Jones Journal -- Alumni Magazine of the Jones Graduate School of Management, Rice University

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Deanna Sheaffer, Editor
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Jones School of Management - MS 531 Rice University
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First Annual MBA Marketing Case Competition Puts Jones School on the Map
– By Christi Neuenschwander, Class of 2002

Teams of three to four students represented Columbia, Emory, Northwestern, Rice, Thunderbird, Tulane, University of Michigan, Yale, and Vanderbilt at the competition, the largest marketing case competition in the country.

The Marketing Club and the First Annual MBA Marketing Case Competition are working to ensure that the Jones School will be known for its strong marketing program.

Teams from nine top schools and judges from five local companies came to the Rice University campus the weekend of October 13-15 to participate in the Marketing Case Competition. Teams of three to four students represented Columbia, Emory, Northwestern, Rice, Thunderbird, Tulane, University of Michigan, Yale, and Vanderbilt. The teams were judged by representatives from the sponsor companies: Compaq, Minute Maid, BMC Software, Riviana Foods, and Enron.

The Marketing Case Competition judges were from the sponsoring companies. Front row, left to right: Gary Sawka, Group Brand Manager, Breakfast Beverages, Minute Maid; Ron Noblett, Vice President of Server Storage, for Compaq’s Storage Products Group; Hugh Jenkins, Director of Marketing & Communications for Compaq’s Industry Standard Server Group. Compaq was the major sponsor of the competition. Second row, left to right: Paul Galvani, Director of Marketing, Riviana Foods; Alan Lobeck, Director of Marketing, BMC Software; and Christie Patrick, Vice President of University Affairs, Enron, Corp.

Second-year students and co-chairs of the event, Tammy Morehouse (’01) and Heith Rothman (’01) worked all summer long to ensure participation by the teams and the sponsors. Morehouse stated, “The schools we spoke with this summer were excited about the idea of this competition. Many of the teams had participated in a case competition on a local level, but no one had participated in a national competition.”

Associate Dean Bob Westbrook and Compaq’s Hugh Jenkins with Heith Rothman, ‘01 and Tammy Morehouse, ‘01 who co-chaired the marketing case competition and Marketing Club President Brandon Frear, ’01. Rothman has spoken with many of the teams since the competition and reports that “People were overwhelmed by the hospitality and the professionalism of the Rice community.”

After mingling with representatives from the sponsor companies and the other teams at a welcoming reception on Friday night, the participating teams met at Herring Hall early Saturday morning to receive a case study on Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette Direct (DLJ Online). Many of the participants said this was the most difficult case they had ever seen.

After a grueling day and extremely late night analyzing the case, each team presented their analysis Sunday morning. The judges then spent a tense half hour making their decision. Northwestern’s Kellogg team finished in first place and won $5,000. Tulane finished in second place and received $3,000. Yale finished in third place and received $2,000. Rice was extremely well represented by the team of Azita Bayat (’01), Taha Faraqui (’01), Sudeep Pramanik (’01), and Carlos Wheelock (’01).

Rothman has spoken with many of the teams since the competition. “People were so overwhelmed by the hospitality and the professionalism of the Rice community. We were thrilled so many volunteers helped out over the weekend and so many students attended the actual presentations. We hope that after the success of this past year, more students will want to be involved to show other students how dynamic the Jones School is.”

You may be wondering why holding a case competition will make the marketing program at Rice stronger. According to Assistant Professor Sanjay Sood there is no other national marketing case competition in the nation. In a time where the Jones School is working to reach its goal of “10 in 10,” (reaching the top ten in the Business Week poll within ten years) a successful national competition like this will increase the visibility of the marketing program specifically and the school in general in the academic and business worlds.

The competition was not only a great environment in which to learn more about marketing, it was also an excellent recruiting weekend for both the students and the judges. Sood said, “I have heard from several of the judges who said, ‘I would hire any one of those people.’ What better opportunity do students looking for a job have than to give a thirty- minute presentation in front of representatives from five strong companies?”

Brandon Fears, (‘01) Marketing Club president, was delighted with the success of the weekend, “The case competition was a huge success. We believe that we have started a great tradition which we hope the current first years and future classes will continue.”