Five teams from business schools around the country competed for the $10,000 first prize in the first annual Monsanto-Olin Case Competition on February 12. The competition was designed to give graduate students an opportunity to provide innovative business solutions to a case study written about Monsanto’s seed corn supply chain. Participating teams represented:Texas Christian University, Rollins College, the University of Missouri, Pennsylvania State University, and Washington University.

Monsanto emphasized that its main motivation behind sponsoring this competition was the need to attract more attention to challenges in agribusiness supply chains. The company’s goal was to foster and attract more supply chain management talent to work on food supply chain solutions for an ever-growing world.

The competition was administered by Olin Business School’s graduate programs office, with Associate Dean Joe Fox acting as the master of ceremonies and his team including Sarah Miller and Laura Fogarty providing strong logistical support.

After presenting their solutions to the case study challenge, the teams anxiously snacked and chatted while the judges came to a decision. In the end, it was determined that the gentlemen from TCU had delivered the best presentation and were deserving of the big check, which was presented by Monsanto’s VP of Global Supply Chain Bob Reiter. TCU edged out the competition by focusing on how to use Monsanto’s product life cycle to better manage inventory levels, reduce working capital, and improve farmer service levels.  Also finishing strong were the teams from Mizzou and WashU, which finished in second and third place, respectively.

The case study used for the competition was written by WashU’s Panos Kouvelis, Emerson Distinguished Professor of Operations and Manufacturing Management and director of The Boeing Center, with the help of Monsanto’s Global Customer Care team, including Mario Morhy, Marcelle Pires, Chao Wu, and Jereme Shryock.  The Boeing Center, led by Kouvelis, is a global supply chain management research center, regularly engaging with companies in the St. Louis area to assist with process optimization, supply chain, and risk management.

On behalf of the Olin community, The Boeing Center congratulates TCU on their victory and thanks all those who helped make this year’s MOCC a great success!

By Evan Dalton