In the final presentation of the “Marketing Strategy Planning Based on Data Analysis Contest 2018” (sponsored by Macromill Co.) held on October 10 (Wednesday) near Tokyo Station in Chiyoda Ward, Tokyo, the team consisting of students of Soka University’s Faculty of Economics, Makoto Masui Seminar—Ms. Ayaka Yoshizaki (junior), Mr. Keigo Yonemoto (junior), Mr. Shinji Suzuki (junior), Ms. Kiyomi Ishikawa (junior), Ms. Fumika Okumura (junior), and崔眞雄 (fifth year)—became the category winner.

This competition for undergraduate and graduate students is held with the goal of fostering capable individuals that can solve business issues using data. The theme of the competition was to provide for strategic planning, by using marketing data and taking up the issues that corporations are actually tackling.
Four companies—Softbank, Asahi Beer, ANA, and Ezaki Glico—submitted topics, and a total of 266 teams entered the competition. Among them, 12 teams that passed document screening participated in the final presentation competition in which the “Micro-Maru” team of the Makoto Masui Seminar remarkably won in the “Asahi Beer” category.

Ms. Yoshizaki, a representative, shared: “In the seminar that we belong to, we learned marketing from the perspective of economic studies. We challenged ourselves to show the outcome of what we have learned. Since three out of six in our team were departing for studies overseas in the process, we made preparations making sure that everyone can be involved. As there aren’t many opportunities to think about actual business, it was a precious experience to seriously think about the issues that corporations face and to consider the proposals that are anticipated to be realized. We will cherish this learning experience, and each of us will polish our capabilities in our respective fields.”