Algonquin’s 17-student team took first place in the sales presentation category of the annual Ontario Colleges Marketing Competition, which took place at Conestoga College in Kitchener on Nov. 24 and 25.
Cameron Saunders won the first place in sales presentation and second place in retail marketing with Blaire Cunningham, both third-year business administration marketing students.
“The purpose of this competition is to find the best and brightest sales marketing students across Ontario,” said Jim Neubauer, full-time faculty teacher at the School of Business and head coach for OCMC.
Neubauer directly coached the sales presentation events on campus.
As the college prepares to host this event next year, students, faculty and staff are looking at different ways to improve.
“You’re happy for winning but again this is a competition and everyone will want to do a little better,” said Neubauer.
During the contest, students were given 30 minutes to read and analyze core problems and develop realistic solutions or plans, with a 15-minute power point presentation to help the company solve its issues.
“Students are used to solving in-class problems. But now, we take them out to talk to industrial business people in a different environment,” Neubauer explained.
However, Neubauer told the Times that this competition is not all about winning for the faculty because if that was the case, they’ll only have certain students on their team.
“It’s really about growth, improvement and learning. If students are growing in confidence and skills, then we’ve accomplished the task,” he added.