Freshmen Present Plans to Corporate Sponsors at Strategy Board Competition

Showcasing their business savvy for more than a dozen high-powered companies, 72 freshman College Park Scholars (CPS) students competed in the 6th Annual Strategy Board Competition, on Dec. 11, 2003. In the competition, student teams study and make strategic recommendations for real-world companies. Each team illustrates its recommended strategy on a display board, which is evaluated by a team of three judges, including a representative of the company.

The competition is the culmination of a semester-long project that is a highlight of the introductory business class required in the University of Maryland's CPS Business, Society, and the Economy (BSE) program. Students spend the first half of the semester researching their assigned company and conducting an analysis of the company's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. For the second part of the semester, students analyze the information they gathered and devise strategies. The assignment requires a comprehensive written report in addition to the strategy board.

Many judges represented companies that have been involved with the competition since it started in 1998. This year, for the first time, three CPS alumni, who participated in the first Strategy Board Competition when they were freshman six years ago, returned as judges: Michael Rettinger, American Express; Steven Tom, BearingPoint, Inc.; and J.D. Fielder, The Pepsi Bottling Group.

The winning team recommended enhanced products and marketing campaigns for Hecht's. The team members are Henry Chow, Adam Gottlieb, Andy Kim, Mary Shum, and Melissa Woods. The Pepsi Bottling Group and USA Today teams tied for second place. The Armkel/Church and Dwight, Co., Inc. and Black & Decker teams tied for third place.

Fielder '02, who did his strategy board on Fannie Mae in 1998, thought that all of the groups did an excellent job this year. "The Pepsi Bottling Group team really seemed to put in their time on all parts of the project: research, analysis, recommendations, and the physical board itself," he said. "Their strategic 'advice' on how to attack different markets--both mature and emerging--was almost dead-on with a lot Pepsi Bottling Group's strategies in those areas."

The winning Hecht's team made three main recommendations: "to organize and remodel their stores for easier, more convenient shopping; to design a more trendy product line for a younger generation; and to bring David's Bridal and Modern Tuxedo (also a division of May Co.) into the stores in order to help develop the bridal registry that is already in existence," said Woods, freshman general business major.

Students find the project challenging, but they recognize its learning value and enjoy the hands-on work of creating the board.am, John Harper (pictured, far left), Hecht's CFO and long-time Strategy Board Competition judge, said that this is the first time a floor plan modification has been recommended. He noted that he liked the suggestion to have the bridal section next to the younger generation area.

"I learned a lot about Hecht's, but more than that, I learned what it means to work in a group," said Woods. "At first, no one was willing to trust anyone else to do a good job, but once we overcame that and all started working together, we could accomplish so much more."

"This is a chance for the students to try real-world applications of the concepts they learn in class," said Roxanne Lefkoff-Hagius, director of the BSE program and teaching professor of marketing. "It's also an opportunity for them to learn about conducting research, and about working together on a team."

Lefkoff-Hagius developed the competition in 1998 and received the Smith School's Krowe Award for Classroom Innovation for it in 1999. She made a presentation about the project at the 2003 Hawaii International Conference on Business.

The winning teams received gift certificates to the University Book Store. Other participating companies (14 in all) included: AMS, Comcast, Hewlett-Packard, Marriott International, Ryan Homes, Sherwin-Williams, and Sodexho, Inc.