Big 3 with Dean H. Rao Unnava: November 2024

• Professor David Woodruff Named INFORMS Fellow
• Game Over? What Happens When Mobile Banking App Rewards Go Dark
• Sacramento Part-Time MBA Marks 30 Years Preparing Capital Region Leaders 

Welcome to the November 2024 edition of the Big 3 video newsletter.

Professor David Woodruff Named INFORMS Fellow

INFORMS Fellow recognition, apps in mobile banking, and celebrating the 30th year of our Sacramento Part-Time MBA. Welcome to the November 2024 edition of the Big 3 Video Newsletter. Professor David Woodruff, who's renowned for his leadership in business analytics, has been named a 2024 INFORMS Fellow.

This recognition is one of the highest honors in the field of operations research and analytics. INFORMS is the premier international association for the decision and data sciences people. David is one of the 12 luminaries in this year's class of INFORMS Fellows.

They’re pioneers whose innovative contributions have transformed industries and improved lives worldwide. David is being honored for his contributions to the theory and practice of stochastic optimization, and his development of high-quality, open-source software and service to the operations research community. Congratulations, Professor David Woodruff.

Game Over? What Happens When Mobile Banking App Rewards Go Dark

Companies are increasingly gamifying all sorts of products, even banking apps. But what happens when a rewards program is stopped?

Do consumers continue their incentivized behaviors, or do they also stop?

Assistant Professor Mike Palazzolo and his co-author recently studied this in a real-world situation. The bottom line is that digital incentives in financial services do boost engagement. It's not just a gimmick. Gamification isn't a short-term fix.

It's a long-term play for banks to further engage with their customers.

Sacramento Part-Time MBA Marks 30 Years Preparing Capital Region Leaders 

We are thrilled this fall to be celebrating the 30th anniversary of our Sacramento Part-Time MBA program.

Back in the early 1990s, a state budget crisis dealt a severe blow to the University of California. The drop in funding trickled down to each campus, forcing some programs to make drastic cuts while sparking academic innovation by others. Rising out of the ashes of that recession, we launched what was then called our MBA program for Working Professionals in Sacramento.

Our goal was to expand access to top-quality management education in the California capital region, and the self-supporting revenues from the program would insulate the school from budget cuts that imperiled the very existence of a relatively young business school. The dean at that time, Robert Smiley, called it a “defining moment” in the history of the school. And he was right.

Now, 30 years in, the Sacramento MBA is consistently ranked by U.S. News & World Report among the top 20 part-time programs at public universities. There are over 1,600 graduates of the program, many of whom live and work in the capital region. They are company leaders, policy influencers, and trailblazing entrepreneurs making a positive impact and driving economic growth.

The Graduate School of Management and UC Davis as a whole have always been committed to the economic growth of the Sacramento region through many other programs like ours.

Thank you for watching this issue of the Big 3!