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News
Briefs |
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Teams Play Supply Chain Game in
First Global Competition
The Supply Chain Management Lab at
the Smith School was buzzing by 8 a.m.
on Oct. 24 as four teams of Smith
students logged onto computers to
compete against teams from around the
world in the first global competition of
the Supply Chain Game. Developed by
researchers at the Robert H. Smith
School of Business and Delft University
of Technology in the Netherlands, the
game is the first real-time simulation
that pits players against each other in
an online interactive environment.
Players vie to increase profits and
market share by creating the most
efficient supply chain in a world where
unexpected problems, their business
decisions and the decisions of their
competitors impact the game.
Teams from five schools
participated: Smith, Penn State, CERAM
in France, Nankai University of
Technology in China, and the University
of Groningen in the Netherlands. The
game was a lead-up to a larger
competition the Smith School plans to
host this winter, in collaboration with
sponsor Sun Microsystems, in which teams
around the world will compete for prize
money donated by Sun.
►Full Story, with photos from teams
around the world
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Faculty and staff, join us on the evening of
November 13 at the Tysons Corner Ritz
Carlton for an alumni networking and
book signing event featuring Carly
Fiorina, MBA ’80, former chairman and
CEO of Hewlett-Packard, as she discusses
her new book Tough Choices: A Memoir.
In Tough Choices, Fiorina writes
with brutal honesty about her triumphs
and failures, her deepest fears, and her
most painful confrontations—including
her sudden and very public firing by
HP’s board of directors. The book
outlines the rise of one of the most
powerful businesswomen in America. Her
book is a must-read—and she is a
must-see! ($30 for
Faculty/Staff/Students).
►More Information/Register Online
THERE ARE ONLY A FEW SEATS REMAINING
REGISTER ONLINE NOW!
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Diwali Night!
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Second Annual Pumpkin
Carving Night with the International
Club
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Smith
School Honors Leaders for Freight
Transportation
Contributions at Annual Industry Day
Jeffrey N. Shane, under secretary for
policy at the U.S. Department of
Transportation, and Ron Widdows, chief
executive of global transportation
company APL Ltd., received the joint
2006 “Person of the Year Award” from the
Smith School’s Logistics, Transportation
and Supply Chain Management (LTSCM)
Society and the Supply Chain Club (SCC)
on Oct. 27 in a ceremony at the
university’s Stamp Student Union Grand
Ballroom.
►Full Story
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 Robert
Colson Speaks from Experience on Ethics
and Morality
Robert Colson, partner at Grant
Thornton LLP, spoke to an auditorium of
accounting students at the Smith School
on Thursday, October 24 about the
business of ethics and morality. He was
the second speaker in the Business
Ethics Lecture Series held at Smith. An
accountant by day, Colson’s interests
range from ecology to fly fishing. His
work experience spans several decades
and includes stints in academia, the
nonprofit world, and multinational
corporations. The next session will be
on November 8 with Lesley Fair, an
attorney with the Federal Trade
Commission.
►Full Story
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First-Year Fiesta a Fantastic
Fete!
On Monday, October 23, students were
treated to the a First-Year
Fiesta, a study break before the start
of final exams in the first set of
seven-week classes. Students whacked
piñatas, enjoyed snacks and candy, and
chatted for a bit before hitting the
books again. The first-year fete was
sponsored by the MPO, MBAA, and the
Orientation Committee. |
MBA Alumni Mentor Program Kickoff
“Strengthening the Foundation” is
the theme of the 2006-2007 Smith MBA
Alumni Mentor Program (AMP), which got
under way on Saturday Oct. 21st, with a
kick-off celebration that gave mentors
and protégés the opportunity to meet for
the first time. The morning offered
speakers including AMP Steering
Committee members Glenn Gargan '87, MBA
'02, and Assistant Dean Joanne
Ferchland-Parella, MBA '06, who
encouraged participants to get involved
with the program to the fullest extent.
►Full Story |
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8th Annual Consulting Forum
 Smith
alumni and current MBAs came together to
share information about the business of
consulting Friday, October 20 at the 8th
Annual Consulting Forum. The event
featured Jeff Lavine, Partner,
Regulatory Advisory Services,
PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. Mr. Lavine
gave an overview of the current
profession of consulting with a focus on
financial services.
