Poole College’s Jenkins MBA Team Wins Lenovo and Microsoft Case Competition

A team of four Jenkins MBA students at NC State's Poole College of Management brought home the top prize from the 2013 Lenovo and Microsoft Case Study Competition, held Monday, February 25, at Lenovo's Morrisville, N.C. headquarters.

Lenovo and Microsoft had invited student teams from the region's top MBA programs to develop and presented a response to a creative marketing challenge. The companies' goal: to expose MBA students to real business challenges faced in the PC industry and to come up with quick and comprehensive solutions, said Evan Honour, a Microsoft team member who coordinated the event.

Participating were teams from Duke University's Fuqua School of Business, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Kenan Flagler School of Business and Poole College's Jenkins MBA program at NC State.

Each of the business schools held preliminary rounds to select the team that would go on to the final round. The Jenkins MBA team members are Patrick Ferguson, Eddie Jones, JJ Eve and Caroline Chamblee Lewis.

Judged on Creativity, Relevance and Quality

"I really enjoyed the entire process of the project," said Patrick Ferguson, a second year MBA student with a concentration in marketing; he pulled together the college's winning team. "We worked great as a team, researching the higher education technology industry, gathering voice-of-customer data, developing a product to solve a problem, and putting it all together in one presentation with a sales pitch. It was a total team effort."

Honour said the team responses were evaluated using a process that is similar to how Lenovo and Microsoft judge MBA candidates that they recruit. That includes the creativity, relevance and quality of the teams'ideas.

"Lenovo and Microsoft sought to provide an opportunity to students in RTP (Research Triangle Park) that exposed them to real business challenges. We thought we could offer students an experience that would greatly benefit their resumes and foster pragmatic abilities that companies like ours look for in MBA candidates," Honour said.

That opportunity to show her skills is among the reasons Caroline Chamblee Lewis, second year MBA student with a concentration in marketing, decided to participate. "I love technology and I love innovation. Also, Lenovo is a company that I am interested in working for, so I couldn’t pass up this experience or exposure," she said.

"NC State did a remarkable job executing; our judges were very impressed with the level of quality from beginning to end. A great needs identification analysis and sales pitch ultimately won it for the team. They were extremely congenial, personable and gracious,” Honour said.

Dr. Steve Allen, associate dean of graduate programs at Poole College, commended the team for its achievement.

“I am really proud of this team," he said. "They did a great job, especially on the critical communication aspects of the competition. The results show once again that NC State’s Jenkins MBAs understand how to make technology work for business and can apply what they have learned to real business problems.”

Applying Classroom Lessons to Real a Business Challenge

Facing tough competition from the surrounding schools, the NC State team leveraged key product development skills, honed in various MBA classes, to come up with their final sales pitch.

"In every class, the NC State MBA program instills the importance of critical thinking in order to find and create value, so I had no doubts taking on a case of this nature," Lewis said. "The Product Innovation Lab (MBA 555) was extremely helpful in understanding a framework for developing new products, from ideation to marketing, and our global strategy class was helpful in assessing the market needs," she said.

"Also, all of our team has experience with market research, which we applied to some basic exploratory research that helped guide our decisions. Finally, I believe that our course in consumer behavior, which most of our group is currently taking, was helpful in thinking about the user experience and how to communicate the product’s benefits," Lewis said.

The opportunity to showcase (these) marketing skills plus presentation skills in front of top executives at successful corporations was one of the reasons Ferguson participated.

"In MBA 555, our product innovation class, the professors stress the concept of developing a product that meets the needs of the customers. There are all kinds of innovative technologies that aren’t ready to be pushed to market because they don’t fill an unmet need," he said.

"Instead of innovating just to innovate, our plan was to innovate around fixing the pain points that customers experience. In this case, it meant developing a product that simplified the process of connecting various devices in classrooms, conference rooms and meeting rooms," Ferguson said.

JJ Eve, a second year MBA student with concentrations in supply chain management and biosciences management, said that business planning and corporate strategy concepts aided the team's quality analysis of their new venture.

"In MBA 580, our global strategy class, we were responsible for developing a thorough analysis of a company and providing strategy recommendations that would improve the company," he said. "This helped me further understand the strategy and implementation process of introducing a product or idea."

Ultimately, it was a combination of business fundamentals and confidence in their abilities that led the NC State group to victory.

"The judges complimented our team’s ability to clearly pinpoint problems and develop a viable solution that addressed real business needs," Lewis said, noting that her personal approach to problem solving "is largely shaped from my background in graphic design," she said.

"The NC State College of Design focuses on problem identification and creative problem solving, and I brought in many of these concepts to the group," Lewis added. "Our first meeting was focused solely on identifying problems and brainstorming, and we did not rush to a particular solution. My design background also helped in our presentation development, too."

"This case was a matter of understanding basic marketing strategy: Identify an unmet need, and design a product to fulfill that need," said Eddie Jones, a second year MBA student with a supply chain management concentration. "The experience from all of our classes helped us refine our presentation to be clear and concise, and helped us convey our ideas as best as possible."

"We have an incredibly talented group of students with diverse backgrounds in the MBA program at NC State, and I was happy to be able to represent the program well," Lewis said.

Judging based on Real World Criteria

Judging the team presentations were leaders in IT from Microsoft, Lenovo and academia, Honour said. They were "looking for teams that showed a level of creativity that was substantiated with quality analysis and plans. The case and subsequent judging was very indicative of how talent is evaluated internally at Microsoft and Lenovo," he said.

"Going into the competition, (while) we knew Duke's and UNC’s teams would be well prepared, we were completely confident in both our idea and our ability to present. When they announced us as the winning team, it felt great. We worked really hard and it was nice to see that hard work pay off," Eve said.

"I enjoy competition immensely," he said. "Being victorious makes it all the better. Go Pack!"

Photo

In the photo are, left to right: Patrick Ferguson, JJ Eve, Caroline Chamblee Lewis, and Eddie Jones.

About the Jenkins MBA team

J.J. Eve, second year NC State Jenkins MBA candidate
Concentration: Supply chain management and biosciences management
Hometown: San Diego, CA
Currently resides in Raleigh, NC
Undergraduate studies: University of California at San Diego, bachelor"s degree in human biology (2008)

Patrick Ferguson, second year NC State Jenkins MBA candidate
Concentration: Marketing
Hometown: Campbell, CA
Currently resides in Raleigh, NC
Undergraduate studies: NC State College of Humanities and Social Sciences, bachelor"s degree in communication (2009)

Eddie Jones, second year NC State Jenkins MBA candidate
Concentration: Supply chain
Hometown: Raleigh, NC
Currently resides in Raleigh, NC
Undergraduate studies: NC State Poole College, bachelor"s degree in business administration with a marketing concentration (2008)

Caroline Chamblee Lewis, second year NC State Jenkins MBA candidate
Concentration: Marketing
Hometown: Greensboro, N.C.
Currently resides in Raleigh, N.C.
Undergraduate studies NC State University College of Design, bachelor of graphic design (2009)