Universitas 21 – Doctoral Research Conference in Business

Posted on by Claire Hall

The University of Connecticut School of Business hosted the Universitas 21 Doctoral Research Conference in Business (DRCB) April 10-13, 2012. Ph.D. students from twelve U21 schools, including UConn, presented research and received feedback regarding their dissertations from their counterparts, faculty from the participating universities, and UConn faculty. The vision of U21 DRCB is to create a global learning and research platform to prepare the next generation of intellectual leaders in the fields of business, commerce and economics.

This inaugural event was created as a model for future international conferences to be sponsored with Universitas 21. Participants were welcomed at an opening reception at the Hartford Hilton by Robert Bird, Program Chair; Gary Powell, Ph.D. Program Director; and Michele Metcalf, Program Manager. Interim Dean Karla H. Fox greeted the group at the Graduate Business Learning Center the following morning where presentation sessions were held throughout the day. All presentations were video recorded with copies of tapes being provided to presenters. That evening, a Gala Dinner was held at the Hartford Society Room featuring Mr. Jonas Haertle, UN PRME Secretariat. The final day of the conference was held at the Storrs campus at the School of Business and the Alumni Center. Two panel sessions were held on “Finishing the Dissertation” and “From Dissertation to Publication”- which were also recorded and will be available on the website soon. Participants also enjoyed lunch at the School of Business Café, dinner at the Alumni Center as well as a tour of the campus. An optional trip to Boston was also available to participants on Friday.

Attendees at the event included faculty and Ph.D. students from the National University of Singapore, Tecnológico de Monterrey, University College Dublin, University of Amsterdam, University of Auckland, University of Birmingham, University of Delhi, University of Glasgow, University of New South Wales, University of Nottingham, and University of Queensland.

The tracks included International Business, Exchange Rates, Advertising and Branding, Knowledge, Accountability, Investment, Consumer Behavior, Leadership, Management Information Systems, Economics, Corporate Finance, Creativity, Strategy, Taxation and Auditing, Strategies, Markets and Products/Services, and Cognitive Theory.

Photo: Attendees of the Universitas 21

Celebrating SAS/OPIM Partnering and JMP Starting the Future of Analytics

Posted on by Claire Hall

The challenge was set. What could one analyst do with a laptop, 123,000,000 observations, and JMP pro software? The answer, provided by SAS co-founder and JMP guru, John Sall, was “just about any known statistical analysis” and all in a matter of seconds!

On Friday, April 6th, SAS and UConn’s Department of Operations and Information Management (OPIM) jointly hosted a gathering of local business executives and academic researchers. The focus was on the growing importance of analytics in the business world. But the spotlight was on how a partnership between SAS and OPIM has supported the successful development and launch of the new MS in Business Analytics and Project Management (MS-BAPM) and has helped demonstrate the business value in deep data analytics.

Following an interactive and lively lunch, Ram Gopal, Head of the Department of Operations and Information Management, kicked off Friday afternoon’s program with welcoming remarks, expressions of gratitude for all those in attendance, and a brief summary of the SAS/OPIM partnership and details on the new MS-BAPM program. Ram’s remarks were followed by a presentation from Peter Bothwell, Senior VP at the Travelers and a Founding Member of the MS-BAPM Advisory Board, who spotlighted the business value of competing on analytics using a compelling array of examples in the property and casualty industry. Pete also highlighted the growing partnership between The Travelers and the new MS-BAPM, emphasizing the mutual benefits of such public/private partnering.

After being introduced by Zhongju Zhang, Director of the MS-BAPM program, John Sall, or “Mr. JMP”, then took the podium for a live and real time demonstration of how a slightly souped-up (added memory) laptop could do deep analytics in seconds either on a 123,000,000 record data set or on a broad, flat data set involving hundreds of variables and millions of records. The demonstration of the power of JMP Pro was evident but what caught the attention of all was the sheer enjoyment John was getting out of this very powerful demonstration. He demonstrated and emphasized the growing power and speed of deep data analytics – most importantly, he caught the attention of Connecticut’s business community.

Radhika Kulkarni, VP R&D Analytics at SAS, noted how difficult it was to be the speaker following John Sall, but Radhika’s knowledge and presentation made it evident she was John’s parallel as the “analytics genius of SAS”. Emphasizing the enterprise-wide focus of SAS, Radhika walked us through the challenges facing the analytics community and advancements in enterprise analytics from SAS in responding to those challenges. Radhika’s clarity of examples and ability to demonstrate high-value analytics’ links across the enterprise gave the audience a variety of possible analytics use-paths to think about in their own business settings.

