UW Team Nabs 2nd Place in Pac-10 Case Competition
 A foursome of MBA students from the University
of Washington took second place in the inaugural
Pac-10 MBA Case Competition in October, earning the
right to compete against the top three teams of a
Big-10 Case Competition in a championship round next
January.
Competing at Arizona State University, each team of second-year MBAs in the Pac-10
Case Competition was given a Harvard Business School case and allowed 24 hours
to give a detailed analysis of and solution to the given problem. Each also had
to develop a plan for implementation and a proposal for how they could work with
the company as consultants.
Representing the UW were Thiru Anandanpillai, Aaron Coe, Uday Keshavdas and Gautham
Ravi, who said the key to outperforming other teams was the rigorous critiquing
and judging from UW Business School faculty members prior to the contest.
"The practice case given and judged by our professors was especially helpful," said Coe. "They were pretty tough on us, but that made all the difference and is what enabled
us to advance to the final round."
Professors Warren Boeker, Jane Kennedy, Jennifer Koski, Suresh Kotha, Erica Okada,
Scott Reynolds, David Risher and Dan Turner coached the UW team.
 Also competing for the championship spot will be the Pac-10's other top teams,
Arizona State University and the University of Southern California, and the top
three teams from the Big-10 Case Competition, Indiana University, Purdue University
and the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
The concept of creating a Pac-10 school MBA competition to face off against winners
of the Big-10 MBA Case Competition was the brainchild of administrators from
ASU, UW and University of California, Berkeley.
Dan Poston, executive director of UW's MBA programs and faculty sponsor of the
UW's team, said the nascent competition emerged out of a need to provide second-year
MBA candidates the chance to apply their theoretical knowledge to real-world
issues and present their arguments to a panel of judges comprised of business
leaders.
Participating judges were senior executives from Honeywell,
Motorola, Cap Gemini
Ernst & Young and other major firms. |
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