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News Release

Last modified: Wednesday, January 23, 2008

IU's Kelley School wins 2008 Big Ten/Pac 10 MBA Case Competition

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Jan. 23, 2008

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- A team of second-year Master of Business Administration students at Indiana University's Kelley School of Business won first-place team honors last weekend in the Pac-10/Big Ten Case Competition. Students also won individual honors.

Keith Gelarden Dayton, senior faculty lecturer and MBA Core coordinator, coached the IU team, which consisted of team leader Abhi Nadgir, Rachita Sundar, John Walter and Manish Mathur. Bhavin Shah, who was an original member of the Big Ten winning team, is studying abroad in Spain this semester.

Sundar was given an award for the best individual question and answer session. Walter won the best individual presenter award and the entire team won an award for the "Most Innovative Solution."

"Winning this coveted competition was exhilarating. We owe this win to the Kelley School of Business's exceptional educational standards and to all the professors. This win has made us all proud and re-emphasized our self belief of becoming successful in our respective careers ahead," Nadgir said.

"Our team not only came up with a new vision for the company but also provided new innovative ways to expand into new products and geographic markets. The recommendations were complete implementable solutions with detailed analysis and went above and beyond the case competition deliverables," he added. "The team did a fantastic job putting together the whole package which resonated well with the judges and positioned us to pick up this prestigious award in addition to the rest."

Hosted by the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University Jan.17-19, the event was designed to give the top three MBA student teams from the Big Ten and Pac 10 an opportunity to test their knowledge. Teams from each school were asked to analyze a complex business case, identify the challenges represented and present recommendations to executive judges.

The Kelley School won an invitation to represent the conference in the challenge by winning the MBA Big Ten Case Competition last year.

Participating schools from the Pac-10 Conference included University of Washington, the University of Arizona and ASU, which were the first, second and third place winners of a Pac-10 case competition held in October 2007. The other participating Big Ten schools were from Pennsylvania State University and Michigan State University.

Kelley and Michigan State teams each advanced to the final round of the competition, providing for an all-Big Ten final round.

According to Dayton, the foundation of the Kelley team's success was the breadth and depth of individual team members. He said that those attributes reflect the instruction and coaching Kelley MBA students get in their first year through the integrated core curriculum, strategy training and the industry-focused academies.

"The depth to which our students were prepared to take on this case was incredible," Dayton said. "This competition is incredibly competitive and that reflects well on the Big Ten schools as a whole."

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