Farmer School of Business Team Brings Home First Place in West Monroe Partner’s Case Competition

On Friday, November 3, three student teams from the Farmer School (FSB) were joined by teams from Indiana University, Purdue University and Depauw University to compete in the West Monroe Partners’ Case Competition.

The competition, held at FSB, gave students the opportunity to explore and analyze a case for a West Monroe client. Out of seven teams from the four schools, one team from FSB came home victorious.

This competition allows students to take what they have learned in class and apply it to a real life situation. Collin O’Sullivan, sophomore finance and accountancy majors and member of the winning team, said, “This experience has helped me develop critical thinking skills and soft skills at the same time. Being given a vague prompt, and then in return given one week to research and come up with an opinion backed by research tested my ability to apply the things that I have learned in the classroom to a real-world problem.”

I think in-class presentations at FSB have been the most helpful, specifically the First Year Integrated Core. When having to present to the judges (consultants and partners of West Monroe Partners) it felt almost second nature. FSB has put me on the spot numerous times and has forced me to present in a majority of my classes. This has made it easier to talk to employers and present in large classrooms, as I have done it before.”

This is the second year for this competition, but the first year with a win. Chad Goss, junior finance and analytics co-major, was also part of the winning Farmer School team. He said, “I was pumped to have won after putting in all the hours that I did for the competition and relieved that after all of this work we had produced something to the standard and quality that we wanted as a team and had reached the goal that we set out to reach.”

Finally, I would just say this was an amazing team effort. Everyone brought unique and valuable ideas to the group each and every single time we met. The dedication and drive of everyone on the team really made our win possible and the group dynamic was one of, if not the best, I have ever experienced.”