School of Business team makes finals at John Molson Undergraduate Case Competition
A team of four students from UPEI’s School of Business made it to the final round of the 2016 John Molson Undergraduate Case Competition (JMUCC) held at Concordia University in Montreal. The team competed February 21-27 against two dozen teams from business schools around the world.
Members of the UPEI case team were Hannah Dawson, John Donaldson, Kate Kinsman, and Cullen Mullally. This was the team’s third competition together, having competed before at the 2015 Atlantic School of Business Case Competition (where they came in first) and the Scotiabank Ethics in Action Case Competition (where they came second).
JMUCC began with a divisional round-robin tournament. Teams received a score from judges after each match and the team with the most points in each division at the end of the round robin moved onto the final round.
In the first three rounds, teams had just three hours to read, analyze, strategize, and come up with a solution to a business case they had never seen before. They then presented to a panel of judges, who grilled the team with questions about their solution. The fourth and last round had a 24-hour preparation period, where students had access to internet and other resources, and even were able to interview a representative from the company featured in the case. The team achieved the highest score in their division and secured a coveted spot in the finals against the University of Alberta, Concordia University, University of Navarra (Spain), National University of Singapore, and Queensland University of Technology (Australia). In the final, the team re-presented their 24-hour case solution to a new panel of judges, which included the owners of the business. The team did not finish in the top three, but received excellent feedback from the judges.
"JMUCC gave me the opportunity to deal with and present to real, large-scale companies,” said Cullen Mullally. “This allowed me to apply my education in a practical setting, but also develop confidence around what I will be able to provide in the real-world of business. The knowledge and relationships I developed at JMUCC will be something I cherish forever."
“JMUCC was an amazing competition,” said Hannah Dawson. “We networked with—and competed with—students from the top business schools in Canada and around the world. Throughout the week, we were able to gain valuable feedback from industry judges. This experience helped us to raise our thinking to the next level.”
“JMUCC was the best experience of my academic career so far because I had the opportunity to meet wonderful people from around the world, and I was pushed harder than ever to produce some amazing work,” said Kate Kinsman.
Mary Whitrow was the coach of the UPEI case team. “I am so proud of the students for doing some of their best work at JMUCC. It is a rigorous competition, and they stepped up and showed that UPEI has strong students, a strong curriculum, and a strong case program.”
