Two very different competitions recently had the same result: the Naveen Jindal School of Management was the first-place winner. One was for the Texas Christian University (TCU) Graduate Supply Chain Case Competition on April 1; the other was the 2023 Business Analytics Student Competition held at the University of Texas at Arlington.
First, the TCU competition.
Jindal School Team Takes First After Finding Company Bottleneck
With a first-place prize of $14,000 on the line and sponsored by well-known companies, including H-E-B, the judges from TrinityRail put an actual company problem before participants, with one of the judges having written the case competition.
Up against schools such as the University of Michigan and the University of Wisconsin, the Jindal School team, like everyone else, had 24 hours to find a solution to the case. The first 14 hours for the Jindal School team? Not so good. The next four?
Success.
“This was a classic situation where we weren’t getting far and took a break,” Mannat Batish, an MBA and MS student in supply chain management, explained. “When we came back at 10 at night and, with fresh minds, there it was.”
They focused on adjusting the production schedule of a company to make room for another order, Batish said. “They gave us the option that we can open the facility or the production line at the facility, but there were actually a lot of scenarios to work with data around planning.”
The first round was a 20-minute presentation, followed by a 15-minute Q&A. The second round followed suit.
When they spoke to the judges, the Jindal School team found what stood out to the judges was they were the only team that found the bottleneck.
“We noticed a discrepancy and that was the breakthrough moment for us,” Batish said. “The company thought they were running at full capacity but they actually weren’t. We realized basically one small part was not arriving on time and that was the bottleneck. If the part came on time and if schedule adjusting was made, it ended up being the difference of many millions of dollars.”
There were many positives out of the competition, including networking opportunities with companies that sponsored this event, getting feedback from people in the industry and improving time-management skills, said Sijo Mathew Varghese, an MBA student.
Van Ngoc Nguyen, an MS in supply chain management student, found the competition vital to his brainstorming skills.
“And it’s our classes that came into play,” he said. “We’re told to not just look at the obvious answer but are we missing something simple that could be the answer? Is there the often-overlooked step that could be the difference?”
Bhanu Pulikonda, an MBA in supply chain management student, appreciated the application to her chosen area. “It allowed me to get an inside view and really see how supply chain can struggle,” Pulikonda said. “It was motivating that it was a 100-percent real-world case.”
John Fierst, director of the MS in Management Science and MS in Supply Chain Management programs in the Naveen Jindal School of Management, saw this as a key supply chain education victory for the Jindal School in the wake of a top-4 ranking in the Gartner Supply Chain University Top 25 for 2022.
“You look at our Gartner ranking, and this competition is one more example that we’re heading in a strong direction,” he said. “It shows students can apply knowledge because these competitions are all about an application from the classroom. It says our students don’t just understand theory but can put it into practice.”
Another Competition, Another First-Place Finish
The 2023 Business Analytics Student Competition also saw the Jindal School hit the mark in this annual event sponsored this year by Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE). It took place as part of the 7th Annual Business Analytics Symposium held at UT Arlington.
The first round of the event consisted of 52 teams sending in a problem statement, a document describing how they would approach the problem.
“It focused on the impressions for a campaign, and we were provided a data set to analyze,” said Shaurya Tripathi, an MS in business analytics student. “It was a marketing television problem. It was looking at when campaigns are run, the dates of the running and the impression metrics, social metrics and how people are engaging. Our goal was to maximize the clicks from being provided the marketing budget of $1 million.”
The top three teams were invited to give a 15-minute presentation on the topic and, the judges, all from HPE, gave their results.
“It was a strong challenge and fun to get involved with this marketing problem,” said Shritej Chavan, an MS in business analytics student. “It wasn’t straightforward when you talk about ROI and we had to come up with metrics. We really had to focus in terms of analyzing data.”
The team, which won $1,000 and a certificate, appreciated being judged by HPE, providing a balance in terms of the backgrounds of the judges.
“You really felt that they appreciated the time we gave in terms of coming up with an algorithm that could fit,” Chavan said.
Tripathi said it improved his skills in teamwork and when it comes to combining strategy with technical skills.
“You can understand a topic but as a graduate student you don’t always get a chance to put your knowledge to the test this way,” he said. “Marketing campaigns, budget allocation, it’s exciting to put it into play. It was a great opportunity to present in front of top experts, such as Paul Hemmersbaugh. Leveraging algorithms is a skill which can have wide-ranging application.”
Dr. Bill Hefley, a clinical professor and program director of the MS Business Analytics Cohort program at the Jindal School, was proud of the team and how they were able to display their knowledge from the classroom.
“It’s a powerful feeling to be able to act almost like an adviser and to see successful people from a business like this taking in your expertise and getting a chance to understand your mindset,” he said. “We have seen again and again that our students understand business in action, and it translates when they go out into the marketplace. You hear it about our graduates a great deal…To finish first out of that many teams is a terrific achievement.” Teams from the Jindal School placed first and second this year; Jindal teams had placed first and third in the competition’s inaugural year, which was sponsored by Pier 1.
