Get a head start on the 2022-2023 competition season with DECA's competitive draft topics and resources for business operations research, professional selling, hospitality and tourism professional selling and financial consulting.
Business Operations Research Events
The 2022-2023 topic for each career category is to research an existing business's website, products, and/or services and develop a strategic plan to adopt a hyper-personalization approach.
Today companies are tracking and collecting large amounts of customer data and are using artificial intelligence to determine patterns within the data to simulate a customer's thought process. Consumers have raised concerns about privacy and ethics in regards to this type of data collection. Participants will develop a strategic plan to enhance and improve the company's existing products and/or services by incorporating this approach and addressing consumer concerns.
Helpful Resources:
- The Growing Significance of AI-Powered Hyper-Personalization in Digital Marketing
- Rethinking Personas for Fairness: Algorithmic Transparency and Accountability in Data-Driven Personas
- Ethical Concerns of AI in Marketing
- Why AI Makes the Human Touch Even More Important in Personalization
- Personas vs. Personalization: Should Both Be Part of Marketers’ Toolkits?
- How To Build an Ethical User Research Practice at Any Organization
- Hyper-Personalization: The Next Wave of Customer Engagement
- Best Practices on Creating Effective Personas
- Marketing Personas and AI
- AI-Based ‘Synthetic Personas’ Can Augment and Transform Audience Research
- How Are Personas Used in Real Organizations?
- Complete Guide: How to Create Personas Based on Data
- How To Use Personas? Listing Typical Persona Use Cases
- 8 Examples of AI Personalization Across Industries
- Putting Personas to Work in UX Design: What They Are and Why They’re Important
- The Complete User Analysis Guide: Personas to Design to Analytics
- How To Create Highly Accurate Customer Personas for Marketing
- Why AI Makes the Human Touch Even More Important in Personalization
- Overcoming the Pitfalls to Smart and Successful AI Personalization
Financial Consulting (FCE)
For 2022-2023 you will assume the role of a financial consultant to a local bank.
The bank is looking to close some of its brick-and-mortar locations and transition more of its services to an online/virtual platform. The bank is seeking your recommendation on what services could be transitioned to an online-only banking platform without compromising customer service to its customers.
Helpful Resources:
- U.S. Banks Close Record Number of Retail Branches in 2021
- The Vanishing Brick-and-Mortar Bank Branch
- Bank Branches and COVID-19: Where are Banks Closing Branches During the Pandemic?
- 3 Major Banks Plan More Branch Closings as Thousands Shutter
- The 5 Biggest Financial Services Tech Trends in 2022
Hospitality and Tourism Professional Selling (HTPS)
For 2022-2023 you will assume the role of a sales representative for a technology firm that specializes in touchless technology integration.
A local amusement park owner has scheduled a meeting with you to discuss how to implement touchless customer options and learn about the types of products that can be integrated into their company to benefit their business.
Helpful Resources:
- How Touchless Technology Can Make Life Easier
- Implementing Touchless Technology is Essential to Establishing Health and Safety Protocols in a Post-Pandemic World
- 7 Restaurant Technology Trends to Watch in 2022
- Top 10 Contactless Trends to Watch in 2022
Professional Selling (PSE)
For 2022-2023 you will assume the role of a sales representative of a virtual human resource firm that specializes in employee accountability.
Since the pandemic, the company is allowing workers to work remotely and is looking for a solution to hold employees accountable for their workload. The chief operations officer of a major company has scheduled a meeting with you because he/she is interested in using your services to ensure accountability in the virtual workplace.
Helpful Resources:
- Top 5 HR Trends for 2022 and Beyond
- 10 Ways Human Resources will Change in 2022
- How to Keep Remote Workers Engaged in a Virtual Team
- How to Successfully Manage Your Remote Workforce
Be sure to check the DECA Guide over the summer for official guidelines for the 2022-2023 school year.
DECA does not necessarily endorse content from the above external links.
Questions?
As DECA's education manager, Christy is responsible for enhancing an educational framework for DECA’s comprehensive learning program ensuring that all student programs are aligned to National Curriculum Standards. Christy’s extensive experience of more than 20 years in Career and Technical Education includes serving a business and marketing instructor and DECA advisor. Christy has worked for DECA since 2022.
