MSBA Students Leave No Capstone Unturned

05/04/2020
By Ed Brennen

A trio of graduate students who pinpointed the top strategic locations for a new Digital Federal Credit Union (DCU) branch won the “Best Project” award at the Manning School of Business’ third annual Master of Science in Business Analytics (MSBA) capstone presentation.

Held virtually this year via Zoom, the online event featured 20 graduating MSBA students presenting seven capstone projects done with industry partners. The industry sponsors included DCU, Dell, Enterprise Bank, Kronos, MFS and Santander. The university’s Office of Strategic Analysis and Data Management also sponsored a project.

MSBA students Chukwuka Okonji, Tegawende Armelle Sow and Michael Wile ’19 received top honors from a panel of judges for their DCU project. This was the first year a winning project was recognized at what MSBA capstone coordinator Luvai Motiwalla called the “social distancing edition” of the event.

“Thanks to our project sponsors and faculty mentors, this is one of the most impactful learning experiences of our students’ college careers,” said Dean of Business Sandra Richtermeyer.

Each year, small teams of two or three students are matched with companies in the fall and given business problems to address through their capstones. Working in the role of consultants, students apply their business analytics skills to real company data (after signing non-disclosure agreements). Teams develop project proposals and milestones and deliver their final reports to the companies in May.

“The students are in the driver’s seat with these projects,” said Motiwalla, a professor in the Operations and Information Systems (OIS) Department who advises the teams along with faculty mentors.

While students apply hard skills they’ve learned for data mining, interpretation and presentation, Motiwalla says their soft skills prove just as important.

“When they get the problem, it’s unstructured. The data itself is messy,” Motiwalla said. “They have to work with the companies, communicate and interact with them to figure out what the exact problem is. It gives them real-world experience.”

To determine the best location for a new DCU branch, Okonji, Armelle Sow and Wile had to identify cost-effective areas in Massachusetts and Southern New Hampshire that could service current members and also attract new members.

“It was a thought-provoking project that made us understand firsthand the intricacies of data analytics,” said Armelle Sow, whose team was advised by OIS Asst. Prof. Brian Lee.

Using data from the U.S. Census and the Department of Commerce, the team analyzed various factors like population growth rates, income, traffic drive-time and real estate prices. They used a machine-learning algorithm called “clustering” to identify zip codes that share similar demographic characteristics, then plotted those results on a map with a geographic information system called ArcGIS.

“Location analytics was an aspect we had not yet explored, so it compelled us to take a deep dive into the work,” Okonji said.

“It has given us a level of exposure you can’t possibly get within the four walls of a classroom,” added Wile, who earned his bachelor’s degree in economics from the College of Fine Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences.  

The other capstone projects were:

• Modupe Ajala, Elahd Hain and Favour Tejuosho worked with Dell on an analytical model to establish the risks of “stockouts” (when a product is out of stock) for purchased parts required to fill customer demand over a rolling four-week window.
• Roma Aurora, Dharia Mehta and Dipanshi Shah worked with Enterprise Bank to develop the requirements for a data warehouse for analytics.
• Sanjin Hodzic and Sridhar Rangan worked with Kronos to help analyze usage patterns of its workforce software products.  
• Vannaroth Lim, Raj Sirsikar and King Ho Wong worked with investment research data scientists at MFS to help expand on work currently underway in emulating “Lazy Prices,” which suggests that large changes to text in 10-K annual report signals lower future earnings.
• Nathan Cleary, Ryan Heinhold and Yu Yuan Wang worked with Santander’s key risk indicator (KRI) program, reviewing historically reported KRIs and ensuring the thresholds are effectively set to monitor and manage operational risk for consumer and business banking.
• Richie Anderson, Matt Davis, and Olayemi Musa worked with the Office of Strategic Analysis and Data Management to determine contributing factors to student retention rates at the university.

The panel of judges included Fatema El-Wakeel, data analytics and reporting manager for Jaguar Land Rover in London, who stayed up past midnight to participate due to the five-hour time difference.

Ashley Gibson, risk and financial advisor manager at Deloitte, participated from Houston. Eric Roux, customer success executive at Cisco and founding member of the Boston Blockchain Association, and Manning School alum Joanne Yestramski ’76, former UML senior vice chancellor and now special advisor on corporate development, also volunteered as judges.

Richtermeyer noted that one benefit of the virtual event was that family and friends who typically could not attend the on-campus poster presentations were able to log on and watch. More than 100 people attended online.

“Luvai began planning this event months ago and, due to his flexibility and adaptability, it went great,” said Richtermeyer, who also thanked Senior Instructional Technologist Randy Tyndall and Senior Director of Instructional Technology Support Mike Lucas for their work in bringing the event together.