March 5, 2003
McCombs Students Battle Piracy to Excel in International Competition
By Brea Olson
Austin, TEXAS – Four McCombs School of Business undergraduates took home first runner-up honors after facing stiff competition from students from 20 of the top business schools world-wide at the USC Marshall International Case Competition on February 19-22. The students, finance seniors Maria Yuan, Angel Donchev and Webb Stevens, along with MIS senior Phillip Loya, initially won a McCombs School competition against 13 other teams to gain entrance into the global contest that provided a real-world business experience.
|
“Case competitions are much closer to real business experiences than most college classes,” said Webb Stevens. “A case competition requires you to work with a team and if the team dynamics are not well matched, or someone is not pulling their weight, you fix the problem or you lose.”
The 80 participating students were cast as consultants to a fictitious media company seeking to combat declining CD sales and to protect the illegal distribution of software and media assets in global markets. The case challenge was to argue new business models the entertainment industry can use to manage copyrighted works profitably and curb piracy in the new era of the Internet and other digital technologies.
“Peer-to-peer file sharing is directly threatening the business model of a huge industry,” said Stevens. “Finding a solution that members of that industry are willing to buy into is extremely challenging.”
The McCombs team, along with nearly every team at the competition, concluded that media publishers needed to break with traditional business models, embrace the new technologies and recognize that consumers want to customize the content they access.
“This case was extremely relevant and topical for the entertainment industry,” said Stevens. “It is really a question of how do these companies compete with free?”
Penn State students won the competition that was judged by a panel of 24 consultants, attorneys, media executives and business scholars. They urged building better customer relationships through enhanced content, emphasizing extra features, product tie-ins, and loyalty programs that leverage the collective power of copyright holders.
Denmark’s Copenhagen Business School and Indiana University placed just after McCombs, taking home second- and third-place runners-up, respectively.
“I’m glad that we did well,” said Webb Stevens. “We were able to showcase some of the talents the faculty at McCombs have helped us develop.”
The USC Marshall School of Business undergraduate competition is the largest of its kind in the world, each year tackling an issue of importance to international business. In its sixth year, the competition featured students from 20 leading business schools, including Carnegie Mellon, Stern (New York University), Hass (UC-Berkeley), the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Canada’s McGill University, and the National University of Singapore.
For information on specific programs at the McCombs School, consult our contacts page. For media information, contact the Communications Director by phone at 512-471-3314 or by email at CommunicationsDirector@mccombs.utexas.edu.
