Ms. Smith (your participating client) operates a restaurant in the busy downtown College Park, which is going smoothly and steadily. There are critical business decisions to be made about running a restaurant, and customers’ satisfaction is the most important key to success. Many customers have written various reviews and posted numerous photos on the social network about her restaurant. Now, Ms. Smith welcomes any helpful insights to make her popular restaurant more successful.
You and your friends have started a company (give it a cool name) for business intelligence and data analytics. Ms. Smith recently heard about the power of business intelligence and data analytics. In order to help Ms. Smith advance her business to the next level, you will need to collect and analyze review data about Ms. Smith’s restaurant to generate business insights, and present the findings to her so she may make effective improvements decisions.
The competition is open to all Smith undergraduate students in all programs. Students will need to form a team of two to four members to compete. Teams will go through the process of signup, tryouts, eliminations, and the final competition. The final presentation will be five minutes at the TechFest on Thursday April 14 by using ONLY Microsoft Excel. KPMG will present financial awards to top three teams ($70 to $120 per student depending on the final competition outcomes).
Please complete the student signup form. The earlier you signup, the more time you will have to prepare. Participants will be invited to join Discord to interact with organizers, mentors and other participants.
First round:
After signing up as a team, you will be provided with sample Yelp review data in an Excel file. The dataset contains reviews for restaurants around the University of Maryland, College Park in recent years. Your team shall analyze a restaurant or all restaurants in this sample dataset. You will submit an Excel file and a presentation file of your findings, discussions, and possible conclusions by April 4, 2022.
The top six teams with the most relevant and successful results of the first round will continue onto the second round:
Excelers
EXCELlent
Excellers
Olive (the) Answers
Sigmalitics
WolFunk
Second round:
Each team shall identify a running restaurant or business in College Park. The organizer will guide the team to apply analytical methodologies to download, mine and analyze the Yelp and/or real world reviews on the restaurant/business chosen above.
On Friday April 8, the teams will present their findings to a team of judges from KPMG, who will select the top three teams for the final round, based on, but not limited to, two criteria: (1) how insightful the analyses are; and (2) how impactful the presentation is. Each team will have ten minutes and use an Excel file with a presentation file of slides.
Three teams were selected to compete in the final round (not in any ranked order):
Excellers: Kacie Ho, Khiem Doan, Charlie Zhang, Rohan Samy (client: Buffalo Wild Wings)
Olive (the) Answers: Olivia Davis (client: Ledo Pizza)
Sigmalitics: Louie Jason Hankins, Tamzid Muttaki, Kristina Marie Sutliff (client: The Spot Mini)
Final round:
At the TechFest 2022 (5-6:40PM, Thursday April 14, 2022), the three finalists will present their analyses and recommendations to the general audience and KPMG judges. Each team will have five minutes for a presentation using only an Excel file, followed by five minutes of Q&A. The winning team will be announced at the conclusion of the competition.
First Prize: Olive (the) Answers: Olivia Davis (client: Ledo Pizza)
Second Prize: Excellers: Kacie Ho, Khiem Doan, Charlie Zhang, Rohan Samy (client: Buffalo Wild Wings)
Third Prize: Sigmalitics: Louie Jason Hankins, Tamzid Muttaki, Kristina Marie Sutliff (client: The Spot Mini)
Questions and comments, please email to Prof. Adam Lee or Prof. John Bono.