After Mr. Lavine’s talk guests from the
industry gave talks on entering the
profession. These visitors represented
financial services, organizational
development and public services.
 "The
consulting forum is an excellent event
for students to educate themselves on
different facets of the consulting
industry. Also, the forum is a great
place to network with representatives of
top-tier consulting firms." Smith
Consulting Club member Ron Pusz said.
Visiting consultants than sat on
industry panels and answered questions
related to their field of practice.
These panelists came from firms such as
Booz Allen Hamilton, Deloitte Consulting
LLP and McKinsey & Company.
The event was organized and run by the
Consulting Club with assistance from
Smith faculty and staff.
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NSHMBA Conference
The National Society of Hispanic
MBAs (NSHMBA) held its 17th Annual
Conference and Career Expo October
26-28 in Cincinnati, Ohio. Over
7,000 attendees filled the Duke
Energy Center to meet with employers
from around the United States.
Companies such as Dell Inc., Johnson
and Johnson, Limited Brands, and
Target Corporation sponsored the
conference.
Several students from the Robert H.
Smith School of Business attended
the NSHMBA conference. Jorge
Christian, a first-year Smith MBA
student, took a chance and
approached recruiters at the Johnson
and Johnson booth. The recruiters
then interviewed him for a summer
finance internship.
Christian found the conference
helpful: “The conference provided
students with an excellent
opportunity to network with other
Hispanic students from across the
country, as well as make valuable
contacts with Hispanic employers in
various industries. Overall, it was
an excellent experience, and
Cincinnati turned out to be a fairly
cool place. Who knew!?”
Christian also encouraged
non-Hispanic MBA students to attend
the conference: “The conference is
valuable for students of all
backgrounds because several top
employers heavily recruit there.”
Eduardo Vargas Iparraguirre, a
first-year Smith MBA student from
Peru, interviewed with two companies
at the NSHMBA conference, IBM
Consulting and Kimberly-Clark.
Iparraguirre met many new people at
the conference and also saw some old
friends. “The job fair was really
good for me because I saw people who
I met years ago: workmates, clients,
and friends from the United States
and Latin America countries.” He
also enjoyed attending the opening
parties that different companies
sponsored.
Diana Canepari, a first-year Smith
MBA student from Venezuela, also
found the conference to be valuable.
She interviewed with four companies:
DTE Energy, Dell, Frito-Lay and
Intel. She commented: “I have to
wait for the results of my
interviews, but I already know that
they were good practice. I also
learned to be prepared to give a
good impression of the school.”
Canepari said the conference’s only
drawback was that “some companies
had not started the internship
recruitment process yet. Therefore,
there were more opportunities for
second- year students looking for
full-time jobs.”
Diego Arbulu, another first-year
Smith MBA student, used the NSHMBA
conference to network with
representatives from leading
companies across all industries. He
advised, “Attending such an event is
a must for all first year students!”
The next NSHMBA conference will be
held October 4-6, 2007, in Houston,
Texas.
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Smith MBAs Bring Ideas to Innovation
Challenge
Smith MBAs formed teams to compete
in an international competition
testing groups' ability to offer
innovative ideas to established
firms. One outstanding Smith team,
composed of full-time first-year
MBAs Ray Wang, Shane Ho, Zhenrong
Ma, Chananate Niyamosot, and
William Krents placed 6th out of a
group of 50 for their company, GE
Money. The group's innovation
involved a novel use of the GE's
current expert on personal finance
to further draw in customers to the
firm's site. |
Book
Review: The Box
 In September 2006, the
Financial
Times announced the short list of
the best business books of the year.
China Shakes the World by James Kynge,
The Wal-Mart Effect by
Charles Fishman, and The Long Tail
by Chris Anderson, all made the
list. Marc Levinson's book, The Box,
does not sound as catchy as the
other books, but it is an engaging
story of innovation and
globalization’s beginnings.
