I should start by explaining what exactly case competition is.
It is an elective course where a team of students use skills from all core classes to develop a solution for a case study. The case study is usually a real-life problem the sponsor company is facing. This adds pressure to become a short-term research expert in a new field. There are tryouts to join the team of 4-5 students which competes at various universities throughout the semester. The competitions are a full weekend, with teams receiving the case Friday morning. The rest of the day is spent creating a proposal to present in front of the judges on Saturday morning.
Competing in case competitions has been one of the most valuable parts of my MBA experience. You learn to trust yourself, time management, team dynamics, presentation skills; the list goes on and on.
Returning to school after several years of being out in the workforce, I wanted to make the most of my time as a student in the Baylor MBA program. During orientation, we were presented with a list of different activities that we could invest our time in. The MBA Case Competition Team stood out to me right away. I have a competitive nature and loved the idea of gaining analytical skills to research issues in various business industries. Try-outs were held November of our first semester and I was excited to hear I had made the team!
Left to right: Dylan Petty, Kathryn Huff, Arjun Azavedo, Abbey Mackey, Clint Ratliff
Our first competition was Katz Invitational Case Competition at the University of Pittsburgh. This case was unusual in that our team was given the case a week and a half before the actual competition. The semester had just begun and we were still getting to know each other as teammates. Life was completely hectic and the team had to coordinate time to work on the case outside of class and other commitments. Though we were stretched thin, our team grew close and learned to rely on and trust each other. Team dynamics play a large role in the success of a team.
The case was about Crane Currency, the largest banknote supplier world-wide. The question asked was: how could Crane Currency use their current technology to expand into the anti-counterfeit industry? We used all spare hours in the day to develop our proposal and practice our presentation.
On Friday before the competition, we flew to Pittsburgh with our proposal ready to go. The University of Pittsburgh hosted a dinner for all participating teams. It was exciting and intimidating to network with teams from competing schools. We had no idea what the other teams had come up with and were curious if their recommendations were similar to ours. Saturday seemed to fly by. We had our first-round presentation and discovered within two hours that our team had made it to the finals. We had 15 minutes to prep before we would present to the executives of Crane Currency!
Click here to see a listing of all recent and upcoming case competitions Baylor MBA and Healthcare MBA students will be competing in.
The whole experience was such an adrenaline rush. We ended up placing 3rd at Katz Case Competition and came home so proud. Our team was newly formed and we started the season with a placement!
I felt so privileged to be a part of such a great team. Our team got to be real-life consultants for a weekend and practice concepts we gained in MBA courses. You learn to trust yourself, time management, team dynamics, presentation skills; the list goes on and on. Competing in case competitions has been one of the most valuable parts of my MBA experience.
UPDATE: Abbey and her team recently placed first in the 13th Annual National MBA Case Competition in Ethical Leadership on November 8th. Way to go, Baylor Case Comp!
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