Business Analytics Competition

• The competition is open to undergraduate student teams consisting of two to four members.
• Each team member must be enrolled in an undergraduate program at the accredited higher education institution that the team member will represent.
• Each team needs to have a faculty advisor from their home institution.
• Student teams will register for the competition under the name of their faculty advisor.
• All participating students are expected to present their work during the conference to receive the participation certificates.
  
  

The competition features two-phases. Both phases require student teams to analyze and glean business insight from a competition-specific dataset.

Phase One:

• Data and questions for the first phase of the competition will be made available to registered teams on February 2, 2026.
• Student teams, working at their home institutions, will analyze the dataset to develop solutions to the phase-one questions.
• Each team will need to prepare and submit a poster summarizing their analysis and answers to the questions by May 4, 2026.
• Team members will present their posters at the conference poster session on Monday, May 18, 2026. The poster session will be attended by the faculty judging panel and other conference participants.

Phase Two:

• On May 19th, additional research questions and data will be distributed to all teams.
• Each team will be expected to utilize the rest of the day to analyze this data and prepare a presentation for the competition’s final judging round, which will take place on May 20th.

Faculty advisors attending the conference will constitute the set of Phase One (Poster Session) judges.

Phase One scores will be based on the ratings given by faculty advisors (advisors will not be asked to evaluate their own team).

The presentations in Phase Two of the competition will be evaluated by a panel of practitioners representing various industries who value business analytics.

A team’s overall score will be determined by a combination of their Phase One and Phase Two scores.

The top three teams will be recognized during the award ceremony and will receive monetary awards:

• First Place: $5,000
• Second Place: $2,500
• Third Place: $1,000

Additional teams will be recognized as honorable mentions.

St. John’s University claimed first place, earning a $5,000 prize. In a proud moment for the host institution, Manhattan University’s own team took second place and a $2,500 award. Tecnológico de Monterrey of Mexico rounded out the podium in third place, earning $1,000. Three teams received Finalist recognition, and three additional teams were honored with Best Poster awards for their Phase One submissions.