Smith Holds Inaugural Part-time MBA Case Competition

All 330 second-year Smith part-time MBA students joined for the first time at the inaugural Part-time MBA Case Competition's final round on Jan. 17 in College Park. It was a cold and blustery afternoon, but the weather helped set the mood for what was to come analysis of a Harvard Business Review general management case about ice cream!

"The case competition is the capstone event of our students' core studies. During the competition, students are challenged to integrate the many skills acquired during their first-year courses," said Teresa Parkey-Barao, director of business communications at Smith and case competition organizer. "This event has been an extremely successful part of the full-time program for years. We felt that adding this hands-on, consulting type project to the part-time program would be an exciting conclusion as students bring their core course studies to an end," she said.

At the start of the competition, which is now a required component of the part-time program, students (in groups of 3-6) formed 74 teams representing Smith's four part-time MBA program locations: evening MBA programs in Baltimore, Shady Grove, and Washington, D.C., and the weekend program in Washington, D.C.

After seven days of intense preparation, two rounds of competition, and written and oral presentations, only five teams remained (two teams represented each cohort from the evening program in Washington, D.C.). The finalists gave 15-minute presentations to a panel of five judges. The final round was held at the University of Maryland Inn and Conference Center.

Teams were asked to give an external, unbiased analysis of the market dynamics and strategic options over the next several years for the largest Russian ice cream producer, Ice-Fili, which offers 170 different ice cream products.

Coming out victorious was the IDEATE Consulting team, representing Baltimore's part-time MBA program. Team members Sharon Chiu, Richard Wagreich, Walter W. Windisch, and Thomas M. Van Valkenburgh each received $500 for first place.

IDEATE (which means "to think") team members had a strategy of "meet early and often." For internal efficiency, IDEATE recommended to reduce the number of products, modernize the production line, and modify the human resources incentive policies. Market initiatives included increasing advertising, adopting a dual-branding strategy, and rebalancing the distribution system. They also suggested using a new tag line: "Ice-Fili: Ice Cream for Life."

On the teamwork involved in preparing the proposal, Windisch, psychologist and owner/operator of Windisch Properties LLC, said, "Very rarely do you get a group where everyone is performing equally. It exceeded our hopes and the combined effort was a great experience." He added that he was "very impressed with the reaction of the Baltimore group to our efforts. It was extraordinary - people gathered around us after our presentation and were very supportive."

Van Valkenburgh, manager of investor relations at Millennium Chemicals, said that the best part of the competition for him was getting "exposure to all of the student populations." It was an opportunity for networking and it gave him a sense of "camaraderie" with part-time MBA students from the other locations that he hadn't experienced before.

The second-place team, Acacia (Washington, D.C., weekend), received a cash prize of $250 per student and the third place team, TMMK Consulting (Shady Grove), received a cash prize of $100 per student.

"When asked about the most important characteristics of the MBA graduates, corporate recruiters overwhelming told The Wall Street Journal that communications, collaboration and team work were at the top," said Smith School Dean Howard Frank, who was a final round judge. "The Part-time MBA Case Competition is a wonderful opportunity for our students to improve and demonstrate these skills, to add value to their current jobs, and to make themselves more valuable in the future job market."

Other final round judges included: Morris Zwick '85, MBA '89, partner and federal sales director, IBM Business Consulting Services; Ricky Brown, regional president, BB&T's D.C. Metro Region; Barry N. Shufeld '69, principal and interim CIO, BNS Associates LLC; and Jeff McCroskey, senior vice president of global business development, Global eXchange Services.

U.S. News and World Report (2003) ranks Smith's part-time MBA program #11.