Human capital has become paramount to top executives across industry. As Deloitte reports in its annual Human Capital Trend report for 2015, “areas such as culture and engagement, leadership and development have become urgent priorities” in response to a landscape of rapidly changing technologies and corporate structures.MBA programs have responded to this demand for innovation and flexibility in the field of human capital, and in 2008 Vanderbilt’s Owen Graduate School for Business launched the National MBA Human Capital Case Competition, hosted every year in Nashville. The competition, sponsored by Deloitte and General Electric, invites teams of MBA students to grapple with the latest research-based and real-world human capital issues for a chance to win 10,000 dollars in prize money. The University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business has sent a team of graduate students to seven of the eight competitions, and this year’s team won second place in a field of eleven talented teams representing top MBA programs.
Last year, Ross’s team left Nashville without achieving its goal to rank among the finalists. This year’s team captain, Pilar Parish (MBA/MSW ’15), remembers 2014’s disappointment well and vowed to bring lessons learned to this year’s competition from the start by “building team dynamics, fun and trust during our initial group meeting.” The team this year – Pilar, Jonathan Cooper (MBA ’16), David Jones (MBA ’16), Sam Muslin (Master of Management ‘16) and Kristan Mallett (M.S. Psychology, Organizational Behavior ‘16) – focused on synthesizing their individual talents in order to create innovative and strategically focused deliverables.
Kristan describes their game-time strategy in Nashville as “aligning the business, human capital, and financial implications within each of their recommendations.” The competition, held this year from October 22nd – 24th, is structured around an initial round in which teams present to a panel of judges from Deloitte and GE, with three finalists advancing to open presentations in front of both judges and the public.
As a finalist, Ross joined Cornell’s ILR program, the winner of the overall competition, and Purdue’s Krannert School of Management. Kristan explains how the team tackled the final round: “When our team was given a twist to incorporate into our solution, we worked together to promptly integrate it into our overall strategy.” Additionally, the team was able to leverage skills they had learned at Ross and during summer internships to develop a unique solution. Says David, “I never considered before that the technology knowledge and understanding I garnered during my internship wasn’t widely known…this gave me a greater appreciation for the development I gained over the summer.” This perspective and creativity paid off—the Ross presentation was ranked unanimously among the judges as the most innovative of all the teams.
Coming away from this experience, the team has a lot of advice for next year’s Ross team. David reminds the future team that “the stress is definitely present throughout the competition, but keep in mind that you should also find some time to enjoy each other and find moments to relax during the competition.” As Pilar says, being recognized an MBA leader on human capital scholarship and teamwork is a great achievement, but for her, the positive feedback from her teammates was even more important: “As a future HR professional... that was really my prize!”
Congratulations Pilar, Jonathan, David, Sam and Kristan and GO BLUE!