UW Students Travel to New York for 97th National Retail Federation Convention!

(Early November 2007)

The University of Wisconsin has been invited as one of six universities to participate in the National Retail Federation's 97th annual convention in New York from January 123th-16th. The retailing program hopes to take 10-15 students to attend the convention and report back to UW students about their experience.

The convention with include speakers like Beall's Vice President Daniel Doyle and Macy's President and CEO Terry J. Lundgren. In addition to hearing from these retail leaders, students will be competing in a case study challenge and attending " Supers Session," where visionary leaders share their expertise, " Concurrent Sessions," an hour examination of a single retail topic, 90 minute "Forums," and "Interactive" education opportunities.

Retailing Center Director Jerry O'Brien expresses his excitement for the first of what hopes to be an annual trip, "We believe this to be an amazing opportunity and are thrilled to have been invited. We intend to make the best use of the opportunity and to ensure that the insights gained are shared with our fellow students."

(January 2008)

Students from SOHE participated in the National Retail Federation Conference Challenge. Each student was placed on a team composed of other students from different universities with various majors to compose a presentation to be given to the leaders of the NRF. In addition, CRE director, Jerry O’Brien, served as a mentor for one of the groups who traveled to New York for the competition as well. Those who participated from SOHE include: Amy Katschnig, Sarah VanderHaden, Emily Blankenheim, and Britney Bielenberg. Senior, Amy Katschnig and her team were awarded first place in the challenge. The mission of this NRF challenge was to build awareness of diverse career paths in retail by engaging university students in a competitive collaborative role play with support from retail executive mentors to implement a multi-tiered business strategy. The scenario that each team was given went as follows: You are part of a team at a leading home improvement store. Numerous customers have been asking about green products and management agrees that this is a long-term, viable area of business that the company should address. Your main competitor has already begun to sell environmentally friendly products and to make changes in its stores to indicate its commitment to sustainability, but you want to bypass them to take the leadership position. Your stores carry a few products in different categories—for example; light bulbs, insulation, flooring and energy efficient appliances--that are green but it is not widely known that they exist. The concept of sustainability is permeating the thinking in various areas within your company. Management has made it clear that they want to see your company as a leader in the green movement by setting good examples both internally and externally. In effect, the challenge for each team was to:

Design, brand, market and advertise, place and price a line of herbicides, fungicides and fertilizers for trees, shrubs, plants and flowers that are eco-friendly.

Ascertain which of the products you already carry are eco-friendly and make them readily identifiable on store shelves.

Create incentives to appeal to your market and encourage customers to use your green products.

Develop a plan to educate store personnel as to which are green products, how to sell them, when to sell them and why to sell them.

Integrate green concepts into your new store design, and identify programs for retrofitting existing stores to make your company a better custodian of the planet and a leader in sustainability.

PHOTOS FROM THE NEW YORK TRIP