Quick thinking by a team of Grove City College students earned them the Wildcard win in the recent Dick’s Sporting Goods and Pitt Business Strategy Case Competition.
It is the second year in a row a team from the College’s Winklevoss School of Business captured the prize in the national data-driven undergraduate challenge, which drew 56 teams from 40 schools.
In the competition, sponsored by the national sporting goods chain and the University of Pittsburgh, students are challenged to analyze data about Dick’s acquisition of Foot Locker and make recommendations on whether to grow, maintain, or downtrend their Foot Locker stores in international markets.
The Grove City College team, consisting of Benjamin Forastiere, Modesta Grossman, Sophia LoDico, and Alexander Barbetta, applied a “CUES” framework – Customer Service, Unique product presentation, Experience, and Sustainability – to make their recommendations, according to Dr. Ryan Miller, assistant professor of Business Analytics.
The team spent considerable time developing their recommendations and earned a spot among the eight finalists, which also included teams from Pitt, Boston University, Purdue, University of Cincinnati, University of Houston, University of Kansas, and Texas A&M.
Edged out in the finals, they earned a spot in the Wildcard round, in which teams had just 45 minutes to analyze data from two dozen cities and create presentation slides to advise Dick’s on an international strategy for its House of Sport concept store.
“It was a lot in a very short amount of time,” Miller said. The back-to-back victories, he said, are a sign that Grove City College students can compete successfully against teams from much larger institutions. “That seems like a meaningful reflection of the quality of our students and the strength of the Winklevoss School of Business,” he said.
Team member Forastiere, a senior Marketing major from Lewisville, Texas, said it was “absolutely an excellent experience.”
“The sense of competition, drive, and learning is one to remember as I graduate. Our first presentation definitely took much more time, which allowed us to think through our plans and strategy. I don't know that the Wildcard round was necessarily harder, just much more of a time crunch,” he said.
After last year’s success, Miller made the competition part of his Retail Management course, which fielded four teams.
For more about Marketing and Management and the Winklevoss School of Business, visit gcc.edu/business.