Global Teams Compete in the Finance IB Agility Lab

As part of the #KeepGlobalSmith campaign, the Center for Global Business held the International Business (IB) Agility Lab: Finance from February 24-26, 2021. The IB Agility Labs are short, virtual case competitions that allow undergraduate students to learn from global business leaders, collaborate with international peers, and focus on business resilience. In the first of three IB Agility Labs that will take place this spring, 60 students from three universities competed to make market and pricing recommendations for a company in Israel.

Congratulations to Alice Brogniaux (Solvay), Hamza Daiouf (Solvay), Cédric de Wachter (Solvay), Jonathan Deutsch (UMD), Matthew Michaels (UMD), Coedee Mowers (UMD), and John Woolfley (UMD) for winning the competition. Matthew Michaels, class of 2022, said this about his experience in the program: “I was excited to get exposure to international business by providing recommendations to a real Israeli company. While collaborating with students from Brussels and Beijing, I learned how to manage and fulfill projects under time constraints and gained a greater appreciation for global cultures.”

Maryland Smith partnered with Legacy Ventures, Guanghua School of Management at Peking University in Beijing, China, Antai College of Economics and Management at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in Shanghai, China, Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management in Brussels, Belgium, and the student organization Smith Finance Group to host the finance lab. The case was delivered by TailorMed, a company based in Israel that leverages data and technology to streamline financial management for both healthcare providers and patients.

TailorMed educated 10 mixed multinational teams about their initiative to embed pharmaceutical company patient support programs into the TailorMed website to ultimately help patients afford the cost of their prescriptions, enhance the provider experience, and improve program efficiency. In support of this initiative, students were asked to research the market size of the pharmaceutical industry in the United States and determine the size of the relevant market, develop an optimal pricing structure, and recommend success metrics the company should adopt.

A special thank you to the judges that oversaw this competition. The formal judging panel included David Kass, clinical professor, department of finance, Lana Lodge, MBA '16, senior vice president of operations, MPOWER Financing, Jim McKinney, clinical professor and associate area chair, department of accounting and information assurance, and Kurt Rader, MBA '12, global corporate relationships manager, HSBC.

The lab is part of the wider #KeepGlobalSmith initiative, highlighting opportunities for students to gain a global mindset in the absence of travel. During these labs, students benefit from exposure to an international company, work on teams with business students around the world, and gain hands-on case experience to build their resumes and CVs. Each Lab focuses on a functional area of business and features a live case from a company based outside the U.S. The winning team receives a certificate to honor their achievement.

This event was supported in part by a Title VI grant program known as CIBE (Centers for International Business Education) administered by the U.S. Department of Education. 

- By Jordan Heitzner, graduate assistant, Center for Global Business