Spring 2005

Dell Incentives: The Bucks Started at the Bryan School

When the state of North Carolina rolled out a $242 million red carpet for Dell Inc., the world’s largest computer manufacturer, Forsyth and Guilford officials proffered supplemental incentive packages – $37 million and $12 million, respectively – to entice the corporation to their counties. These localities put millions of dollars on the line because they knew the economic impact Dell would have on their communities, and they knew that information because of the Bryan School of Business and Economics’ Office of Business and Economic Research. Read more about the Bryan School's involvement in incentives.

Bryan Marketing Students Compete Nationally

While most students were heading into their classes one evening this spring, a group of Bryan School undergraduate students was making a marketing pitch to a national automaker.

For the sixth time in as many years, Dr. Mac McMillan assigned his marketing class a project that puts academic knowledge to a real-world test: developing a marketing plan for General Motors as part of General Motors Marketing Internship Scholastic Achievement Award Competition.

The competition pits students in the Bryan School against similar classes at other business schools across the country. As part of the contest, students research awareness of a specific GM product – this year the Chevy Cobalt – develop a marketing plan to increase awareness of the product, launch the plan and then test the effectiveness of the marketing plan using follow-up surveys and studies. Read more about Bryan students competing nationally in GM competion.

Hard Work = Dividends for Young Alumni

When Marc Ashley and Joe Bolyard were in their early 20s and working as part of a small team of entrepreneurs trying to build Market America Corp., it was an experience that developed through hard work and perseverance.

Ashley, a 1997 graduate of the Bryan School of Business and Economics, is now chief operating officer for Market America. Bolyard, a 1992 BS and 1996 MBA graduate of the Bryan School, is now executive vice president of international development at Market America.

“In those years, we did everything,” Ashley says. “We would answer the phone. We packed boxes of products. There were many times we would spend our Friday nights working late – midnight, one a.m. – to get orders out.” Read more about these Bryan School alumni.

Alumnus and Professor Mine New Angle

Data mining. The term brings to mind number crunching credit card purchases and loyalty cards that track purchases at supermarkets.

“Take a look at the shopping baskets in the grocery store,” says Dr. Hamid Nemati, associate professor in the Department of Information Systems & Operations Management. “What are the two most common items in the baskets? In other words, what are the two most-purchased items in the store by the largest percentage of people? Let’s say it’s…beer and diapers. You have that information. Now what do you do with it?”

That’s a question that Nemati and Chris Barko, a 2001 graduate of the Bryan MBA program, tackle in a new book “Organizational Data Mining” (Idea Group Publishing, 388p, ISBN 1591401348), a book that breaks new ground in the area of business intelligence, a hot topic of late. Read more about the alumnus-professor partnership studying data mining.