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Using a financial case to prove that taking a risk for a new kind of wireless phone would pay off big for Motorola, a team of students from Chicago GSB’s Evening MBA and Weekend Programs won the fifth annual Kellogg Marketing Case Competition May 4 and 5.
The competition, hosted by the marketing club of Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management, pitted the GSB team against business school students from DePaul, Kellogg, Loyola, and University of Illinois at Chicago.
Sponsored by Schaumburg, Illinois–based Motorola, the contest charged students with determining whether the company should enter the marketing for “unlocked” wireless phones, which do not require the owner to use a particular wireless service provider’s network. Ryan Adelman, Meenakshi Dash, Joshua Tobey, Disha Gulati, and Bob Kakoliris took first place with their campaign “Free Your Moto.”
GSB students said that while Motorola would continue to support strong operator relationships and ensure high volumes if it restricted future sales to hand sets that lock the user into a specific cell phone network, such a move would perpetuate lower margins.
Entering the unlocked phone market would allow Motorola to reach a wider consumer base by appealing to such consumers as the international traveler or the “techno-geek,” and the company could position itself to capture a leading market share.
Not only does the unlocked market free phone users from restrictions on the type of phone they can use, but it also “has to do with a type of lifestyle choice that the customer makes,” said Dash. The team also suggested that Motorola’s marketing campaign should target consumers who fall into such categories as the “fire-breathing achiever,” the “hedo-techno youth,” the “self-expressionist,” and the “balanced urbanite.”
The trump card was the team’s presentation, which the judges called “passionate, well-balanced, succinct, smooth flowing,” and the question-and-answer session, which the judges scored as “composed, confident, and well balanced,” with each team member answering at least two questions. In short, the team “delivered solid, well thought-out responses to tough questions,” Kakoliris reported.
The jury, including Motorola executives and academics, voted unanimously, said Abel Jeuland, Charles H. Kellstadt Professor of Marketing at the GSB who judged the competition. Though the case was complex, “in a very short amount of time, the GSB students grasped the key issues and developed an impressive plan with a lot of details, and they communicated these findings extremely well,” he said. “In sum, they delivered on the deliverables.”
Adelman said GSB team members got positive feedback during the presentation. “There was some fist pumping and some serious nodding, especially during the Q-and-A session after our presentation,” Adelman said. “The judges seemed serious but really impressed, as if we’d given them the information they were hoping to hear.”
He added, “I got a sense that what I’ve been learning at the GSB is definitely rooted in commercial reality. It’s a great feeling to have a conversation with executives at any given company and feel like I can have a peer-to-peer conversation.”
Dash said the competition proved that GSB students excelled in soft skills, team work, presentation skills, and marketing prowess, she said. “For me, the experience was invaluable. It was heady, taxing, painful, and exhilarating—all at the same time,” Dash said.
Alan Buddendeck, director of communications and public affairs for Motorola’s mobile devices business, even told the team it was evident that the GSB is doing a great job of teaching presentation skills. "Whatever the GSB is doing,” he said to the team, “they are doing it right, especially with teaching you how to present."
—Mary Sue Penn