MBA Student Wins Disney Data Analytics Competition

PROVO, Utah – Nov 13, 2014 – Mickey Mouse might bring in the money for The Walt Disney Company, but Stephanie Conran is helping save it.

Conran, a Brigham Young University MBA global supply chain student, won The Walt Disney Company’s enterprise-wide data analytics competition for her work as an intern on a project called, “We Spend How Much?”. The competition process included analyzing approximately 250 agreements and constructing a model to help identify trends and areas that warrant further analysis.

“With her skills learned in the MBA program combined with her background in engineering, Stephanie is able to look at things differently and bring a unique lens for analysis,” says Derek Johnson, vice president of sourcing and procurement at Disney and a member of BYU’s Global Supply Chain Advisory Board. “She knows how to look at situations and pull conclusions from areas that normally don’t make sense.”

Conran and her team took the top spot over 30 other projects by demonstrating how the collection and analysis of data could simplify Disney’s professional services and save the company money.

“I had free reign on this project to do whatever I could think of to provide some kind of value,” Conran says. “It was a lot of fun that they trusted me to come up with something out of basically nothing, but at the same time they gave me a lot of guidance and answered my questions when I had them. It gave me the chance to flex my brain muscle through to come up with something good.”

The team’s model has since been adopted by Disney and is helping the company make more informed choices and smarter investments. The success of Conran’s project led the company to form a new Professional Services Center of Excellence within Disney’s strategic sourcing and procurement organization.

“This competition gave an opportunity for an unlikely group of back-office teammates from strategic sourcing and procurement to be considered alongside some of the most talented people in the entertainment industry,” Johnson says. “Stephanie’s team demonstrated that creativity and the ability to create lasting, measurable value for The Walt Disney Company is not limited to those that build theme parks, make movies or market consumer products.”

The Marriott School is located at Brigham Young University, the largest privately owned, church-sponsored university in the United States. The school has nationally recognized programs in accounting, business management, entrepreneurship, finance, information systems and public management. The school’s mission is to prepare men and women of faith, character and professional ability for positions of leadership throughout the world. Approximately 3,000 students are enrolled in the Marriott School’s graduate and undergraduate programs.