Problem-solving for businesses leads Southeast team to victory in competition

It's a more nerve-wracking type of public speaking when students have to get up in front of business executives and try to tell them the best ways to improve their company -- even if it's a hypothetical exercise.

"You have to be careful," Southeast Missouri State University MBA Case team member Bobbie Dampier said. "When you're talking directly to the company, they know what they want to hear. They know what's going on inside their companies. If you emphasize the positive before you bombard them with negative, that's good, too."

Dampier was one of four team members who won the Show-Me MBA Case Competition on Feb. 24 and 25 at the University of Missouri-Columbia. The Southeast team competed against two teams from Washington University and three teams from Mizzou. Southeast took home $5,000 for first prize.

"We know and knew what we were capable of," Dampier said.

Case competition involves taking a business problem -- in this case trying to improve the work environment of Lockton Companies -- and working out the solutions and implementation of them within five-hours. Economics professor Willie Redmond coaches the case team and said a team of consultants would normally be given at least several days to complete such a task. One of Redmond's former team members got a job with CitiBank when they presented him with a case problem during the interview, and he attacked it like he was on the team.

"There's no job out there that says, 'Read this chapter, I'll give you a test and then I'll give you a paycheck,'" Redmond said. "(Case) brings out skills people are looking for."

In the Southeast team's case, that meant offering a tiered set of solutions to a broad problem, Dampier said.

Instead of sticking with one solution -- a sound strategy with a more financially motivated case such as a company considering a merger or entering a foreign market -- the team presented five short-term solutions, one medium-term solution and a long-term solution. The short-term solutions could be implemented in two to four months, while the long-term solution may take three years.

Dampier did not provide specific examples but said solutions ranged from adding a pingpong table to a company's break room to reworking a company's benefits package.

Dampier said judges were impressed with the team's focus on providing a plan to implement each solution -- something Redmond stresses.

"We wanted to fit it on a timeline," Dampier said.

Redmond said Lockton was keen on using some of the ideas discussed at the competition. Dampier said the executives mostly were quiet when her team discussed its short-term options.

The company also was interested in obtaining resumes from most of the competitors.

Dampier already has passed the certified public accounting exam and will work for a public accounting firm in the fall after she graduates this spring.

Teammate Brett Kazandjian will go for his doctorate at Ole Miss after he graduates this spring, Dampier said.

Other teammates include Harman Malhi and Kayla Ray. Kazandjian won a $250 best-presenter prize, and Malhi won a $250 best Q&A prize.

"It's crazy the number of things that translate," Dampier said of case competition experience.

Southeast's DECA team also won first prize Feb. 24 at the 2017 Collegiate DECA State Career Development Conference and Competition in Lake Ozark, Missouri. DECA is a similar competition involving marketing and public relations problems.

bkleine@semissourian.com

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