Release Date: Tuesday, February 26, 2002

UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN WINS INAUGURAL GM/TERRY MARKETING RESEARCH COMPETITION; $16,000 IN PRIZE MONEY AWARDED

ATLANTA, Ga. — A polished presentation by a team of MBA students from the University of Michigan earned top honors and a $10,000 prize in the inaugural GM/Terry Marketing Research Project Competition.

Business school teams from Emory and Harvard claimed the runner-up $5,000 and $1,000 prizes, respectively; and all the teams walked away with sharpened marketing research skills and new insights into Internet strategy thanks to GM's involvement in the case studies that served as the basis for the competition.

Teams from 11 of the nation's pre-eminent business schools participated in the 10-week competition, which culminated in a daylong series of marketing presentations held February 23 at the University of Georgia's Alumni Club and Business Center in Buckhead.

Event organizer Rajiv Grover, head of the Marketing Department at UGA's Terry College of Business, said contest co-sponsor General Motors was "very impressed" by the professional caliber of the students' presentations.

"I think GM got every penny's worth from this competition," said Grover, who helped frame the event as a "marketing research project competition." Each of the cases addressed General Motors' real world Internet marketing strategies. Five GM executives were on the judging panel, along with a sixth judge from Computerworld magazine. At the end of the contest, the presentations became intellectual property of GM.

Keith Denny, a business analyst with e-GM and one of the judges, said the company is already disseminating information and concepts from the recommendations. "It's already making an impact," Denny said. "This is definitely something we want to continue next year."

Denny said GM is also considering visiting some of the student teams or inviting them to Detroit to continue the dialogue, including the team from the Terry College of Business. "Of the four presentations we're interested in, one was from Terry," he said.

Each four-student team had 10 weeks to prepare a 20-minute presentation based on one of three cases. Following their presentations, each team responded to 10 minutes of questions posed by the judges.

Grover said many of the projects were obviously the result of exhaustive research and preparation with students going to actual GM dealers, customers and employees to gather information.

In other more traditional case competitions, which normally last only a day, teams are asked to provide an answer to a problem that is thoroughly described, with details usually drawn from a situation experienced by a company in the past. In contrast, the GM/Terry competition gave the teams only a general description of the situation, putting the onus on them for both framing and solving the problems.

Grover said another benefit to GM was being able to hear well-reasoned, well-researched evaluations of GM's current Internet marketing strategies from relatively objective sources, rather than employees or consultants who might have a vested interest in putting a positive spin on their findings.

"GM got to listen to 50 very bright people telling the truth," he said.

Denny said the competition proved to be the premiere recruiting event of 2001-2002 for GM, giving the company access to a formidable and diverse talent pool. "We were very impressed with the students from an international perspective, as well as their intelligence and personality in general," he said, adding that the first-time event was such a success that GM will consider inviting more business schools to expand the competition's recruiting reach.

Business schools who sent teams to the event include Carnegie Mellon University, Emory University (Goizueta), Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Sloan), Northwestern University (Kellogg), Stanford University, University of Georgia (Terry), University of Michigan, University of North Carolina (Kenan-Flagler), University of South Carolina (Moore), and Vanderbilt University (Owen).

Four of the top five business schools ranked by U.S. News and World Report participated, and 10 of the schools — including Terry — are ranked in the top 50 by both U.S. News and Business Week.

"This marketing research competition builds upon an area of strength in the Terry College, and GM's partnership in this project is a boost to our profile and reputation nationally," said Dean P. George Benson. "It's a credit to Rajiv Grover, our Marketing Department and the power of the General Motors brand name that these premiere U.S. business schools were attracted to this competition the first time out of the gate."

Related Link: MMR Website

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