Mays Impacts

Two Mays MBA teams were selected from among 3,825 teams to participate in the third annual L’Oréal e-Strat Challenge. First-year students Lisa Buckley, Kim Davis and Mathew Van Alstyne comprise team Joie de strategie, while Amit Jain, Jay Rege and Kapil Sarin are competing as team Planetz.

Of the teams that registered, 820 were selected to compete, including 87 teams from the United States. L’Oréal and StratX, designers of marketing and business strategy simulation applications, developed the virtual marketing game specifically for MBA students.

Participating teams control a virtual beauty company and a portfolio of brands. They compete for worldwide leadership against four other virtual companies run automatically by the simulation.

Buckley, Davis and Van Alstyne’s team, Joie de strategie, was ranked 35 in the United States and 287 in the world after four rounds of competition. Jain, whose team was ranked 63 in the United States after the fourth round of competition, says he is gaining valuable experience applying theory and making practical decisions in a highly competitive situation.

Another Texas A&M team, Strategists, is also competing, including industrial engineering students Hardik Parekh and Rawal Paras and computer science student Rishit Gautan.

Winners will be announced in April at the International Awards Ceremony in Paris.

Benito Flores, Tenneco Professor in Business, was appointed Global Development Coordinator for the Decision Sciences Institute (DSI).

Flores, who teaches in the Department of Information and Operations Management, will oversee all international activities for the institute. He will specifically assist in the creation of a long-term strategic plan for internationalizing the institute, which works to enhance knowledge and instruction in all business disciplines.

Flores currently serves as Director of North America Business and Public Policy Studies for Mays’ Center for International Business Studies. His research interests include forecasting, quality and manufacturing practices, operations strategy and knowledge management.

Mays business students got a good dose of lessons, learned as well as other practical career tips at this year’s Women in Information Technology conference.

Hosted by the Center for the Management of Information Systems, the annual workshop connects undergraduate and graduate students with women executives in the IT arena. This year’s conference, “A Vision for Your Future,” provided numerous opportunities for students to interact with the executives to discuss issues such as workplace ethics, job satisfaction and the economy.

Build a personal network, advised Andrea Jacaman ’88 during the interactive panel. For Jacaman, retail customer systems program director at TXU, networking was really a mystery in her early career. But today, she admits that without her personal network, she would have never had the opportunity to join TXU.

“You are building relationships right now, so make the most of them,” Jacaman told the students. “Eventually, you will come to truly understand, like I did, how you can really build and be part of a network of people. A network is something that you can gain a great deal from, but you should also give something back.”

This year’s conference was sponsored by BMC Software, ConocoPhillips, JCPenney, FedEx, Dell and TXU.

The Management Accounting Section of the American Accounting Association recently honored Accounting Professor and Philip Ljungdahl Chair Konduru Sivaramakrishnan. He was honored with a Best Paper Award for his research published in the Journal of Management Accounting Research.

Sivaramakrishnan co-authored the paper, “A Critical Overview of Full-Cost Data for Planning and Pricing,” with Ramji Balakrishnan, Ernst and Young Professor of Accounting at the University of Iowa. The paper, published in the 2002 issue of the journal, discusses the accuracy of various methods companies use to determine a product’s price.

A testament to the work ethic and quality of Mays faculty, Lamar Savings Professor of Finance Arvind Mahajan received the 2003 Bush Excellence in International Teaching Faculty Award.

Last year, the George Bush Presidential Library Foundation established awards in teaching and research to recognize exemplary contributions to students’ international education. Management Professor Lorraine Eden received the 2002 Research Award. Recipients receive a $2,500 gift.

Mahajan, who specializes in international and corporate finance, has taught for 24 years, serving at Mays for 22 of those years. He says the effects of globalization demand that future decision-makers understand other cultures, as well as the interaction between the domestic and foreign markets in which businesses operate.

“The opportunity to positively impact another person’s development and future makes teaching a profoundly serious, but incredibly exhilarating, activity,” says Mahajan, who has also received the Association of Former Students’ Distinguished Teaching Award during his tenure at Mays.