ISM World 2026 Notebook: Students ‘Serious’ About Case Competition

With the competition’s kickoff minutes away, the team from the University of Michigan (UM) huddled in a corner, discussing last-minute strategy and visualizing their performance.

While that sentence suggests images of fall football Saturdays in a 100,000-plus seat stadium nicknamed “The Big House,” the venue on Monday was much more modest. However, in a ballroom at the Gaylord Rockies Resort & Convention Center in Aurora, Colorado, the stakes were no less important to the team from the UM’s Ross School of Business.

The all-female foursome was taking part in the Institute for Supply Management^® (ISM^®) International Student Case Competition at the ISM World 2026 Annual Conference. They joined teams from DePaul University in Chicago, Maastricht University in the Netherlands and Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey in the final four.

“We were very serious about it. We met for about 20 hours a week while we were putting the case together,” said team member Tejaswi Sreerama. “Especially in the last two weeks, we’ve put in a lot of time to finalize our presentation. We’ll be getting questions, so we wanted to prepare ourselves for that.”

The case study, “Health-Care Supply Chain — Survival Through Disruptions” called for teams to design a strategy that restores resilience, profit margin and care continuity, as well as aligns with the company’s overall objectives. It is designed for students to deal with a variety of unexpected developments, said competition moderator Jim Fleming, CPSM, CPSD, Innovation and Product Development Manager at ISM.

“In the past, participants have said that many of the potential scenarios in the cases are never going to happen in real life,” said Fleming, who has helped design the cases. “But each of these cases are based on a significant amount of things that have happened. What we often think can’t happen is what’s usually in our inbox the following week.”

Each team submitted a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation and was allotted 15 minutes to present its case, followed by a five-minute question-and-answer period. The winner will be announced on Tuesday, and the top three teams receive cash prizes.

ISM Board Meets During Conference

The next edition of the ISM Board of Directors began taking shape during its meeting on Sunday at the Gaylord Rockies Resort & Convention Center.

The Board voted on the ISM Nominating Committee’s recommended candidates for the 2026-27 ballot, which will go to ISM members later this year. In addition to the Nominating Committee, the Finance and Human Resources & Compensation committees provided progress reports.

In other matters, the Board:

• Discussed the financial outlook and planning process for fiscal year (FY) 2027
• Reviewed progress on ISM FY 202626 strategies, including ISM Branding
• Reviewed the current Corporate Solutions team structure and growth strategy.

Copies of meeting minutes and appendixes are available at ismworld.org — select “Governance” at the bottom of the home page — within 90 days of the meeting. They are also available by emailing Kristen Moreno at kmoreno@ismworld.org.

The next meeting of the ISM Board of Directors is on August 27.

60 Seconds With … Mehreen Khan

An ISM World 2026 participant as an exhibitor in the Innovation Park, Mehreen Khan has been manning the Amazon Business booth. The senior account executive discussed why it was important for her company to be in Denver.

Question: Is this your first ISM World Annual Conference?

Answer: I started on the retail side of Amazon and used to come to ISM World as an attendee to learn what industry was doing.

Q: Why was having a presence important to Amazon Business?

A: What we’ve found is that the most productive conversations are here, the people who are changing procurement are here.

Quote of the Day

“Velocity is the new currency of business. Many things are becoming more commoditized, and the speed by which (supply management professionals) are able to act is going to be the competitive differentiator between organizations.” — Chris Sawchuk, global procurement advisory practice leader at The Hackett Group, during “The Tariff Era Survival Kit: AI-Powered Sourcing, Cost Truth and the Future of the Procurement Workforce” session

Tuesday’s Highlights

A well-received session in previous Conferences, a panel of J. Shipman Gold Medal Award winners will highlight the Closing General Session at 3:30 p.m. MT. Past recipients Susan Spence, MBA (2020) and Craig Reed, MBA, CPSM (2025) will join this year’s winner for a discussion moderated by Conference emcee Kelly Wallace.

Also:

• Breakout sessions continue, with AI, sustainable sourcing, R&D, talent, negotiation, the conflict in the Middle East and other risk issues among the key topics, 8:15 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
• ISM Trailblazers Award winners best practices panels, 9 a.m., 10:15 a.m. and 11:30 a.m.
• Meet and greet with the ISM Publications staff, 1:30 p.m.
• “ISM 30 Under 30 Megawatt Award Winners: Where Are They Now?”, 2 p.m.
• Closing Party, 6 p.m.

For a detailed agenda, click here.

Postcard from the Conference

Kara Swisher covers technology like Howard Cosell commentated on sports, by claiming to “tell it like it is.” She is candid and sometimes biting, particularly about politicians, which can make the journalist and podcaster a polarizing figure.

But I learned two things I didn’t know about her during her keynote session on Monday; both also begin with the letter “P”: Swisher is a patriot who once considered joining the military or CIA out of college and, despite the U.S. being “broken” in many ways, remains optimistic about the country’s capacity for innovation and global leadership.

The second is parent: A mother of four, she’s deeply concerned about the corrosive and isolating impact social media can have on young people, especially boys. “The people doing the most damage to the world,” she said, “didn’t get hugged enough as children.” — Dan Zeiger

(Top photo credit: Ember Light Media)