Kelley Direct degree helps manager deliver after Hurricane Sandy

Hurricane Sandy tossed boxcars and caused extensive
damage to ports in New York and New Jersey.

Guest post from Kelley Direct Programs

John Boullie

As the supply planning manager for several production lines that run 24/7 in Windsor Locks, Conn., John Boullie puts his Kelley Direct degree to work on a daily basis.

However, it wasn’t until Hurricane Sandy hit that he came to truly appreciate the skills he gained in the school’s Global Supply Chain Management program.

“We had to shut operations down entirely when the governor of Connecticut closed the highways,” says Boullie. “When we reopened a day and a half later, we had to manually coordinate our just-in-time raw material deliveries with each supplier and look at how the unplanned shutdown would affect our promised ship dates to customers.”

Complicating matters even further was the extensive destruction found in the ports of New York and New Jersey.

“The ports were closed for more than a week with no power and a great backlog of traffic,” he says.

Keeping his plants running and shipments moving in the midst of such chaos was no easy task. To stay on track, Boullie relied on his Kelley Direct education.

“The process-mapping skills I learned in professor (Rhonda) Lummus’ class allowed me and my team to outline and focus on the pieces of the chain that were the most critical and needed the most attention,” Boullie says.  “I even pulled out some of the Excel files we worked on to help me maximize our production output and get the most shipments out in the smallest amount of time.”

Things are getting back to normal now, but Boullie continues to be thankful for his Kelley degree.

“Getting a Global Supply Chain Management degree from Kelley Direct was a great decision for me,” he says. “I’ve applied many of the more unique tools and concepts I learned at Kelley to my work here.”

Hodge Hall: Week 27 -- The view from my desk

Workers are at the ready to guide a beam into place atop the Hodge Hall addition.

The steel frame you see at the end of the Hodge Hall Undergraduate Center building is the fourth of six sections, which means the frame is more than halfway complete!

While the students are gone next week, workers will do a little work on the inside of the building. The water to the undergraduate building will be shut off on Monday so that they can work on the plumbing in restrooms that are being renovated.

Corrugated metal is used as a base for the floor. Wire grids
will be placed on top before the cement is poured.

On Tuesday, workers will begin pouring cement on the upper floors of the framework on the 10th Street side. Corrugated metal is used as a base for the floor, and wire grids will be placed on top of those before the cement is poured to help lock everything into place.

The cement has to be pumped from the ground level with a special truck, which I'm told is interesting to watch.

Check back on Nov. 30th for the next Hodge Hall update. In the meantime, enjoy your time off, and Happy Thanksgiving from all of us at the Kelley School!

Students rank Kelley No. 1 in faculty, career services, satisfaction

People love rankings. It's great to be able to say the school you go to or the team you follow or the city you live in is No. 1 at something.

Indiana University and Bloomington are no strangers to top rankings. IU is consistently touted as a top-ranked public university, top research school, top grad school. We're among the most-wired universities and the most beautiful campuses. We have a top music school, top journalism school, and yes, a top business school.

Bloomington is consistently ranked high as a best college town, best place to retire, best small city, most bicycle-friendly, healthiest place to live. The list goes on....

Of course, IU has the No. 1 men's basketball team in the country. (Nice to be able to say that again -- go Hoosiers!) And we have one of the top basketball players in the country, Cody Zeller, who happens to be a Kelley student.

This week, the Kelley School's MBA program achieved No. 1 rankings worldwide in faculty, career services and student satisfaction in a Bloomberg Businessweek survey.

No. 1 in the world.

The thing that makes these rankings so awesome is that they're based on student surveys.

The individual rankings are part of a larger story that will be told Thursday afternoon, when Businessweek releases its overall rankings of MBA programs. The student surveys account for 45 percent of the overall score, with corporate recruiter surveys weighing in at another 45 percent, and faculty research making up the final 10 percent.

We'll be thrilled if our overall ranking improves, but at Kelley, it's always been about the students. Our programs are built around personal development and partnerships with professors, Academy directors and career coaches who genuinely want to know our students and help them succeed in the field that's right for them.

We may not have the most well-known name among business schools (for now), and some may think our Midwestern location puts us at a disadvantage -- although our alumni are employed all over the world -- but the Kelley School has long been considered a "hidden gem" among our alumni and recruiters, and our programs have been used as models at other business schools.

The thing that sets Kelley apart -- the Kelley Advantage -- is a highly personalized approach that prepares our graduates with the soft and hard skills to lead, collaborate and get the job done.

And we're good at it. The best.

Just ask our students.

Hodge Hall: Week 26 -- The view from my desk

The steel framework for the Hodge Hall expansion reaches the corner, six months into construction.

Every time I looked out my window this week, I've been struck by how large that crane is. It's been here for a few weeks, but now that it has come into view as the framework for the Hodge Hall expansion reaches the corner, I'm impressed on a daily basis.

