NEW YORK CITY and SAN MATEO, Calif., Jan. 18, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- DemandTec, Inc. DMAN, the collaborative analytics cloud for retailers and consumer products companies, today announced that Kunal Sangani and Elliot Tan from Fayetteville-Manlius High School in Fayetteville, NY have won the Grand Championship round in the sixth annual DemandTec Retail Challenge, a nationwide math and science college scholarship competition for high school seniors. The winning two-person team was awarded a $10,000 college scholarship during Tuesday's closing bell ceremony held at NASDAQ OMX in New York City.

The overarching mission for the DemandTec Retail Challenge is to inspire high school students to embrace applied mathematics and to consider a career leveraging science, technology, engineering, and math disciplines (STEM).  The competition gives students a taste for how retailers and consumer products companies make important pricing, promotion, and inventory decisions.  Throughout the competition, all teams were responsible for maximizing profits by analyzing products and categories for a fictional retailer using a modified version of DemandTec retail analytic software and presenting their findings to a panel of judges.  The DemandTec Retail Challenge has awarded more than $100,000 in college scholarships this year and more than $400,000 since its inception in 2005.

"As a judge on the panel it was gratifying to see these students apply their analytical, teamwork, and presentation skills in a real-life business scenario," said Mike Manske, VP of Global Merchandising and Vendor Capabilities of Best Buy, sponsor of the Grand Championship round.  

This year's competition drew a record total of 510 students divided into 256 teams. The sixteen regional competitions offered a $5,000 scholarship for each winning team and qualification for the semifinal round.

The five highest scoring teams among the 16 semifinalist teams advanced to the Grand Championship round in New York City.  All travel and hotel expenses were covered under the program.  All finalists participated in the NASDAQ closing bell ceremony, with the winning team ringing the closing bell.

"Hosting the DemandTec Retail Challenge Grand Championship here at NASDAQ is a tremendous privilege and allows us to reinforce the value of math and science education to high school students," said Robert Greifeld, CEO and President of NASDAQ OMX.

The 2011 DemandTec Retail Challenge was sponsored by Best Buy, FreshDirect, Giant Eagle, Gunderson Dettmer Stough Villeneuve Franklin & Hachigian, Informatica Corporation, maurices, Numerical Algorithms Group, RadioShack Corporation, RAM Communications, RetailWire, Stop & Shop Supermarkets, Target Corporation, Tops Friendly Markets, and University of Minnesota Duluth.

"Our plan for 2012 is to expand our base beyond the sixteen regional competitions, providing even more students with college scholarships and promoting practical experience for math and science skills," said Suzy Valentine, Senior Vice President of Science & Analytics at DemandTec. "We congratulate all the finalists and look forward to attracting more students to the 2012 competition."

Learn more about the DemandTec Retail Challenge and hear the students share their perspective on topics such as the importance of math and science education through the following channels:

http://www.demandtecretailchallenge.com 
Twitter: twitter.com/RetailChallenge 
Facebook: facebook.com/DTRetailChallenge

About DemandTec
DemandTec DMAN connects more than 500 retailers and consumer products companies, providing common solutions to transact, interact, and collaborate on core merchandising and marketing activities.  DemandTec's services enable customers to achieve their sales volume, revenue, shopper loyalty, and profitability objectives.  DemandTec customers have collaborated on more than five million trade deals.  DemandTec software and analytical services utilize a science-based platform to model and understand consumer behavior.  DemandTec customers include leading retailers and consumer products companies such as Ahold USA, Best Buy, ConAgra Foods, Delhaize America, General Mills, H-E-B Grocery Co., The Home Depot, Monoprix, PETCO, Safeway, Sara Lee, Target, Walmart, and WH Smith.

DemandTec Safe Harbor
This press release contains forward-looking statements regarding DemandTec's expectations, hopes, plans, intentions or strategies, including statements about the benefits of DemandTec's solutions. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, as well as assumptions that, if they do not fully materialize or prove incorrect, could cause our results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. The risks and uncertainties include those described in DemandTec's documents filed with or furnished to the Securities and Exchange Commission. All forward-looking statements in this press release are based on information available to DemandTec as of the date hereof, and DemandTec assumes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements.

Media Contact:

Armen Najarian, DemandTec, Inc.
(650) 645-7170
armen.najarian@demandtec.com

Investor Contact:

Tim Shanahan, DemandTec, Inc.
(650) 645-7103
tim.shanahan@demandtec.com

DemandTec and the DemandTec logo are registered trademarks of DemandTec, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

SOURCE DemandTec, Inc.