UNC Business Case Competition

I recently attended the UNC Kenan-Flagler Business Case Competition 2009 at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

One of the things that impressed me straight up was the structure of the event: Everyone applied individually, and so that hassle of having to find a team was not there. The students met at the event and then were allocated into 12 teams of 4 each. This gave us the opportunity to get into the business situations that we will end up in at a later point in stage.

Lets get into the day. I reached a day before the event – realized that there had been some confusion with the place I had planned to stay, and was at the airport at Midnight (actually at 1 am) trying to book a hotel at that unearthly hour. Thanks to Ashraf Hossain, who was the lead organizer for the event, I was able to find a hotel in time. When on my way to the hotel had received a voicemail from another organizer of the event offered to pick me up next morning for my hotel and take me to the University.
Next morning I received another call from her and then she picked me up promptly as she had promised at 1 pm. We went to the Hotel – Carolina Inn. Great facility, I could check in immediately, despite having a regular check in time of 3 pm. Once settled in, I decided to go for a walk and spend my remaining time before the kick-start event site-seeing. I walked up to a Franklin street (for those in Pittsburgh, this is the equivalent of Forbes Avenue inside the Pitt Campus). Nice place, I felt hungry so stepped in to a joint called “Noodles”. Ate and then decided it wasn’t the place for me. It’s a great place (from the size of the crowd), but I didn’t like it.

Let’s cut-to-event. 7 pm, me and Brian (the student who I was sharing the hotel room with) stepped out to meet our welcoming party in the lobby. The two lovely ladies led us (a group of nearly 24 students from all around the nation) through a maze of streets (exaggerated) to a nice evening place where we were welcomed with Wine and snacks. We were given our student kits (files, souvenirs, etc.) and then we networked our way into the event. I finally met Ashraf (the organizer), who was doing a great job managing the event with his team.

The evening was good – great networking, good wine, great people. The food was OK too… I walked around and found my team – Riju (Vanderbuilt), Lynn (UNC) and Diana (Chicago – Booth). We spoke for a while, got acquainted to each other, and then at the end of the evening retired to our respective rooms. Our team started at 7:30 am with the shuttle picking us up at 7 am. Early start after an evening of wine – not very easy but we made it on time. We got into the shuttle and reached the Business School building.

Now let me take a moment here and describe the business school building. It was actually the size of 6 joined buildings put together, 4 or 5 floors each. It was huge for a business school. I have seen some business schools and this was, by far, the biggest.

We stepped in and went to the cafeteria where we picked up breakfast and cases and then walked towards the rooms allotted to us for preparation. The team was great – I couldn’t believe the number of ideas we came up with. Any idea presented by any of the teams was a part of our brainstorm session. We had 15 minutes at around 9:15 am to get queries resolved by the judges (from Walmart). The group did a great job compiling all our thoughts and then presenting. I think we fell short in the presentation session and a little bit with the numbers.

After our presentation, which I personally thought was great, we waited an another cafeteria (you can imagine the size of this place – it had more than two cafeterias) with Lunch sponsored by Target. I must say – any organizing committee that can get rivals to sponsor parts of the same event (Walmart and Target) have to be good. Teams poured in as they completed their presentations. Finally, the judges walked in – and announced their top 3 (one from each room). We didn’t make it – and I was interested to see why not. 30 minutes break and then everyone to the finals of the event.

The top three teams presented after that (I think they drew lots to decide the order). I was shocked to see that each one of them had presented the same ideas that we had. Well, not all of them. They picked up one idea and went into great detail about it., but at the end of the three presentations, the three ideas that had come out were all in one presentation that we had given – I think now, maybe that’s what we should’ve done. Pick up the best idea and then run with it.

The team that won recommended to create an Entertainment Centre and to buy out RedBox. Intelligent idea and it won them 2 grand and the top honors.

End of the event was a dinner and presentation ceremony and then the ritualistic bar tab. I can’t remember the name of the places that we visited after that. I must say – Ashraf was a great host and his team (apologies guys that I can’t remember any of your names) were great organizers.

In the end, it was a brilliant event and a great networking opportunity. I would recommend anyone who intends to go for case competitions to definitely not miss this one.