The wheels on it are taller than a person. When the telescoping boom is extended to its full length, it towers over everything. That it gingerly plucks a steel beam from the ground and dangles it over the site as a worker guides it into place is somewhat amazing to watch.

That's not the only thing that's impressive.

I drove home down 10th Street last night to check the progress on that side, and was in awe of the frame structure. Even though it's still a skeleton, you get the sense of how imposing and noble the undergraduate center will be when completed.

It's definitely going to make a statement, one that a Top 20 business school certainly deserves.

Kelley hosts National Team Selling Competition

Members of the Kelley School team present their sales strategy to the judges. From left, Brandon Tuleja,
Jennifer Messinger, Jordan Rolsky and Jenna Aldo, all seniors.

First Place: University of Washington

The Kelley School was busier than usual recently as our Center for Global Sales Leadership hosted the sixth annual National Team Selling Competition.

Teams from 21 schools filled the halls, breakout rooms and classrooms as they participated in the "Can't Beat the Experience" case competition, sponsored by Altria Group Distribution Company.

Jennifer Whaley, senior account manager with Altria, said the company was excited to sponsor and participate in the competition again.

“We were thrilled to have 21 schools participate and were very impressed by the preparation of the students.  Our goal continues to be to provide the students with a “real world” selling situation,” Whaley said. “The students continue to amaze us with the quality of their sales presentations and their ability to work as a team.”

The schools received the case two weeks in advance, allowing plenty of time for research and collaboration.

Second Place: University of Toledo

This year's case involved developing a sales plan for a fictional GetFit health monitoring system to incorporate into company wellness programs.

After a long day of sales meetings and presentations, students enjoyed networking time and an awards dinner hosted by the Kelley School.

“Our goal of the NTSC is to give sales students the opportunity to take classroom knowledge and experience and apply those skills in a selling situation that is realistic and relevant in today’s market,” said Rosann Spiro, executive director for the Center for Global Sales Leadership.

Third Place: Baylor University

“The NTSC provides a venue for sales students to compete with peers from other schools as well as demonstrate sales skills. We hope everyone found the case challenging and will learn from the team selling approach to sales.”

The University of Washington earned the top spot this year, walking away with bragging rights, individual and school trophies, and a $2,000 prize. Second place and $1,500 went to University of Toledo, and third place and $1,000 went to Baylor University. The Kelley School team of Global Sales Leadership Society members finished just out of the money this year in fourth place.

“The Indiana Team approached this competition as if it were the NCAA basketball finals,” said Kelley School professor Dick Canada. “They prepared, they practiced, they adapted and modified, and they played. And played well, I might add.”

Congratulations to the participants, and thank you to Altria!

Thank you, Altria, for sponsoring the National Team Selling Competition. You can't beat the experience! 

Hodge Hall: Week 25 -- The view from my desk

Ready for steel: The limestone has been removed and the foundation has been packed with stone.

The crane and aerial lift on the Fee Lane side of the Hodge Hall Undergraduate Center are gone from the construction site, but not before the workers removed more limestone from the building.

The two vertical sections on the lower part of the building were cleared of stone to make it easier to add wheelchair lifts to tiered classrooms there.

The "floor" of the building is smoothed and ready for conduit before the cement is poured, and more crushed stone was brought in for backfill in various areas of the site.

Exciting to see the crane on the 10th Street side come into view as the steel work progresses.

Kelley sweeps top spots in annual competition with Purdue

1st Place: Chris Allen, Di (Esther) Chen, Haley Wolf and Augustin Ruta of Kelley Bloomington

2nd Place: Matt Whitesel, Justin Tran, Kristyn
Crawford and Jay Trewn of Kelley Bloomington 

The Kelley School of Business earned a year's worth of bragging rights when it claimed 1st, 2nd and 3rd places in the 14th annual Kelley-Krannert Case Challenge with intrastate rival Purdue.

Kelley and the Krannert School of Management at Purdue send four teams each to the competition, which alternates sites. Based on enrollment, three of Kelley's teams come from IU-Bloomington and the fourth comes from the Kelley Indianapolis campus at IUPUI. This year, the competition was hosted at Bloomington.

The teams examined a Harvard Business School case concerning the LEGO toy company.

3rd Place: Jon Nix, Jim Plew and Ajay Bohra of
Kelley Indy

Kelley teams from the IU-Bloomington campus earned 1st and 2nd places, while the team from Kelley Indy took 3rd place.

Kelley would like to thank our judges: Martha Blood, director of corporate partnerships for the Association of College Unions International and COO of ACUI Procure; Donna Snyder (Kelley-BS'86), vice president and CFO of Hoosier Energy; Fernando Cadena (Kelley-BS'07), associate engagement manager with Elwood Staffing Services; John Rose (IU-MS'78), president and co-owner of Textillery Weavers; Bill Metzger (Kelley-BS'73, MBA'77), national sales manager with ACME Manufacturing; and Karthik Krishnan (Kelley-MBA'10), supply chain planning and purchasing team management with Carlisle Brake & Friction.