers
and what strategies are being tested and implemented in order to
decrease the number of consumer returns?
In this edition of Smith Business Close-Up, we’ll discuss
product returns and what businesses can do to reduce the rate of
returns. Joining us is
Gil Souza,
assistant professor of operations management at the Smith School and a
recognized expert in supply chain management, including reverse
logistics, and closed-loop supply chains.
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March 2, 2006
How is political advertising influencing the way businesses market
consumer products?
Political advertising has changed the way many businesses market
their products. What do consumers think of "bashing" the competition and
what types of products will be most impacted by this relatively new
practice?
In this edition of Smith Business Close-Up,
Mark Walsh discusses what business leaders need to know in order
to prepare for this new type of marketing strategy.
Mark Walsh is a recognized media expert and a Senior Fellow at the
Smith School.
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February 16, 2006
Venture
capitalists in the dot.com era
The mid-1990s brought the Internet to the public’s attention. Many
young entrepreneurs realized that new business models could be created
based on the Internet’s enormous potential. This frenzy of investment is
often chronicled as ending with a “crash.” But is this analysis correct?
Was the dot.com era more successful than was originally believed?
In this edition of Smith Business Close-Up,
Brent Goldfarb discusses how dot.com era business strategies
spread even though they were inappropriate for most businesses that
tried them. The adoption of these strategies, surprisingly, may have led
to too little entry in the dot.com era.
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