The 2018 edition of the Katz Invitational Case Competition took place at the University of Pittsburgh on February 2nd and 3rd. Sixteen teams qualified for the case competition at Pittsburgh after a round of essay screenings, where teams were asked to talk about their understanding of Business Model Transformation. The Penn State team consisted of four MBA students – Tilak Khullar, Neha Kumari, Anshu Telang and Ajit Smiles, and the competition included teams from Carnegie Mellon, University of Michigan, Boston College and various other business schools located all over the country.
The case itself involved the formulation of a go-to-market strategy for a Software-as-a-Service based solution for Crane Payment Innovations, who were also the main sponsors of the event. Teams were asked to identify and develop strategies to commercialize SaaS as a solution for growth in their top and bottom lines. We developed a strategy that involved methodologies to commercialize APIs and data analytics to achieve top line growth while using predictive analytics to improve operational efficiencies and influence bottom line performance.
On the day of the event, teams were initially divided into four separate rooms, and these teams presented their ideas to the panelists present in each room. The best team in each room advanced to the final round, presented to a fresh panel of judges and competed against each other for bragging rights and a top prize of $10,000.
Although our team didn’t make it to the finals, it was a great learning experience for us all. The organizing team did a great job of taking care of us, and we really appreciated the opportunity to meet students from other schools and talk to professionals with years of experience in the payments industry. We’d also like to acknowledge the Smeal MBA office for giving us the opportunity to take part in this event. This was a great opportunity to strengthen our understanding of the marketing space, and we would definitely encourage future MBA classes to participate in this case competition!