JMU Student International Marketing Team takes Top Honors
Marketing
SUMMARY: The 2018 NASBITE (National Association of Small Business International Trade Educators) International Student Case Competition held in Baltimore on March 22-23 saw JMU landing in first place, beating out National Championship rival Youngstown State in the final round.
The NASBITE competition gave students the opportunity to work collaboratively on a creative solution to an international marketing challenge, and also provided the sponsoring company (Otto Germany) access to the very best undergraduate business and marketing students presenting potential solutions to their international marketing challenges. Each student team gave a 30-minute presentation that provided a solution for Otto’s export problem. JMU’s team featured two marketing majors and three international business majors with a marketing concentration: Alana Buto, Samar Elimam, Chase Fereday, Daniela Nadal and Nicole Swindell.
Discussing their work process, senior marketing major Nicole Swindell said, “Our group's work ethic was completely different from other schools. We have been working on this case since December by doing primary research on the company. Together, we made a practice presentation on what we thought that case was going to be about, since the full case information was not available until March 1st. Not having any previous knowledge of this competition really benefited us because we brought our own creative twist to the solution of the case!”
Senior international business major Chase Fereday attributed the win to the team and their preparation. “Our success as a team was a testament to how strong our College of Business is. The true strength of our team was found in its diversity. It was comprised of people from different countries, people with different religions, areas of study, genders, even languages. We all brought something new and different to the table and this diversity truly made us capable of inventing new ideas and thinking outside of the box.”
Dr. Mert Tokman, faculty adviser and associate professor of marketing said, “I am very proud of the level of diversity this team had and how they came together to use their cultural differences and various perspectives to their advantage to develop a unique solution for the case that no other team was able to match. It was a very rewarding experience for me and I am overwhelmed with pride in our amazing students.” He added, “The students also wanted to recognize how well the COB 300 program prepared them for experiences like this one.”
