CBE holds annual spring case competition

Towson University's College of Business and Economics (CBE) held its annual spring case competition on Friday, April 29 in conjunction with 1st Mariner Bank.

During the required upper-level MNGT 481 Strategic Management course, senior-level accounting, business administration and e-business majors test the knowledge and skills they have learned throughout their academic careers in a course-wide competition.

For spring 2016, 1st Mariner Bank asked the teams "How can the bank attract more millennial customers?" (PDF)

The winning team was Reach Millennial Businesses, made up of Steven Bond, Autumn Hill, John Johnson, Betelihem Kabtiymer, and Marcus Nejad. Second place was Change It Up (Kristin Arceri, Cat Cavalier, Karlie Damato, Kristen Cerbone and Kristen Van Dyke), and Agents 001 (Sam Anthwal, Samantha Galbraith, Bradley Kijawa, Mario Renta, Arash Shishbaradran and Zack Smith) placed third.

“The competition is great. It gives us an idea of what people outside of the business see as important as consumers and the different experiences consumers go through,” said Andrew Schreiber, a market analyst for the bank, 2012 CBE alumnus and judge for the competition.

When asked if the proposals and ideas the students provide will be useful to 1^st Mariner, he said, “Absolutely. They shed light on a lot of things we wouldn’t have thought of such as new ways to use social media. The students’ presentations are very well done. They seem calm and comfortable and can communicate their ideas clearly.”

Every academic term, one company provides a case based on a question or issue the company is considering. Students across all sections of MNGT 481 are divided into teams and given three weeks to research and prepare a written report and presentation. Teams present to their classes and the winning team from each class goes on to the final where they present to executives from the company.