This year, the 27^th edition of the John Molson MBA International Case took place January 7 - 12 at the Hilton Montreal Bonaventure. UMaine MBA students Christine Clark, Thomas Miller, Cristin O'Brien, and Kevin Paul have successfully competed in this globally prestigious event with the help of team’s faculty advisors Harold Daniel and Paul Myer, and David Barrett’s pre-training.

The John Molson MBA International Case Competition is a non-profit event, first hosted in 1981 and since then has become the oldest and most respected case competition in the world. Recognized as the largest competition of its kind, it features representatives from the top business schools from all around the world. The main purpose of the competition is to connect corporate and academic world and provide a learning experience for the students. It is intended to encourage healthy competition, professionalism and interaction both amongst the future business leaders and with the business community. With only three hours to prepare, team of four MBA students analyze and evaluate unpublished and untested cases using the skill sets and knowledge they have acquired throughout their MBA program.

The UMaine MBA team scored a win in the first round of the competition. Students were exposed to the global face of the business environment according to Professor Myer, assistant coach of the team. “The competition was populated by international and very diverse background participators. There were students from Bangalore, India, Germany, Canada and the U.S. Some of the students did have significance business experience and some of them had been working for more than 20 years as entrepreneurs.”

The competition was intense according to Cristin O'Brien. "“The competition provided a safe environment to explore professional requirements of stressful situations with a very limited timeline. My intent was not necessarily winning the competition, but challenging my abilities and experiencing and acquiring new skills", she said. Christine Clark also appreciated this learning experience. She mentioned “no matter how much frustration we had in the competition, we still learned so much form doing, talking and having fun with other teams.”Kevin Paul has also defined the competition as a great deal of fun and something that I would encourage any student to be a part of.” Thomas Miller told he even learned a lot from watching other teams and interacting with them in the social atmosphere. He defined this experience as “quite different than getting a case and reporting back on it in a week or two versus getting a case and having just 3 hours to read, analyze, formulate options and recommendations and hand write the presentation.”

Although competition was very intense, the UMaine MBA team did very good in the competition according to Dr. Daniel. “Our team differentiator was how well they defend their analysis. They performed a thorough analysis and believed in it. More importantly, our team was capable of giving more practical solutions compared to other teams. They were one of the some groups defining the real issue in the case, that’s how they win the first competition.” Professor Myer has also emphasized “our team did far better than the scores. They have demonstrated UMaine well-grounded values: a combination of academy, experience and enjoying life.”

One of the most valuable skill set gained throughout the MBA program helped the team was teamwork. Christine Clark told “although sometimes I felt frustrated in Business School doing most of our projects in teams, I appreciated the experience in the competition. In addition, as a team, we were more efficient than a class project team.” Kevin Paul mentioned “the most important skill gain from the business school was that of analysis. Picking out the important part of a case and subjecting them to one of several analytical methods was the cornerstone of the competition.”

The team acquired the ability to learn and adapt quickly, the future business leaders’ one of the most important skill. Some teams had taken courses previous to the competition just to acquire the skill sets tailored to the competition. Both Dr. Daniel and Professor Myer and students mentioned those teams were highly polished and successful. Cristin O’Brien explained those successful teams as “Each member had a defined role in the team and they specify on one thing while reading through the case. However, I have learned more by having different roles in every round.”

Dr. Daniel and Professor Myer are planning to “develop a graduate level marketing course to provide students better skill sets on how to work in this environment, how to analyze a case and how to communicate it persuasively.”“Students need to have the ability to deploy the tools with a very limited time, and then prioritize and focus their thoughts. Most importantly, they have to acquire the ability to present in a persuasive way.” Dr. Daniel has further described the course as hands on analysis and persuasive communication course. Christine Clark mentioned “the business tools used by other teams such as Porter's five forces, Positioning Map, financial analysis of a case, value-chain, product-life cycle, BCG Matrix, Risk Considerations would be very beneficial prior to the competition. Actually, we already know some of these tools. I prefer to use them more often. As graduate business students, we need to excel at them.” Thomas Miller also added “"Case analysis was the most important thing I learned in Business School, however, I truly wished I had more experience beyond the SWOT. A course like BUA 649, Strategic Management would be very helpful prior to the competition rather than after it".”

Students not only practiced tools they have acquired in business school, developed new skill sets but also gained confidence. Professor Myer defined the students participating competitive future leaders. “The students in the competition have already been differentiated themselves with the amount of time and preparation they have put in addition to their busy work schedule. They should be proud of themselves.” WE ARE!!!

CONGRATULATIONS MONTREAL TEAM!

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The Global Pulse: Expect the World!

Spring 2008, Issue 1