Connections

Deepayan Sengupta's hands tremble as he drops himself into a plastic chair at stage right. How did he ever let it get this far? He fingers the big red button on the table in front of him. He can't let the team down. They have worked for months, prepping him for this moment. The perspiration gathers on Deepayan's forehead as the moderator begins his question. Deepayan doesn't let him finish. He slams the big red button and the buzzer goes off as he yells out the definition.

Amid a round of applause and an explosion of cheers from his classmates, Deepayan sits back. I can do this, he says to himself. And he does.

The Quiz Bowl is one of 11 challenges in the Ontario Colleges Marketing Competition (OCMC), which takes place every November. The event pits students from Humber's Business Administration, Business Management and Marketing programs against rivals from 15 other colleges in a series of challenges to determine who is the best of the best.

"This is a bigger confidence booster than any academic program," says Deepayan. "There is nothing like being on stage. It's an amazing rush."

Fanshawe College invited Deepayan and his 21 teammates to the 2007 games in London, Ontario, along with hundreds of other highly motivated graduate-level business students and their instructors from across the province. Showcasing their business talent, teamwork and strategic thinking, Humber's team competed in the Quiz Bowl, the case analysis contests, and the job interview and sales presentation events.

Ellen Sparling, Program Coordinator for Marketing, says competitions like the OCMC raise the profile of the program and promote its recognition throughout the industry. "The school puts a lot of resources into this competition." The Business School not only pays all entrance, hotel, food and transportation costs, but also sponsors a course to train for the event. A substitute for work placement, the non-credit Case Analysis and Presentation (Marketing 500) course focuses on presentation skills using a casebased approach to marketing strategy development.

David Felice says the course helps him with his everyday classes. "Breaking down marketing concepts and drilling them into our heads was the best thing."

The course includes professor Anne Harper's tips for helping students improve their voice projection and body language. Rebecca DeConde says she learned to read her teammates' gestures: "I could tell them when I needed help without actually saying it." Students also developed exceptional written, verbal and visual forms of communication as they prepared and presented cases from real companies.

Rebecca says that prior to the OCMC experience she had rarely performed before a group. She was asked to market to the back-to-school demographic for Staples, and says she learned how to grab the judges' attention. "The one-on-one training was great. I learned so much that I can apply to my job, to my career."

Christian Rielly won first place in Humber's inaugural sales presentation entry. Given the task of selling IT for Info Tech Research Group to Labatt Breweries, he appreciated rehearsing in front of faculty and industry members in the Business School's boardroom. The practice not only got Christian a gold, the judge from Info Tech offered him a job.

David Legaspi and his partner Cedric Rocha competed in the Marketing round, devising a program that encouraged new membership in the Royal Canadian Legion. They practiced with Professor Suzanne Ross, who "taught us cooperation, dedication and commitment," David says. Time management skills were key, since contestants received just 30 minutes to prepare their case. "The hardest part was boiling down a page and a half to get to the heart of the case. Then we had to put together seven slides for an overhead projector with only our pens. We wanted to make our slides dynamic, more creative than mere words. We brainstormed for the details that would have an impact. After all, it is marketing."

Rebecca adds that during the question period "we really had to think on our feet, so that we could continue to be persuasive."

Students all remarked that the OCMC experience forged a team that would be a significant influence in their lives. "What I got out of it, number one, was a team building experience," says Rebecca. "Both in the classroom environment and outside of it, everyone became such good friends." She adds that after her presentation "we were so high from the experience. I worked harder in Marketing 500 than I ever would have in work placement. It was difficult, but totally worth it."

The Quiz Bowl is unique in that teams of four are made up of contestants from different schools. Deepayan's teammates hailed from Conestoga, Algonquin and Centennial. "Deepayan was so good," says faculty coach Bob Bolf. "I saw one of his teammates just sit back, fold his arms and let him go." And go he did, as he passed through the rounds to finish in first place.

Deepayan's only lament? "I had to compete against my Humber friends."