The Box starts by describing the
history of shipping procedures and
logistics. Prior to using shipping
containers, gangs of workers
haphazardly packed "break bulk" or
loose cargo onto ships, trains, and
trucks. This labor-intensive process
was inefficient, expensive, and
slow, but strong unions and stifling
regulations maintained it. Shipping
was a slow and expensive
transportation option and limited
the volume of global trade.
Switching from break bulk to
containerized shipping was more than
an engineering problem; it was a new
way of thinking.
Malcolm McLean was a red-blooded
capitalist who defied technical nay-sayers,
government regulators, and labor
unions by designing the first
shipping container systems for his
company, Sea-Land. The containers
not only fit on ships, but also
trucks and trains, providing an
end-to-end shipping solution that
was more efficient and cheaper than
the break-bulk packing method.
Industry working groups later set
standard sizes for shipping
containers to ensure that any
container could be used anywhere in
the world.
Like many technical innovations, the
advantages of containerization only
became apparent after companies
completely revamped their processes
to take advantage of the new
capabilities. Most companies did not
consider logistics or supply chain
management before the container, but
they soon leveraged the new
technology to produce goods with
just-in-time manufacturing
processes.
Pioneered by Toyota, just-in-time
manufacturing served as a death blow
to vertical integration. Virtually
integrated companies like Dell,
which rely extensively on fast,
reliable, and cheap shipping, became
the new standards for business.
Without standardized shipping
containers, the free flow of goods
that we enjoy today would be
impossible.
The history of the shipping
container may not sound exciting,
but Levinson’s book is personal and
interesting. The Box is really the
story of an innovator who wanted to
work more efficiently. McLean may
not have recognized the long term
consequences of his actions, but his
ideas changed the world we live in.
Future business leaders should read
The Box and take note.
 Purchase
The Box using this link
and referral fees go toward
Smith School scholarships.
-- Review by Camille Hoff,
MBA Candidate 2008
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More Latest
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♦
Smith
Strategic Plan 2006-2011 (Available
Online) |
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♦
Fall
2006 Smith Business Magazine |
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♦
Fall
2006 Research@Smith
Newsletter |
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♦
Business
Ethics Lecture Series, 11/08 |
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CIO
Forum, 11/3 |
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Spotlight: Scott Koerwer
 As
an entrepreneur in education, Dr. Scott
Koerwer has served as senior director at the
Wharton School of the University of
Pennsylvania, launched three companies, and
worked as a consultant for a variety of
companies and entrepreneurial ventures.
Koerwer, associate dean of professional
programs and services, joined the Smith
School in 2001 because of its dynamics and
the opportunity to build an executive
program. In his role Koerwer oversees all
the programs and services that fall between
the undergraduate and PhD programs. Here at
Smith this encompasses a number of programs
which include the MBA & MS programs, the
part-time MBA program (delivered in three
locations), the executive MBA programs
(world-wide), and Smith Advisory &
Collaborative Services – which delivers
consultative educational solutions for small
to medium sized organizations. Koerwer takes
pleasure in working here at Smith because he
likes everything about the school. He gets
to work with a smart, committed team, a
world-class faculty and an evolving student
body, and for a school that is continually
advancing.
►Full Story
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Student Leadership Profile: Leslie
McDowell
Executive Vice President, MBAA
“I feel very much the same way today
that I did on my first day here: We have
a great group of students,” says Leslie
McDowell, executive vice president of
the full-time MBA Association (MBAA). “After a year and a half, I’m
really glad to see that is still true. I
hope it continues after we graduate. The
students are one of the Smith School’s
greatest assets. We’re going to be out
there doing great things, cool things,
and we need to know where our classmates
are and how we can be an asset for each
other.”
►Full Story
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Smith School in the News |
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►The
(Baltimore) Sun – Oct. 31, 2006 –
Fast-food chain Kentucky Fried Chicken
announced plans to cut out unhealthy
trans fats, following some other chains.
Assistant marketing professor Jie
Zhang is quoted, saying soon all
major restaurants will likely address
the issue soon.
