UA Team Finishes Second in Marketing Case Competition

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – A team of five University of Alabama students recently participated in the 2008 “Walgreens Wrangle,” a marketing case competition hosted by Southern Arkansas University in Magnolia, Ark., and finished second in the 15-team event.

The competition is a Students in Free Enterprise, or SIFE, entrepreneurship case study and included teams from universities in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Louisiana, Arkansas and Missouri.

SIFE is an international non-profit organization that is active on more than 1,400 university campuses in 48 countries. SIFE teams create economic opportunities in their communities by organizing outreach projects that teach market economics, entrepreneurship, personal financial success skills and business ethics. Their projects are judged on creativity, innovation and effectiveness.

The faculty adviser for the Alabama team is David M. Ford, clinical professor and Sam Walton Fellow in the department of management and marketing at UA’s Culverhouse College of Commerce.

UA’s team, all members of the Entrepreneurship Club and SIFE, consisted of Danny Smith and Austin Cone, both second year M.B.A. students; Sam Mroczynski and Stephanie Reichman, both first year M.B.A. students, and freshman Kathleen Davis and junior Matt Doyle, both in the UA entrepreneurship program. The teams were presented a real case study about Schwan’s Home Service, the former ice cream delivery business which now delivers easy-to-prepare meals every two weeks to its customers.

The company is looking for ways to generate more business and increase online sales, and competitors had to conduct research and develop and present a reasonable, workable and creative marketing plan to help Schwan’s Home Service be more effective in using its Web site and other marketing approaches.

This competition was funded by Walgreens, Schwan’s and Finish Line.

Smith said this is the first full academic year for the Entrepreneurship Club and that the “interest level has been phenomenal.”

The Entrepreneurship Club provides members with the tools needed to pursue entrepreneurship as a business owner or in the corporate world, Smith said.

“We have organized competitions, community service projects and forums this semester,” he said. Dr. Lou Marino is the club’s faculty adviser.

More than 200 students and business people attended the event.

“Our proudest moments came after we presented in the final round when the former president of Schwan’s and now consultant to the company informed us that the company would implement our idea into company operations,” Smith said. “The Schwan’s judges later commended us on our team chemistry and stage presence. This is truly remarkable given the diversity of our group and that none of the six team members had previously worked with one another.”

Smith said the judges included senior managers, vice presidents and store managers from Walgreen’s, senior managers and directors from Schwan’s and Finish Line, as well as professors from Southern Arkansas University.

The Culverhouse College of Commerce and Business Administration was established in 1919, and, in 1929, it became the 38th school to earn admission into the American Association of Collegiate Schools of Business. The excellence of the UA business school has been acknowledged on a national level. The undergraduate program is ranked 29th among public universities by U.S. News, and the Culverhouse School of Accountancy is ranked 15th among public universities by U.S. News. The graduate accounting program is ranked 15th, and the undergraduate program 14th, by Public Accounting Report. The entrepreneurial program is ranked 20th nationally.