Four students from Southeast Missouri State University took first place against eight teams at the University of Missouri-Saint Louis second annual International Business Case Competition.
The team consists of Malli Tahghighi, Jenny Macke, Kyle Jacobsmeyer and Chris Dzurick. They are led by Dr. Willie Redmond, professor of economics at Southeast.
The competing teams were each given an information packet about the Monsanto Corporation’s vegetable seed business and had 24 hours to present their solutions to an issue posed.
Representatives from companies like Dupont, Accenture and Boeing were some of the judges at the competition. This did not intimidate the team. In fact, Dzurick says it was a networking opportunity for him.
“Hopefully we can use the skills that we’ve learned as examples of work in our future careers and we can use those networks that we built,” Dzurick said. “It was an absolutely rewarding experience.”
In March, the team competed in the Network of International Business (NIBS) Worldwide Case Competition in London. Kyle Jacobsmeyer said he enjoyed the competition in St. Louis more than in London.
“What was really cool about this one though is that it was a real case,” Jacobsmeyer said. “He wrote the case for a real problem that his company was having. I actually went up to him afterwards and I asked him ‘How are you going to solve this problem?’”
The chief information officer from Monsanto told Jacobsmeyer the company is going to begin using their proposed ideas as soon as he returns to Thailand.
Overall the team feels they learned many important skills working together that will be useful in their careers. Tahghighi said she is now very confident in the skills she has developed as a professional.
“This was probably one of the best experiences I’ve had in college,” Tahghighi said. “Being able to do the NIBS competition in London and then the UMSL competition in St. Louis, it’s very rewarding. It’s because that’s what I’ve been working towards the last three-and-a-half years.”