SMITH BRAIN TRUST – For Blue Apron, Amazon's blockbuster deal to acquire Whole Foods couldn't have come at a worse time, says Jie Zhang, marketing professor at the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business.

SMITH BRAIN TRUST – The U.S. grocery industry is bracing for a shakeup – and a potential price war – as one German supermarket chain seeks to make its debut and another looks to expand its reach. German grocery chain Aldi says it will invest $3.4 billion to broaden its U.S. footprint, adding 900 new stores by 2022 and remodeling 1,300 others. German rival Lidl, meanwhile, is opening its first U.S. stores this month, with plans to open 100 by next summer.

The University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business is excited to announce some favorite books in the 14th Annual Top-10 Summer Reading List for Business Leaders for 2017, as recommended by faculty members. (1) The Undoing Project: A Friendship that Changed Our Minds By Michael Lewis (2016)

SMITH BRAIN TRUST – Groupon was once the fastest-growing company in the history of the web. Its stock reached a $28 initial public offering high mark in 2011, but now trades at about $4 per share. And despite diversifying its business, introducing discounted stuff to buy via Groupon Goods, the company has seen its revenue steadily decline.

The Norwegian School of Economics (NHH) has named as an Honorary Doctor Roland Rust, Distinguished University Professor and David Bruce Smith Chair in Marketing at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business.

Undergraduate students in the Hospitality Business Fellows program at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business were treated to a “hard hat” tour of The Hotel at the University of Maryland on April 28, 2017. Dressed in hard hats and reflective vests, the students were honored to be the first group to tour the new hotel. 

A team of four undergraduates from the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business traveled to Winston-Salem, N.C., in early April 2017 to compete against other business school student teams from around the globe in a highly-selective Marketing Summit. The event, hosted by Wake Forest University’s Center for Retail Innovation, chooses only 14 teams (seven graduate and seven undergraduate teams) from scores of applicant teams and challenges each to research and present their findings and recommendations to solve a marketing case problem.

SMITH BRAIN TRUST – What could be better than free? For companies with a freemium business model – Spotify, Dropbox, Hulu and The New York Times are examples – it’s a key question. Can a company increase its number of paying customers when a free version is available? And if so, how?

Big data, business intelligence, predictive analytics, key performance indicators, risk analysis, marketing research – these buzz terms are prolific in the C-suite. At the Inaugural Smith Analytics Conference on April 21, 2017, in Washington, D.C., attendees will learn how to leverage the latest analytics best practices to help improve your company’s bottom line.

SMITH BRAIN TRUST — People who share copyrighted content on digital piracy sites don’t get paid or protected from lawsuits. So why do they do it? “The major motivation is building reputation in these online communities,” says Kalinda Ukanwa, one of 34 women PhD candidates at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business. “They want bragging rights.”