PiSA Challenge: Interacting with the MBA talent

From January 31st to February 1st, IPADE hosted the first ever PiSA Challenge, a case study competition sponsored by PiSA Pharmaceutical Company, a leading Mexican pharmaceutical conglomerate. Fifty second-year students from the IPADE Full-Time MBA Program participated in the challenge, presenting their analysis and findings to an expert panel of judges, including directors from PiSA and IPADE professors.

“[At PiSA], we live and breathe the Case Method. This process of analysis, synthesis, understanding the problem, identifying possible solutions, and implementing them, that’s everyday at PiSA…” said Alejandro Troya, Human Resources and Administration Director of PiSA. “We approach every challenge that we face as if it were a case. The fundamental facts of every problem need to be understood in order to propose a solution and implement it. And it might be the wrong solution! And if it is, we go back to the drawing board and we try again.”

Heriberto Castañeda, Executive Director of Operations at PiSA said: “The PiSA Challenge was a great opportunity for all the participants, as they were able to network with management from PiSA that are also IPADE graduates, helping them broaden their idea of what they might want to achieve in a year, five years, or ten years. For PiSA, having access to IPADE graduates translates to success for our organization.”

10 teams participated in total, with five participating at IPADE’s campus in Monterrey and five in Mexico City. Each team was given their case on January 31st and was required to submit their solution at 8 am on February 1st. An expert panel of judges then judged the solutions, and a winning team was selected.

The members of the winning team in Monterrey are:

• Carlos Alberto Acosta Cantú
• Alfredo José Guevara Ortega
• Fernando Hermosillo Acosta
• Claudia Valenzuela Morales
• Chrystian Iván Yepiz Miranda

The members of the winning team in Mexico City are:

• Ana Paola Herbert Urquiza
• Rodrigo Rocha Aguilar
• Eduardo O’Farrill Pacheco
• Yazmín Gómez Melo
• Alex Alberto Ramírez Rodríguez

According to Mr. Troya, the PiSA challenge was “… an excellent opportunity to interact with and get to know IPADE’s participants. It’s not often that companies like ours get the chance to interact so closely with talented students. We’re eager to attract talent to our rapidly growing company.”

PiSA Pharmaceutical Company, founded in 1945, is now the leading pharmaceutical conglomerate in Mexico, with 17 subsidiary companies that govern the full spectrum of medical services, from manufacturing to distribution and exportation. The company has more than 18,000 employees, 47 of which are graduates of IPADE’s Full-Time and Executive MBA Programs. In addition to its 14 production plants in Mexico, the company also has a presence in the United States, Colombia, and El Salvador.