10:45 a.m., Dec. 3, 2002--The Robert Mondavi Winery is facing an assortment of business challenges, including a recession that has affected the entire industry, a global trend toward consolidation of wineries and a worldwide oversupply of grapes.
On Friday, Nov. 22, three teams of graduate students from UD’s College of Business and Economics offered their ideas for meeting those challenges.
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| MBA Case Competition winners and the corporate executives who judged the student teams’ presentations (from left) Adele Gulfo, AstraZeneca; Michael Barrett, Chase USA; Robert Harra, Wilmington Trust; MBA students Dennis Campbell, Robert Clark and Janine Fante; Carol Ammon, Endo Pharmaceuticals; Bob Philipps, Robert Mondavi Winery; and Bill Frame, Ballymore Co. |
The occasion was the final round of the 2002 MBA Case Competition, in which master of business administration students made formal presentations before a panel of judges in MBNA America Hall on the UD campus. The panel consisted of five corporate executives from the Delaware area, who were joined by a special guest judge from the Mondavi company in California.
After the presentations, the judges deliberated and selected the winning team of Dennis Campbell, Robert Clark and Janine Fante. In its presentation, that team suggested such innovations to Mondavi as revamping its logo, cross-marketing all its products, implementing new print and television ad campaigns targeted to younger adults and others who don’t currently buy a lot of wine, introducing some new products and repackaging others.
Also competing in the final round were Derek Danilson, Deepak Hedge, Suzanne Miller and Tisa Silver on one team and Chris Eagan, Bob Hart, Sherri Minnick and Blair Whitehead on the other. The finalists were selected from an original field of nine teams, which competed in a preliminary round earlier in November.
“Overall, I thought the competition was a great success, both for the students who participated and also for the MBA program in general,” said Daniel J. Freeman, assistant professor of business administration, who teaches the course that prepared students for the competition. “From the comments I heard, the judges and everyone else who attended were very favorably impressed with the students’ high level of preparation and competence.”
The competition takes a business case from the Harvard Business Review as its starting point. Students research and analyze the business problems involved in the case and come up with strategic solutions. They then present their analysis and recommendations in a setting designed to mimic a corporate boardroom.
In the Nov. 22 final round, each team made a 25-minute presentation about Robert Mondavi’s business and offered suggestions for improving the company’s bottom line. Each presentation was followed by a 15-minute session in which team members fielded questions from the judges.
The College of Business and Economics held its first MBA Case Competition in 2000, but this year the event became part of a new program called MBA SUCCESS, which Freeman said is an acronym for the program’s goal to Strategically Utilize Case Competitions to Enhance Student Skills. Students in the program take a course, “Being Persuasive in Business Situations,” designed to give them a framework for analyzing business problems and persuasively presenting solutions. The case competition serves as the cornerstone of that course, Freeman said.
Judging the final round were Carol A. Ammon, chairman and chief executive officer of Endo Pharmaceuticals; Michael Barrett, president of Chase USA; Bill Frame, president and chief executive officer of Ballymore Co.; Adele Gulfo, vice president, U.S. cardiovascular therapeutics, for AstraZeneca; Robert Harra, president, chief operating officer and treasurer of Wilmington Trust; and Bob Philipps, vice president for investor relations at Robert Mondavi.
Article by Ann Manser
Photo by Kathy Flickinger
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