►Read more ►The
New York Times – Oct. 29, 2006 – A
Q&A about starting a business while
keeping your current job asks “Is it
ethical to plan and operate an
independent business on your employer’s
time?” Asher Epstein, managing
director of the Dingman Center for
Entrepreneurship said it was acceptable
to work on side projects during lunch
hour, if you’re not using company
resources to do so.
►Read more
►BusinessWeek
– Oct. 23, 2006 – The Smith School
is ranked No. 25 in the United States in
the biennial MBA program rankings issue.
The cover story also includes a sidebar
about an uptrend in companies choosing
custom MBA programs, which mention’s
Smith’s Otis Elevator program and
includes insight from Judy Frels,
senior director of custom programs.
Posted online Oct. 12, 2006.
►Read more
►The
New York Times – Oct. 12, 2006 – A
story about MBA consulting programs
includes mention of Smith’s program and
a quote from faculty program coordinator
and marketing professor Bob Krapfel.
Also includes an interview with CEO of
Fortius One, a portfolio company that
completed a project with Smith MBAs last
year.
►Read more
►The
(Baltimore) Sun – Oct. 11, 2006 –
Finance professor Elinda Kiss is
quoted in an article about Legg Mason’s
stock plunging after earnings
projections for the company, which last
year swapped business units with
Citigroup, missed their mark. Kiss is a
former Citigroup employee.
►Read more
►The
(Baltimore) Sun – Oct. 10, 2006 – A
story about PNC Bank’s acquisition of
Baltimore-based Mercantile Bankshares
includes info from an interview with
finance professor Haluk Unal and
mentions his research.
►Read more
►The
Daily Record – Oct. 11, 2006 –
Coverage of the PNC/Mercantile merger
includes two stories on consecutive days
with quotes from Haluk Unal,
finance professor.
►Read more
and
Oct. 10, 2006
►Marketplace–
Oct. 10, 2006 – Albert “Pete” Kyle,
finance professor, is interviewed on
Marketplace about investigating private
equity funds.
►Read more and
listen online
►Asia
Times – Oct. 11, 2006 – Business
professor Peter Morici writes an
opinion article about the economy.
►Read more
►60
Minutes, CBS News – Oct. 8, 2006 –
Smith School alum Carly Fiorina,
former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, is
interviewed about her time at the
company, her firing and her new book,
“Tough Choices,” which includes a
chapter about her time at the Smith
School.
►Read more
►Wall
Street Journal Online – Oct. 6, 2006
– Business professor Peter Morici
comments on employment data as part of a
regular roundup from economists.
►Read more
►Wall
Street Journal Online – Oct. 5, 2006
– A story about the Win in China
reality show mentions Smith School
scholarships go to the winners.
►Read more
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Faculty Up Front
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 New
Book Released
Perspectives in Operations Research:
Papers in Honor of Saul Gass' 80th Birthday
in "The
Springer's Operations Research/Computer
Science Interfaces Series,"
was edited by Smith Professors Frank Alt,
Michael Fu and Bruce Golden with
contributions from distinguished INFORMS
luminaries such as
Tom Magnanti, Dick Larson, Karla Hoffman,
Randy Robinson, and Al Blumstein. The
contributors, among the most prominent
scholars in the field of operations
research, offer their perspectives on the
history of the field, current trends in
research, and future problems of interest. There will be a
special autograph session by Saul Gass,
professor emeritus of management science at
Smith, on Monday, Nov. 6 from 3-5 p.m. at
the INFORMS Pittsburgh meeting at the
Springer booth in the Exhibits area; see
also
www.rhsmith.umd.edu/dit/news/opsresearch.html
for information on the symposium that took
place on February 25, 2006.
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Thursday, November 2,
7:30 p.m.
Friday, November 3,
6:00 a.m.
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Local Entrepreneurs – and
Smith MBA Alums – Attempt to
Break Up Big Game Monopoly
Hasbro is the 800-pound
gorilla of the $5-billion
board game industry, owning
Parker Brothers, Milton
Bradley and dozens of
smaller companies. Under
these conditions, the
challenges of successfully
marketing a new board game
to the mass market are
enormous. In this week's edition of
Smith Business Close-Up
local entrepreneurs and
Smith MBAs Dominic
Crapuchettes and Satish
Pillalmarri, co-owners of
North Star Games, discuss
the challenges of starting
their own business and how
new start-ups can stay ahead
of the pack in an
increasingly competitive
marketplace.
