On Friday, October 12th, I hopped in the car and headed up to West Lafayette to observe 4 of our Honors students (from left-to-right) - Paul Hwang, Charlenne Gonzalez, Andrew Starks, and Drew Heckman - compete in the annual Kelley-Krannert case competition.
Every Fall semester for the past 9 years, 4 groups of undergraduate students representing IU's Kelley School of Business (3 from Bloomington and 1 from Indianapolis) and 4 from Purdue's Krannert School of Management, face off in a weekend case competition. For those who are unfamiliar with how a case competition works, here was the set-up:
Not only did the Kelley Indianapolis team make the finals for the first time, they beat the two other Purdue teams which reached the finals and won the entire competition (along with the $1,200 1st place prize). And I'm telling you, even as an impartial observer, they were the clear winners. Their analysis was thorough, their presentation was remarkably polished, and their ability to focus in on the critical points of the case and present a cohesive action plan for the company in question was unmatched. The judges were equally impressed, keeping the team for over an hour after the completion had ended to dissect their strategy and congratulate them on their performance.
Check out their presentation (PowerPoint 2007)
They pulled off the victory without any previous case competition experience, though they all agreed that they were able to draw heavily from their Honors I-Core experience. I wish I could claim some of the credit for their success, but all the credit goes directly to the students. They were, in a word, awesome.
Every Fall semester for the past 9 years, 4 groups of undergraduate students representing IU's Kelley School of Business (3 from Bloomington and 1 from Indianapolis) and 4 from Purdue's Krannert School of Management, face off in a weekend case competition. For those who are unfamiliar with how a case competition works, here was the set-up:- The groups arrived and had lunch together, and heard a few words from Krannert's Senior Associate Dean for Faculty and Research, Diane Denis.
- The students received the case around 2pm and headed back to their hotels.
- About the case: This year's case centered on the $1.75 billion acquisition of IBM's PC division by Lenovo, China's largest PC maker, which was announced in December 2004. At the heart of the case was how Lenovo should proceed in developing and executing a marketing/branding strategy for its ThinkPad and Lenovo 3000 computer lines. Read the full case here.
- They spent the next 12-18 hours sequestered in a hotel room - with a month's worth of Red Bull and water - analyzing the case and putting together a PowerPoint presentation.
- The next day the 4 Kelley teams and the 4 Krannert teams were divided into separate classrooms in Purdue's beautiful new Rawls Hall. Each group gave a 20 minute presentation followed by 10 minutes of tough Q&A from a panel of judges with extensive experience in business and industry.
- The top 3 teams were selected to present again in the final round of competition in front of the combined panel of judges, advisors and fellow students.
Not only did the Kelley Indianapolis team make the finals for the first time, they beat the two other Purdue teams which reached the finals and won the entire competition (along with the $1,200 1st place prize). And I'm telling you, even as an impartial observer, they were the clear winners. Their analysis was thorough, their presentation was remarkably polished, and their ability to focus in on the critical points of the case and present a cohesive action plan for the company in question was unmatched. The judges were equally impressed, keeping the team for over an hour after the completion had ended to dissect their strategy and congratulate them on their performance.
Check out their presentation (PowerPoint 2007)
They pulled off the victory without any previous case competition experience, though they all agreed that they were able to draw heavily from their Honors I-Core experience. I wish I could claim some of the credit for their success, but all the credit goes directly to the students. They were, in a word, awesome.
