Spears Business MS BAnDS students participate in case competition
Tuesday, November 15, 2022
Media Contact: Bailey Stacy | Communications Coordinator, Marketing & Communications | 405-744-2700 | bailey.stacy@okstate.edu
Oklahoma State University Master’s in Business Analytics and Data Science held its annual case competition in October.
This year’s winning team was first-year MS BAnDs students Joe Athimala Maria, Dania Crivelli, Ranjith Kumar Kuppu Rathinam and Jayke Ratliff. The second-place winners in the competition were Landrie Alsobrook, Kushal Kulshreshtha, Frankle Muchahary, Omkar Nayan Patade and Roger Tan, who are all first-year MS BAnDs students. In third place and also first-year MS BAnDs students were Muralidhar Ippili, Satishwar Kedas, Rishitha Koneru and Ray Litchfield.
Honorable mentions were also given to the overall best presenter, Roe Djer Tan and overall best question and answers, Ray Litchfield.
In this internal competition, students were asked to solve a human resources analytics problem looking to predict renege rates of potential hires. The teams had a week to prepare a strategy to present to judges.
In the preliminary round, all students competed and were judged by a panel of OSU alumni who currently work in various industries.
The competition was judged on both quality of solution and quality of presentation. The judges chose the top three teams to compete in the final round. The advancing teams were given an additional week to polish their presentations and make any changes they felt necessary before their final presentation.
The final round was judged by high level executives. This judging panel consisted of Ashley Gockstetter, director of customer strategy and analytics at Love’s Travel Stop; Brad Cost, president, CEO and owner of Infinedi; Michael Cliff, IT enterprise applications manager at ONE Gas, and David Benham, principal data scientist and manager of innovation and data analytics at Laredo Petroleum, Inc.
The MS BAnDS students competing in this round were asked to present the same case. The judges ranked the three teams. The first-place winners received $250, second place $200, third place $150 and $50 for best presenter and best questions and answers.
“This competition helped me to get out of my comfort zone by doing hard things,” said Dania Crivelli, a member of the first-place team. “I better understand how the technical skills of data analysis and business knowledge complement each other to deliver a result that helps solve a business problem.”
Dr. Goutam Chakraborty, MS BAnDS director, believes the case competitions provide the students with great opportunities.
“The Business Analytics case competition is an integral part of MS BAnDS program,” Chakraborty said. “We teach our students to think and act like consultants.”
“Having students present to high-level judges from the industry helps students understand the big questions that senior managers struggle with every day,” Chakraborty said. “I am grateful for the judges who gave their time to this event and provided valuable feedback to each team.”
For information about the MS BAnDs program, please visit https://business.okstate.edu/analytics/.