Dressed in their crisp business attire, a group of 16 students from the Business Technology Management program, came together for a weekend to compete at Laurier’s first Internal Case Competition.
Organized and run by the club, case@BTM, the inaugural Case Competition provided BTM students with the opportunity to apply skills and theoretical knowledge from class to real world case applications.
This year, the students were given a case that involved the Canadian sporting goods company, Mountain Equipment Co-op.
Matthew Raines, the president of case@BTM, explained how the case competition worked, “The case required students to help the company advertise their products to the next generation, specifically, forming marketing solutions with the use of digital technology. Students had to use the facts of the cases, using the 2012 data. The case was formatted so the students were given a dialogue between the CEO and VP of Mountain Co-op and it talks about their concerns in regards to what direction the company should be moving towards. The conversation gave students information about statistics and finances for the company.”
This year’s panel of judges consisted of both faculty and community members. Rosemary McGowan is an Associate Professor and teaches for the Business Technology Management and Leadership programs. Oliver Masakure is also an Associate Professor for the Business Technology Management and Human Rights/Human Diversity programs. The third judge was Adrian Pynenburg, who is the CEO of Connect Oasis, which is Merchandising Management Technology company. The judges provided each presenting group with intensive feedback.
“The journey for this competition began this past summer,” explains Josephine McMurray, who spearheaded and organized the event, “It started with the fact that I am a real believer in case competitions and what they can teach students outside of the classroom.”
The event was a huge success with the students. Ryan Page, a fourth year student, expressed the importance of having the opportunity to work on cases, “The BTM program prepares us so that we can be the middle man between IT departments and business departments, so we are always required to talk to people. It’s important to have the skills to be able to give a successful presentation.”
