2017 Muma COB Undergraduate Business Case Competition

Last weekend, September 29-30, 2017, a team of USF Muma COB undergraduate senior business students: Jacob Driscoll (Marketing), Maximilian Frei (Management), Karina Podymova (International Studies/Entrepreneurship) andVictoria Quigley-Ziede (Finance/English) won the Fall, 2017 Muma COB Undergraduate Business Case Competition on the Tampa campus. The subject company was The Boy Scouts of America (BSA) (https://www.scouting.org).

Other MCOB students who were selected to participate in the competition were Ryan Hintze (Marketing), Edmond Konrad (Global Business/Finance), Graham Myers (Accounting/Finance), Kelsey Sousan (Finance/MIS), Nysa Bryan(Marketing), Juan Luis Martello Malpartida (International Business/Marketing – Peru program), Kellie Parenda (Finance), and Nicci Perone (Marketing/Entrepreneurship).

In the competition, the students learned the identity of the subject case company at 6:30am on Friday morning of the competition. The students were then bussed to the Scouts’ Tampa facility/offices where George M McGovern (Deputy Regional Director, BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA, Southern Region, and Bill Guglielmi – via phone conference call), the Boy Scouts’ local leader Jeff Rock, plus scouts’ volunteers and USF alums Mark Rose and Jon Smith (former Grad Case competition participant and Florida Intercollegiate Case Competition winner) asked the student teams to perform a thorough analysis of the national scouts organization, website, and policies to help update the organization and help reverse the 40 year decline in scouting participation. In addition to their PowerPoint presentations, teams were also asked to create a 30 second video pitch that might serve as a tool in their efforts. After the case unveiling, the students went to work, using their creative juices over the next 24 hours to gather relevant data and develop their analyses and presentations for the next morning. Given the scope and gravity of the case questions, the project provided a substantial and meaningful challenge for the students. Presentations to the judges began at 9:30am Saturday.

Judges for the competition (George McGovern needed to be in Louisville, KY) were Boy Scouts volunteer leaders Bill Guglielmi (who had returned from Louisville for the competition), Jon Smith (retired Publix), Jason Liu (former case competition participant and current CEO of Bareboard, Inc., Largo), Mary Lippitt (President, Enterprise Management), Jim Hensel (retired, MCOB Marketing Dept.) and Michael Cross (USF Director of the Office of Undergraduate Research).

Worth noting is that the Boy Scout leaders were so impressed with the students’ recommendations, that those recommendations, and copies of the presentations and videos, are being presented to the BSA international leadership council. We are told that the recommendations from all of the teams are important and will be seriously discussed and considered for implementation at the national/international level.

We are thus extremely proud of the students who participated in this competition. All of the students and teams were outstanding and represented themselves and the college extremely well in a very closely contested competition. Please let them know that you too appreciate their efforts.

 In addition, we are proud to report that each of the students have applied for and received Advanced Undergraduate Research credit for their hard work in the competition.

We would also like to thank those individuals without whose help we could not have made this happen. These include Lorie Briggs in the Dean’s office; and Pat Nickinson (Director, BizComm Center, Muma College of Business) who helped hone the students’ presentation skills for the competition.

This story was sent to all participants and reposted here.

More information about the USF Undergraduate Case Competitions can be found here: https://www.usf.edu/business/case-competition/