Smith Business
Close-Up can be seen
bi-weekly on Maryland Public
Television's Business
Connection. Watch Smith MBA
alums Dominic Crapuchettes
and Satish Pillalmarri
Thursday, November 2 at 7:30
p.m. and Friday, November 3
at 6:00 a.m. on public
television stations
throughout Maryland and the
Washington, D.C.,
metropolitan region,
including:
■ WMPB-TV
(Ch. 67), Baltimore
■ WMPT-TV (Ch. 22), D.C. metro/Annapolis
■ WCPB-TV (Ch. 28), Salisbury
■ WFPT-TV (Ch. 62), Frederick
■ WWPB-TV (Ch. 31), Hagerstown
■ WGPT-TV (Ch. 36), Oakland
Have an idea for Smith
Business Close-Up?
Contact Kathy Marmon at
kmarmon@rhsmith.umd.edu
(or at ext. 59568) to
discuss appearing in an
upcoming edition of Smith
Business Close-Up
and to make suggestions for
a future segment.
►Watch previous episodes online.
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Technology@Smith
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New Password Policy
Many of you have seen recent communication
from the University’s Office of Information
Technology (OIT) regarding their new policy
for passwords in the University Directory.
We will take this opportunity to explain
what this means to you as a part of the
Smith School community. If you have any
questions at all, please contact the Smith
IT Help desk at
helpme@rhsmith.umd.edu or at
301-405-2269.
Many of you are (and should be)
suspicious of e-mail asking you to change
your passwords. The message from OIT is
genuine – they have in fact changed their
policy, and if you have not changed your
password since August 16, you will need to
change your password to continue accessing
systems such as Blackboard, the eSmith
portal, ARES, Testudo, and the campus
wireless network. In addition, from now on
passwords will expire on University systems
every 180 days.
We urge everyone who has received a
message about their University Directory
password expiring to go to the university’s
password site at
http://password.umd.edu well in advance
of the deadline. The servers handling the
password rotation have shown signs of
overloading, and you don’t want to get
caught in the rush on the last day. There
are two upcoming dates for these changes -
November 8th and November 15th. The
notification e-mail you receive from OIT
will indicate which expiration date your
account will be assigned – you cannot choose
or change this date.
If you have not already done so, when you
go to their site to reset your password you
will be prompted to enter the answers to a
set of security questions. This set of
questions will be used to validate your
identity in the future should you ever
forget your password. With these questions,
users will be able to reset their own
passwords without having to contact the OIT
help desk.
We know that many will find getting used
to the new password policy to be painful,
but this change of policy is an important
step in securing computer resources at the
University. State auditors created the
password quality and rotation policy in
alignment with state and industry best
practices. Smith will be matching the policy
to protect our own systems using the same
standard in the near future. In fact, in an
independent security penetration audit
contracted by Smith IT, the only breech of
Smith system security was through a
low-quality password. It is vital we protect
our systems and data from attack.
Questions with Answers
Q: Can I be exempt from the new
policy?
A: We are unaware of anyone being granted an
exemption by the University’s Office of
Information Technology.
Q: Why is such a difficult policy in
effect? What’s the point?
A: Security breeches at universities have
made big headlines over the past few years.
Because university networks (and UM is no
exception) are so open on the Internet, they
are especially susceptible to attack. It’s
important that we follow industry best
practices to protect all of our systems. It
is often very easy for one compromise in one
seemingly unimportant system to lead to
other systems being compromised.
There are widely available programs that
guess passwords. The site
http://www.lockdown.co.uk/?pg=combi
lists the time required for these programs
to correctly guess passwords of different
compositions. For example, a single typical
desktop computer can guess an eight-letter
password using just lower case letters in a
maximum of 348 minutes, but the same length
password using a mixture of upper and lower
case letters plus numbers and symbols would
take 23 years!
Q: What is Smith going to do to make
this easier?