While the business attendees headed home after the early evening networking reception, UConn faculty and students along with our SAS visitors prepared for a full day of workshops on JMP 10 Pro and SAS Rapid Predictive Modeling (RPM) that took place on Saturday. JMP’s Mia Stephens handled the JMP 10 Pro hands-on workshop, while SAS’ Andre de Waal took our faculty and students through a journey on the RPM highway where traditional statistics and analytics collides with the need for virtually instantaneous model development and implementation in today’s e-world.

The two-day event gave all of us an exposure to the power of analytics and to how powerful new tools capable of rapidly analyzing massive amount of data are emerging. The two days gave us much to ponder, but one thing is clear. The SAS/OPIM-UConn partnership is yielding large benefits. Our students are being educated at the forefront of methods and analytics platforms. Our faculty have the benefit and power of tools that support innovative teaching and frontier research. The Connecticut business community continues to see the value of programs such as MS-BAPM, including interactive experiential learning projects and a growing high-quality job candidate pool. SAS has the opportunity to enhance use of its tools along with feedback that helps them continue to expand and enhance the analytics support tool set.

A great two-days – a great continuing partnership!

Photo: Ram Gopal, Head of the Department of OPIM & John Sall, SAS Co-founder and JMP Guru

Ackerman Scholars Announced

Posted on by Claire Hall

The Dean’s Council has reviewed the Ackerman Scholars at the University of Connecticut School of Business and made the following awards:

Appointed for the next two years (2012-13 and 2013-14) are:

Continuing in their second year are:

  • Sulin Ba, OPIM
  • Joe Golec, Finance
  • John Harding, Finance
  • Suresh Nair, OPIM
  • Rex Santerre, Finance
  • Zeki Simsek, Management

The Ackerman Scholar award recognizes significant and continuing all round academic productivity among the faculty of the School. It is awarded to faculty who are not already supported by Chair or Professorship appointments. The award is supported by the Ackerman Fund, the School and the departments. The purpose of the Ackerman Fund is to “grant a monetary reward to faculty members who have excelled in classroom teaching, curriculum development, research, outreach to business and state agencies.”

UConn MIS Team Wins Inaugural CoMIS Case Competition

Posted on by Claire Hall

On April 4-7, University of Minnesota hosted the first of hopefully many undergraduate case competitions in the area of Management Information Systems. This event is named CoMIS and provided the students to test their business skills and information systems knowledge against an elite group of competitors from all around the USA. Ten leading universities sent their representatives to compete, including Arizona, Arizona State, Texas-Austin, Texas-Dallas, Minnesota, Minnesota State, Indiana, Maryland, Utah and UConn.

UConn team was represented by Sebastian Guzera(MIS Senior), Walid Namane(MIS Junior) and Michael Whiteman(MIS Junior). Dmitry  Zhdanov served as the team’s coach. It is my great pleasure to inform you that UConn team became the winners of this inaugural competition.

Teams were given 24 hours to analyze a case and prepare their presentations. Case sponsor and topic were not known in advance; to everyone’s surprise and excitement, the case was about Minnesota Wild – a professional hockey team playing in the NHL. Students were asked to identify the best way for the team to boost its social media presence and turn it into revenue. As part of the case, students were given a wealth of data collected from the Wild’s Facebook page (data known as Facebook Insight). Students had to prepare a 20-minute presentation followed by an intensive Q&A session from the judges.

A panel of industry experts judged students’ performance, including two members of the Minnesota Wild front office, as well as executives from 3M, Medtronic, Ernst and Young and others. To preserve competition integrity, university affiliations were not available to the judging panel. UConn team went as Team Apollo.

The teams were broken down into three groups for the first round of the presentations. Group winners went on to the finals to give their talk one more time. UConn was matched with UT-Austin and Arizona State in group B. After winning the group, UConn’s Team Apollo went on to the final to face Utah Cyber Snipers and Maryland’s Dream Team. Utah finished second and Maryland third.

This was a fun an exciting event, many new friendships were made. The fact that our team ended up as the winners makes it even more exciting and speaks highly of the quality and dedication of our students and MIS program. We’ve set a high bar for ourselves going forward.

Pictured left to right: Jan DeGross (of MIS Quarterly) presents the CoMIS 1st place award to UConn Team – Walid Namane, Michael Whiteman, Sebastian Guzera and Dmitry Zhdanov (Coach)

Etiquette and Business

Posted on by Claire Hall

The UConn School of Business Career Center hosted two Etiquette Training events on April 4, 2012. The first event was specifically geared toward MBA students focusing on the impact etiquette has on the business environment including production loss, executive-level etiquette responsibility and potential business situations that tie into social environments.   The second event was held for the Undergraduates in which the event speaker, Daniel Post-Senning (the great-great grandson of Emily Post, a renowned expert in the field of etiquette), guided students on a multitude of topics including: job interview and follow-up etiquette; when it is appropriate for a guest to discuss business topics; and, more importantly, how etiquette is the power that fuels our business relationships and offers a guide to success by combining manners and principles. The Emily Post Institute’s principles have been guiding business professionals since 1922 when Emily Post first wrote “to make a pleasant and friendly impression is not only good manners but equally good business.”

