A team of students led by the Consulting Club of UT Southwestern delivered innovative solutions to win the 5^th Annual Greater Houston Case Competition (GHCC 2020).

The UTSW team was led by Rupam Ghosh, a graduate student in biological chemistry, and included UTSW graduate students Subhajit Das Gupta and Soo Young “Esther” Kim, UTSW medical student Stefan Prisacaru, and Melany Jimenez from the University of Houston Bauer College of Business.

The competition attracted 25 multidisciplinary teams from institutions across the country. The May 31 event, forced into virtual mode due to the COVID-19 pandemic, entailed solving a business case of a large health care company entering the U.S. market. The UTSW team received the highest score by crafting a recommendation that judges cited for clear display of data, succinct Q&A replies, and out-of-the-box creative solutions that incorporated business strategy and current health care trends.

Princeton University came in second and the University of Pennsylvania took third place at the virtual event, hosted by the Consulting Club at Texas Medical Center.

“While most teams provided one solution to the problem, we provided multiple solutions, compared them, and then came up with the best solution and its implementation. The judges were impressed by our thinking process and our solution, which was very succinct and to the point,” Mr. Ghosh said.

Business case competitions are a mainstay in the field of consulting. Although initially limited to business schools, such events for nonbusiness students have been gaining traction in recent years as more and more consulting firms see the value of applying the problem-solving capabilities of advanced degree candidates to business, said Dr. Natalie Lundsteen, Assistant Dean for Career and Professional Development in the UT Southwestern Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. She advises the Consulting Club along with Alecia Williams, a Graduate School Program Coordinator.