A: While the campus is providing no support
to departments and colleges to implement
their own security improvements, the Smith
School is taking the lead in helping its
users secure their systems. This summer we
installed a new password change utility that
will allow you to change the passwords for
all of your Smith accounts (Netware, Lotus
Notes client, and Lotus Notes internet) on
one Web page. This system was rolled out to
the incoming graduate students this fall,
and based on the experience gained from that
rollout we are developing a rollout plan for
the rest of the school. The current plan is
that we will call for Smith users to change
their passwords to be compliant with the new
policy in February, after we have fully
deployed the tool.
More detail on the password
synchronization tool will come in a future
message.
New Smith IT Web Site
Over the last several months, the Smith IT
Staff have been working on a new look for
their Web site. On October 19th, our new Web
site went live. Please visit our new site at
http://www.rhsmith.umd.edu/smithit and
send any comments or suggestions to
helpme@rhsmith.umd.edu.
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November 2, 2006
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FALL TERM 2006
11/23-24 Thanksgiving Holiday
12/12
Last Day of Classes
12/13
Study Day
12/14-20
Final Exams
12/20 UM
Commencement
12/21
Smith Commencement
►Holiday
Calendar
►Career-related Events |
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$1 Billion
Goal
for
UM Campaign
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►Find
out more
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Smith School
History
1965
The college's first major research grand
- $182,500 - is received from the Federal Bureau of
Public Roads to fund a two-year study of public
demand for various transportation systems and modes
of travel. |
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►Interactive
Smith School Timeline |
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Smith Newslink MBA
is a production of the Office of Marketing Communications in
cooperation with the Masters Programs Office.
Smith Media
Group
Editor
Susannah Campbell
MBA Candidate 2007
Webmaster
Mark Mulvanny
MBA Candidate 2007
Sachin Agarwal
MBA Candidate 2007
Loretta Goodridge
MBA Candidate 2008
Camille Hoff-Kain
MBA Candidate 2008
Other Contributors:
Office of Marketing Communications
Office of Smith IT
Send comments or submissions to:
newslink@rhsmith.umd.edu
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Upcoming Conferences, Career Fairs & Forums
11/02 – 11/04 Global MBA
Career Fair (Orlando, FL)
11/03 CIO Forum (UMD)
11/03 – 11/04 National
Association of Women MBAs Conference
11/8 i2i Networking Series
(Chicago, IL)
11/11 12th Annual
Cybersymposium (Boston, MA)
11/17 – 11/19
Japanese-English Bilingual Career Forum (Boston, MA)
Upcoming
Competitions
11/03 Cornell Stock Pitch
Competition (Smith team selected, Ithaca, NY)
11/04 University of Chicago
IPO Challenge (Chicago, IL)
11/09 – 11/11 Howard
University Annual Supply Chain Competition (Washington,
DC)
11/17 UNC Alpha Challenge
(Chapel Hill, NC)
11/17 – 11/18 Thunderbird
University 2006 i4 Challenge (online)
11/29 Global Social
Entrepreneurship Competition (University of Washington)
12/10 National University
of Singapore Global MBA Challenge (online)
12/15 GE/Dow Jones
Environmental Business Plan Competition (online)
Online Procter & Gamble’s Just-in-Case Online
Competition & Job Application
Online Group Danone’s Trust 3 Competition (organizing
now)
Online L’Oreal’s e-Strat Challenge (REGISTER 09/28 –
11/28)
Internal Events
11/08 Ethics Lecture
Series: Leslie Fair, Attorney, Federal Trade Commission,
“The Truth About False Advertising: Why Ethical
Marketing Isn’t an Oxymoron”
11/13 Carly P. Fiorina
Networking and Book Signing Event (Tysons Corner, VA)
Companies Onsite
(11/03 to 11/18)
11/02 Ernst and Young (EOD)
11/02 M&T Bank Interview
11/02 McLean, Koehler,
Sparks & Hammond
11/02 Enterprise Rent-A-Car
11/03 PA Consulting Group
11/06 Legg Mason (EOD)
REGISTER on SOURCE now! Visit SOURCE for the most recent
updates on companies recruiting on campus.
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