Smith MBA Students Take Top Honors at Supply Chain and Logistics Competitions

Smith’s newly elected MBA Supply Chain Club (SCC) leaders are entering office with not one but two major victories under their belts. Two teams of first- and second-year MBA students placed first and second at the FedEx Freight International Graduate Logistics Case Competition and Purdue University's Global Supply Chain Case Competition, respectively. Teams were sponsored by Smith’s logistics, business, and public policy department and faculty representative Hugh Turner, Tyser Teaching Fellow.

“It was definitely a great learning experience for me. We had a great team and every member participated well,” said Anirudha Roy Chowdhury, SCC president and first-year full-time MBA.

Purdue University’s Krannert School of Management Global Supply Chain Case Competition was held Feb. 14-15 in West Lafayette, Ind. The team, including second-year MBA Songtao Yu and first-year MBAs Girish Jaguste, Abhinav Dass and Chowdhury, took second place out of 20 teams. Northwestern University won the competition and Purdue University won third.

“My key lessons from the competition included the importance of a strong financial analysis to calculate strategy benefits and how important it is to have a high-quality presentation that is practiced beforehand to build up team confidence,” Chowdhury said.

The FedEx Freight International Graduate Logistics Case Competition was held from Feb. 28-Mar. 1, 2008 in Fayetteville, Ark. Second-year MBAs Brandon Yamashita, Eduardo Vargas and Yu, and first-year MBAs Arun Karthikeyan, Chowdhury and Jaguste placed first out of 12 teams, winning $3,000. Brigham Young University placed second and Penn State University took third place.

Yamashita, former SCC president, said: “Our team's strategy was specific and well thought out. The presentation was executed well, and the team was prepared to defend the strategy. The judges mentioned out of the teams in our first-round group, we were the team they thought could implement the strategy.”

As for the club’s future, Chowdhury hopes to maintain a high level of success while expanding the organization’s reach. “There are quite a few things I would like to accomplish,” he says. “I’d like to increase participation in the club, have more joint events with other clubs, and network with industry contacts to provide club members with more career opportunities.”