Inside UNC Kenan-Flagler

MBA Startup Places in Prestigious Business Plan Competition

ImagineOptix — a NC State University technology startup being developed by a management team that includes Erin Clark (MBA ’07) — finished fourth in the Rice University Business Plan Competition in March. The team was also recognized as having the top IT plan.

ImagineOptix, which is developing portable video projection devices, received $2,500 in cash as well as a variety of services.

UNC Kenan-Flagler’s Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at The Frank Hawkins Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise sponsored the team to attend the competition. Clark and the ImagineOptix team participated in the Center’s Launching the Venture Program, which is part of the campuswide Carolina Entrepreneurial Initiative. The Launching the Venture program includes a course and a series of workshops and activities to help UNC's serious entrepreneurs — faculty, staff and students — gain the knowledge, skills and connections they need to launch a business or social venture.

The Rice University event is touted as the world’s largest, offering more than $345,000 in cash and prizes. The competition took place over three days. Thirty-six teams took part in the event. First place went to ResuRx Pharmaceuticals from Johns Hopkins University. The company’s mission is to find new uses for existing drugs.

Perreault Article Wins Award

William D. Perreault Jr., William R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor of Marketing, and Gary Hunter (PhD ‘99) received the 2007 James Comer Award for an article they published in the Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management last fall. The award, which is based on a vote by the journal’s editorial review board, recognizes the article published during the previous year that makes the most significant contribution to theory and research methods in selling and sales management.

The article focuses on new ways that sales representatives are using information technology to improve their performance. Most research has evaluated sales technologies by asking sales representatives which tools they like the best; by contrast this work revealed that the most effective ones were not the ones they were most likely to embrace. Companies encourage use of technologies that cut administrative costs, but Perreault and Hunter find that there is more leverage in technologies that allow the sales representatives to leverage market knowledge and generate greater revenue.

Swaminathan Speaks about Economic Development in India

Jay Swaminathan, Kay and Van Weatherspoon Distinguished Professor and chair of operations, technology and innovation management (OTIM) lectured on “India’s Role in the Global Economy” at a plenary for North Carolina's K-12 and community college educators March 29.

The plenary was sponsored by World View, an international program for educators. A public service program of UNC- Chapel Hill, World View helps educators prepare students to succeed in an interconnected world by integrating global studies into every area of the curriculum. This year World View partnered with the N.C. Center for South Asia Studies to develop a program focusing on South Asia.