Month: November 2011

UConn Team Wins Travelers IT case competition

Posted on by Claire Hall

The University of Connecticut School of Business team won the 2011 Travelers IT case competition. The competition is held annually by the Travelers IT Leadership Development Program that pairs talented college students with realistic business scenarios. It is a great opportunity for students to showcase their technical and business abilities, and helps demonstrate the importance of strong research, teamwork, and presentation skills.

This year’s team included Dr. Wei-Kuang Huang, Associate Professor in Residence, Operations and Information Management Department, as the faculty advisor and the following students:

  • Chad Munroe (Senior in Business Technology, Hartford)
  • Dean Richards (Senior in Business Technology, Hartford)
  • Joshua Rome (Senior in Business Technology, Hartford)
  • Reuben Ruppert (Junior in Business Technology, Hartford)
  • Justin Iriondo* (Senior in Management Information Systems, Storrs)

The participating schools for this year’s competition included University of Minnesota (Carlson School of Management), Central Connecticut State University, Worcester Polytechnic Institute,  Quinnipiac University, Metropolitan State University and UConn. This year’s topic of the competition dealt with Agile software development and project management. During the three weeks prior to the competition, the team put forward tremendous amounts of effort and time discuss issues, researching solutions, and rehearsing their presentation.

On Friday, November 18, 2011, the team presented their final work along with other participating schools in front a panel of 7 judges. Our students, being poised and prepared, came out on top, representing UConn with great pride. This is the third time UConn won the Travelers IT case competition in the past four years.

*Justin participated in the first two weeks but was unable to continue due to medical constraints.

MSBAPM and The Hartford Networking

Posted on by Claire Hall

On Thursday, Nov 17, 2011, the MS in Business Analytics and Project Management (MSBAPM) held its first MSBAPM/Industry Networking Event in the Graduate Business Learning Center (GBLC) in downtown Hartford, co-sponsored with The Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc. In addition to several faculty from the Operations and Information Management (OPIM) department, several top executives from The Hartford were in attendance. These included Ruben Fechner, VP Commercial Lines; Sundar Subramanian, AVP Commercial Lines; Nitin Korgonkar, Director IT Program Management; Chris Ross, Director IT Program Management; and Betty Davis, Director IT Program Management.

The event started with a wine and cheese networking hour, followed by a very interactive presentation by all the executives from The Hartford, led by Mr. Fechner, on The Hartford’s approach to project management. Students were told how The Hartford focuses on the customer (both end customer and business sponsor) in a DMAIC/Six Sigma process that hones in on Critical to Quality (CTQs) characteristics of products and processes right from the project initiation phase to project completion. The emphasis is single-mindedly on on-time, on-budget, to-scope and ROI on all their projects, and the project team would not hesitate to pull the plug on projects that do not perform on all these metrics. The presentation was peppered with questions from the audience with all the executives joining in to share their experiences in answering each question. The Hartford team then talked about what makes a good Project Leader, not just a project manager, someone who would inspire, be decisive, be detail oriented and analytical, be accountable and be a good communicator. They were not looking for someone to merely be a “project reporter,” since that information can easily be gathered from Earned Value analysis. The presentation ended with Mr. Fechner saying that products can be copied by competitors, but project management skills in the team cannot be easily replicated, and therefore can be a competitive advantage.

Building for Connecticut’s Success

Posted on by Claire Hall

“Connecticut is open for business, and we’re going to compete,” Governor Dannel P. Malloy emphasized on November 7th during a presentation at the Graduate Business Learning Center in downtown Hartford, Connecticut.  He was speaking to an audience of over 100 business leaders, community members, and University of Connecticut students and faculty members at the UConn Financial Accelerator’s latest premiere event, “Building for Connecticut’s Success.”  The audience gathered with an interest in the Governor’s insight on the role of financial services in Connecticut’s economic future, and the Governor was eager to address the multi-dimensional issue.

Building on Connecticut’s strengths

Governor Malloy posited questions to the audience, “Who are we?” as Connecticut and “what are our strengths?”  Looking to the past, Connecticut has been a financial services-driven state since the industrial revolution, and Malloy envisions a re-industrialization of the United States.  “If we didn’t build it, we financed it!” repeated Malloy, describing the nature of our state economy as one built for investment and high-volume and precision manufacturing. In particular, he noted that the areas of biosciences, insurance, aerospace, hedge funds, and insurance are growth industries for the state. By defining our strengths, and with a focus on technology and innovation, we can work to create a state that nurtures these industries to bring economic development and job creation to Connecticut.

With location and proximity as key factors in encouraging business and innovation among industries, it would be remiss to mention Connecticut’s advantageous position between New York City and Boston.  Also within the state, we have top institutions in higher education, including Yale and the University of Connecticut, which has recently been ranked as a Top 20 research institution by U.S. News & World Report.  Malloy underlined that “universities have to be part of our economic development as a state,” as the universities can act as economic drivers themselves.

The Bioscience Connecticut Initiative is a prime example of this partnership between government, higher education, and innovation, as it is poised to make the UConn Health Center a leader and a hub of research and clinical work in bioscience.  Malloy stated that he was able to deliver upon his promise by taking the opportunity to pursue Connecticut’s partnership with Jackson Laboratories.  Maine-based Jackson Laboratories will construct a research facility at the UConn Health Center and partner with higher education in order to foster the State’s reputation as a leader in the growing industry.

