Four teams from both schools participated and presented their solutions.
The panel of judges was comprised of local business owners and business executives.
Representing Kelley, Dean Olson, Sarvesh Kalra, Saharsh Singhania and Patrick Walsh won first place.
Another team from IU claimed second place.
Olson, a junior majoring in accounting, finance, operations and business analytics, said the team was recruited by their professor, Joel Rubin.
“Normally I have a mock trial tournament during the weekend, but we had a break week, and I wanted the opportunity to represent IU and Kelley,” he said.
The case required students from participanting teams to create a growth strategy for one of the largest companies in the fast-moving consumer goods industry with a goal of attaining a certain amount of revenue within five years.
“Our solution was to invest in their gene sequencing division, which was a long-term strategy to help them attain a competitive sustainable edge,” said Singhania, a junior studying business economics and public policy and psychology.
“In the short run, we would partner with convenience stores in the UK and provide them commoditized products due to changing consumer trends.”
The group also decided to launch a branded grape product in the United States to tap into unexplored premiums to reach the goal.
However, Singhania said the team spent no time specifically preparing for the competition against Purdue because a semester-long consulting workshop taught them the necessary skills.
“The consulting workshop in general prepares us so well for structured and critical thinking and slide deck creation that we just traveled to Purdue one day and started solving the case,” he said.
Singhania said there was pressure to uphold IU’s six-year legacy of winning the competition. He said when the team placed first, they were ecstatic.
Walsh, a senior information systems major, said the competition was an opportunity to participate in a prestigious event and potentially earn prize money.
“Nothing felt good about beating Purdue,” Walsh said. “They are nice people who gave us delicious Qdoba and delightful little fruit baskets. Purdue students and faculty have feelings, and I’m worried that winning the case competition has hurt some of them.”
Olson said even though IU tends to discredit Purdue, the rigor of academics is consistent across both universities.
“Beating four teams with their best and brightest students felt pretty great, and the fact that I got to share it with some great teammates made it even better,” he said.
