At the Broad College, we pride ourselves on a commitment to collaborative work, especially when it comes to our Full-Time MBA students. With the program’s engagement in many competitions, Broad Spartans are frequently recognized for their innovative problem-solving capabilities.

At the 30th Fisher Big Ten MBA Case Competition, hosted virtually by the Ohio State University’s Fisher College of Business on March 31 and April 1, five Broad MBA students earned first place. This prestigious ranking marks the college’s third top-three finish in the last four consecutive events.

“Our talented team was masterful in exhibiting their learning and skill development gained through their first year in the program,” Jeffery Hittler, fixed-term faculty member and team adviser, said.

First-year MBA students Claire Wixted, Gursimran Singh, Neha Aggarwal, Dilavar Goyal and Rajat Srivastava finished ahead of the University of Wisconsin, last year’s winner, in the presentation of each school’s recommendations.

The live case was conducted by executives from Indian Hotels Company Limited of the Tata Group of Companies. The focus was on IHCL’s Qmin brand, which offers delivery of high-quality cuisine through its mobile app, and where the competing teams developed strategies for increasing the brand’s customer base and revenue streams.

“For context, Qmin launched in July 2020 and recently hit $5 million in revenue in the current financial calendar. Needless to say, customer acquisition and order generation for Qmin were the big tasks to reach that goal,” Wixted said.

She also noted that “working together on teams is a core piece of the Broad College MBA curriculum, so this component wasn’t new to any of us.” However, Wixted said she and her teammates had never worked together before the competition, so there was some legwork to understand and identify one another’s strengths and weaknesses. “Luckily, the Full-Time MBA class size is small, so none of us were strangers and we were able to quickly jump into the case.”

Ultimately, the team members presented a three-pronged approach in their recommendations to the judges. First was a focus on capitalizing on Tata Group’s partnership with the Indian Premier League (cricket) to build promotion for the Qmin brand. The second aspect involved launching a robust social media influencer campaign. Thirdly, they pitched utilizing IHCL’s corporate partnerships to expand Qmin’s catering services. Each recommendation involved a financial analysis with expected results, a return-on-investment analysis and a thorough timeline.

Hittler said, “It was a great culmination of a year that has been particularly satisfying for me as an adviser and coach for our teams with almost half of the Class of 2023 engaging in external case competitions, which provide students invaluable experience in analyzing companies across key functional areas and providing solutions to the challenges facing them.”

This victory serves as one example of the Broad College’s commitment to collaboration and teamwork. These students dedicated themselves to this case and reached an innovative solution that led to success, exemplifying how, in the face of every challenge, Spartans Will.