In addition, Malloy recognized the importance of new business, particularly in the realm of technology and innovation.  The State has invested in creating the UConn Technology Park at the Storrs, Connecticut campus, which will house flexible-use laboratories for collaborative research and business services. Other key initiatives include the Connecticut Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation and the IP Factory, which both support what Malloy termed as the “monetization of invention.”  Malloy stated “I understand innovation and education,” as he warned that it would be a flaw in our economic development plans to not capitalize on the partnership of universities and government.  By encouraging this partnership, we encourage investment in the state of Connecticut.  “We need better support for invention,” stated Malloy.

Repositioning Connecticut

Competition with other states is a common theme for economic development, and repositioning the state is paramount to attracting new business and keeping current industry.  As one audience member noted, Connecticut has a reputation for being a high-regulation and high-cost state in which to do business.  While our cost of living in the state is difficult to address, Malloy noted that we could address regulation.

In response to the issue of state banks, a question another audience member posed to the Governor, the Governor responded that competition is critical.  The fact is that we have lost state banks to buy-outs from out-of-state banks. Also, due to given regulation and the current model of the banking industry, he’s unsure if we can still be a player.  However, by changing regulation and the lending environment to attract banks here, having state banks revisit old clients and lend to them again, lending to small businesses, and creating an environment of large investment, we can be competitive.

One particular example that Malloy raised was that of the hedge fund industry.  There has been a significant movement of hedge funds into Connecticut, and Malloy notes that it isn’t by accident.  Hedge funds are in a uniquely difficult situation in the post-Dodd-Frank climate which makes it challenging to create new enterprises. Competition for establishment is keener.  Connecticut has an advantage by having an environment where hedge funds are taxed less than the neighboring states. By focusing on bringing hedge funds into the state and giving them an environment to grow here, we will be able to carve and keep our niche in that industry.  The Governor expressed a will to fight to keep the tax advantage over other states as well.

Not only do we need to reposition the state to bring in new businesses, we need reposition the state to bring in and retain our workforce.  As one audience member commented, there has been a trend of college graduates of Connecticut institutions leaving the state after graduation.  The Governor countered that although this may be true, the State has been doing better at the retention of our college graduates, and in fact, the State is doing even better when it comes to importing graduates from neighboring states.  To encourage our Connecticut-educated workforce to stay in Connecticut, Malloy noted that we need more vibrant cities.  Stamford and New Haven have made great strides, but we need to be more urbanized and support education and investment.  We can succeed with a sustained commitment to monetary investment in and around universities.

Where do we go from here?

We want people to move into our state and grow industry, and in order to do this we need revenue for supporting who we are and what we want to be.  Malloy noted that he and his administration are currently focused on job growth, job creation, and job retention.  He stressed an importance of bipartisan agreement to continue to support angel investment, corporate investment, and reshape regulation.  Malloy spoke about new tools available for small businesses, which include subsidies for hiring and a portal for growing business.  In order to rejuvenate our economic industry, we need to build a supporting infrastructure and physical infrastructure, such as transportation.

About the event

This event is the fifth in a series of UConn Financial Accelerator Premiere Events.  Previous events included topics on the municipal debt crisis, the idea of too big to fail, Dodd-Frank legislation, and the Peter Principle as applied to the healthcare industry. This event, “Building for Connecticut’s Success” was sponsored by the University of Connecticut’s School of Business, The Phoenix, and the Hartford CFA Society.

The UConn Financial Accelerator is a financial, educational, and analytical research forum for the University of Connecticut’s School of Business and a pipeline of talent that enhances the local business community.  As a laboratory for project analysis, the Financial Accelerator utilizes a combination of students and highly trained faculty with access to cutting edge technology to develop timely solutions for complex, real-world business cases.  For more information about the Financial Accelerator, please visit http://accelerator.business.uconn.edu/ or contact Dr. Chinmoy Ghosh at 860.486.4431 or via email at cghosh@business.uconn.edu.

Paper Received Best IS Publication of the Year Award 2010

Posted on by Claire Hall

A paper co-written by faculty members of the University of Connecticut School of Business Department of Operations and Information Management has been nominated as the best ACM TMIS paper of 2010 and is also one out of five recipients of the Best IS Publications of the Year Awards 2010.  The paper, titled “Why Give Away Something for Nothing? Investigating Virtual Goods Pricing and Permission Strategies,” was co-written in December 2010 by Dr. Sulin Ba, Professor; Dr. Dan Ke; Dr. Jan Stallaert, Associate Professor; and Zhongju Zhang, Associate Professor.

The Best Publications Awards were established to recognize the breadth of high quality work that is being published in the Information Systems discipline. This award was designed to bring outstanding papers across a range of journals to the attention of the IS community, and to give due credit to the journals in which they are published. Each year journal editors nominate the best paper published in their journal in the preceding year. A committee composed of Senior Scholars reviews the nominations from journal editors and selects five papers as the recipients of this prestigious award.

“Why Give Away Something for Nothing? Investigating Virtual Goods Pricing and Permission Strategies” is about the world of virtual goods.  The question of how a creator sets prices for a virtual good, as to maximize their profit, is discussed.  The major difference with virtual goods is that many times consumers will want to use multiple copies of the same good, which results in an increase in the consumer’s utility.  The focus of the research is on the copy permission of virtual goods.  An economic model is developed and examined under different conditions, to find which setting is best for the copy permission that leads to the highest profit, as well as how subsequent pricing strategies are affected.  Both theoretical and practical implications of researched are discussed within the paper.