These events provided business and social etiquette advice to over 75 students and were sponsored by our generous corporate partner Pepperidge Farm, located in Norwalk, Connecticut.

Photo: Daniel Post-Senning

Students Compete at National Collegiate Sales Competition

Posted on by Claire Hall

On March 2nd-5th students Michael Ferrone, John Sulzicki, Chris Czarnowski, and Lauren Basist and Faculty Advisor Bill Ryan represented UConn at the annual National Collegiate Sales Competition held at Kennesaw State University in Atlanta, Georgia. The NCSC is comprised of 65 colleges and universities from across the country. Over 20 companies sponsor the competition, each hoping to attract students interested in working for them upon graduation. The competition consists of multiple rounds of one-on-one selling with a “buyer,” and judging based on successful execution of a professional sales process that includes building rapport, effective needs identification, presenting targeted solutions, overcoming objections and effectively “closing the sale.” These techniques are taught in the Professional Selling and Sales Management & Leadership classes offered by the UConn Marketing Department as part of the Program for Sales Leadership.

Pictured from left to right are; Michael Ferrone, John Sulzicki, Bill Ryan-Faculty Advisor, Chris Czarnowski, and Lauren Basist.

Ph.D. Student Teaching Awards

Posted on by Claire Hall

On March 22, the Ph.D. students and coordinators for the five Ph.D. concentrations met at Willington Pizza for a “BUS Ph.D. Student Night of Appreciation,” where we celebrated student accomplishments during the last year.

At this event, we announced the winners of the school’s 2012 Ph.D. student teaching awards.  Each of the five Ph.D. program concentrations gave a teaching award to a qualified student in their concentration.  The coordinators of the five concentrations (John Phillips – ACCT,  Joe Golec – FNCE,  Lucy Gilson – MGMT,  Bill Ross – MKTG, and Jan Stallaert – OPIM), along with the program director (Gary Powell), then decided as a group which of the winners of a teaching award in a concentration would receive this year’s School of Business teaching award.Continue Reading

Annual Faculty Awards

Posted on by Claire Hall

At the beginning of this month, the Teaching and Research Committee met and evaluated nominations for the annual Faculty Awards.  A total of nine winners, a runner up, and two honorable mentions were awarded.

Under the Research category the winners are Sarah Rice and David Weber for Best Paper.  Their paper is titled “How Effective is Internal Control Reporting under SOZ 404? Determinants of the (Non-) Disclosure of Existing Material Weaknesses.” Continue Reading

MSBAPM/Swiss Re Networking Event

Posted on by Claire Hall

On Thursday March 22, 2012, the MS in Business Analytics and Project Management (MSBAPM) held its second MSBAPM/Industry Networking Event in the Graduate Business Learning Center (GBLC) in downtown Hartford, co-sponsored with Swiss Re, the leading global reinsurance company, based in Zurich. Swiss Re was represented by Michael O. Van Dusen PMP, Director, Operations, Business Engineering, Swiss Re America Holding; Peter Langan, Xinwei Zhang, and Patricia Quinn. Several faculty and staff from the Operations and Information Management (OPIM) department and students from the MSBAPM program also attended.

After a meet and greet, the executives gave an overview of Swiss Re and the Business Engineering (BEN) group, which does internal consulting projects for the firm. Projects may involve process improvement, change management, etc., and can range in size from one million dollars to several hundred million dollars. The executives then ran a small teamwork and collaboration game to illustrate the importance of communication and teamwork in projects. The winning team was thrilled to receive Swiss chocolates as a reward! The executives then resumed discussion on project work and ended the talk with an overview of salary and job prospects for students trained in project management. Everyone had a good time.

Picture: Swiss Re Exec. Michael O. Van Dusen speaking.

US News Ranks UConn’s MBA Program 31st among Public Institutions

Posted on by Claire Hall

The University of Connecticut MBA Program rose several spots in the US News & World Report’s 2013 Best Graduate School Rankings.

“It’s always flattering to be considered among the best graduate business programs in the country,” said Michael J. Deotte, director of the full-time MBA Program. “Positive rankings such as this, however, merely reflect our steadfast commitment to affordable, quality graduate management education.”

UConn’s full-time MBA Program ranks 61st (31st among public business schools);  the part-time MBA Program ranks 52nd among part-time programs.Continue Reading