The Associate: Week Three

MacKenzie Commercial Real Estate Services, LLC presented the third case and the six remaining candidates on The Associate competition would experience long nights and dedicate time for yet another week. The objective for the MacKenzie Healthcare Challenge was:

• To help medical practices and healthcare firms capture a competitive advantage through site selection and lease negotiation.

The challenge required creating a market analysis for the following eight area hospitals:

• University of Maryland Medical Center
• Greater Baltimore Medical Center
• Franklin Square Hospital
• St. Joseph Medical Center
• Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center
• Howard County General Hospital
• Upper Chesapeake Medical Center
• Anne Arundel Medical Center

The market analysis included affiliates and territories serviced, specialties of the hospitals, recent news, fundraisers and other events, and most importantly, a list of the largest practice members that these hospitals can “partner” with for certain service lines.

In my opinion this was the most intensive case so far based on the amount of research. After having two cases completed, Team R.O.S.E. was familiar with the time constraints that come along with the competition and managed to work as a team to complete this challenge. It was difficult given only a few days to work on a case that would probably take weeks, if not months to come up with the information requested, but we managed to do our best. Team R.O.S.E. reached out to contacts at the various hospitals, conducted a great deal of web-based research, and read any article pertaining to the hospitals that we could find. We were then ready to move onto the next step of this assignment of creating the market analysis. The bulk of the portfolio presented to MacKenzie was the medical practice research. We took a macro approach as we looked at the eight hospitals presented, determined the specialties of each hospital, and identified the surrounding areas. Then we researched practices by specialty and location, and finally, developed attribute maps.

The result of this was determining eleven specialties among the hospitals. We came up with seven surrounding areas and located over 150 private practices which were then placed on the attribute maps by specialty and location. This case definitely required meticulous research and thorough preparation, both trademarks of MacKenzie’s customized strategies, but the time and effort was worth it. The MacKenzie representatives decided that Team R.O.S.E. was the winner for this case. It was mentioned that Team Concord was able to “think outside the box” with the development of their statistical analysis of the practices that they found, but Team R.O.S.E. was more on point with what MacKenzie was looking for.

The remaining path is another case, an interview, and then a final case before the hiring by “Donald” Alan Wilson, CEO and President of McCormick and Company will take place. Unfortunately, a member of Team Concord will be eliminated this Tuesday as both teams will receive feedback from Alan Wilson and the rest of the judging panel when the next case will be presented.

Please feel free to comment on this case and follow the rest of the competition on the College of Business and Economics’ website. Thanks again for reading!