 |
| Pulak, Aryn, Me, Adam |
Each year, the Kelley School of Business competes in GE’s ECLP Midwest Case Competition. I was this year's team leader of three other incredible individuals picked to go to the case competition -- Adam Elkington, Aryn Vastola, and Pulak Sharma. What was our assignment? We were asked to solve the following problem -- How should GE use the Industrial Internet to improve their Aviation Business?
 |
| Top team the second year in a row! |
With two weeks to find a solution to GE’s request, we began by researching the Industrial Internet. In case you don’t know what the Industrial Internet is -- it is also known as the “Internet of Things." It is the future. The Industrial Internet provides a system that allows machines to communicate with each other to make them smarter and more efficient.
Our next step was to involve our brilliant Kelley professors. Our Strategy professors assisted our team in the collaboration process. Using individual and group ideas, they encouraged debate and we all appreciated each other’s insights, knowledge, and strengths. We continued to research and began to focus on our solution. It was a long process, but we used the many of the skills we had learned in our Core MBA classes like case analysis from our Strategy classes, net present value calculations from Finance classes, and market segmentation from our Marketing classes.
Amazed how we were able to integrate our current course studies into the project, it was exciting, challenging and convinced me I chose the right MBA program!
The competition was held at Notre Dame, and shortly after arriving we went to an evening event where we met some of our fellow competitors and current GE employees. The other competing teams included The Notre Dame Mendoza College of Business, The University of Michigan Ross School of Business, and The University of Chicago Booth School of Business. As the team lead, I selected our number for what presentation order we were to go in the next morning. The Kelley Team was ... Number 1.
The next morning we received many wishes of good luck from our fellow Kelley classmates. Our team continued to focus and practice on our presentation right up until we were called. It was time to present! Our 30 minutes flew by and then -- it was time to wait again. Since our team was first to present, we were able to watch the other three business school's take their turn. Now I know how an ice skater feels waiting for her competition results! There were some great ideas presented, but as the afternoon went on I kept reminding myself of how amazing our team was, our collaborative strategy, and the wonderful Kelley organization I was a part of. And as I watched, I knew we were going to win -- we had to win, we had a whole team cheering us on, and our previous Kelley classmates who won the year before were depending on it. Plus, we had a great power point presentation!
We won! Next year we will be back for 3-peat. We look forward to helping our future Kelley classmates!