The Associate: Week Four

Three cases down and Team R.O.S.E. recently came off a two case win streak. R2integrated, a web marketing and technology firm headquartered in Baltimore, MD presented the fourth case for The Associate competition. R2integrated offers services and solutions that are used in the creation and management of web sites, campaign infrastructures, digital tools, and rich content. I find it quite ironic as this was the second company which presented a case challenge where I have previously interned at.

The objective for this case was:

• The company would like to expand its available market, both geographically as well as their client profile. The questions are where and how.

Key questions included, but were not limited to:

• Which geographic markets make the most sense?
• What type of channel (direct/indirect)?
• How do they generate awareness and leads in remote locations?
• How do they support a remote sales effort to close business?

Going into this case Team R.O.S.E. had a one man advantage, as Taurean Branch was previously eliminated from Team Concord. While this may have seemed like an advantage, Team Concord consisting of Nicholas Price and Allison Murray ended up walking away with the win. Team R.O.S.E. devised a diversified four-step strategy called STRATEGY4GROWTH. This approach would be fully implemented over a period of five years and would include the following steps:

• Sales Representatives: Growing the current sales team
• Advisory Board: Adding an advisory board to provide direction for the company’s future
• Mobile Offices: Introducing mobile offices geographically
• Acquisition: A quick way for inorganic growth

In addition to these suggestions Team R.O.S.E. was able to provide additional tactics that could raise awareness of the services offered, locations to expand, channels to use, and costs associated with these recommendations. Unfortunately, Team R.O.S.E. did not walk away as the winners of the case. Allison Murray, as project manager, was able to lead Team Concord to a victory as this was the last case before the teams broke up into individual performances. R2integrated representatives selected Team Concord as the winning team. The recommendations from Team Concord were better suited to fit their current business model. Some of their ideas included philanthropic events and in-kind trades to help generate awareness.

Being an elimination based competition unfortunately one of the team members of Team R.O.S.E. was eliminated. The “Donald” Alan Wilson, CEO and President of McCormick and Company as well as the rest of the judging panel determined that Mark Preston would be fired. While it was mentioned that there were originally 8 qualified candidates when the competition began, this was narrowed down to five, and following the case on R2integrated it was now down to four.

Please feel free to provide your thoughts on this case and follow the rest of the competition on the College of Business and Economics’ website. Keep on following the competition as the final case approaches.