First year BTM students take on Case Debug competition

April 16, 2019

On Saturday, March 30th, the Business Technology Management program’s Case@BTM hosted the annual Case Debug competition. The competition addresses a case at the intersection of business and technology – this year looking at the BMW Mini in the face of both political pressures associated with Brexit and preference for electric vehicles, in alignment with BMW’s 2020 goals.

New this year, all first year BTM students participated in the case, learning important skills related to case analysis as well as presentation skills and persuasiveness. Students from other years were invited to participate as well. Judging was based on both the quality of the analysis and recommendation as well as the presentation and persuasiveness. The judges joined us from across campus and local industry and included:

• Nicole Clarkson, Associate Director, Development, Laurier
• Paige Giddish, Consumer Package Goods – Finance & Accounting, Laurier grad
• Nicole Carter, Business Development Manager, SC Johnson
• Matt Raines, BTM ’18, Analyst, HR Data Operations & Delivery Management, Apotex
• Simran Hayer, BTM ’18, Analyst, Cyber Risk Services, Deloitte
• Austin Lavigne, 4th year BTM student and case competition winner, Market Research Analyst, StarTech.com

Presenting teams were divided into one of three semi-finalist groups and given 15 minutes for their presentations followed by 10 minutes of questions and answers. From each of the presentation rooms, the three first place team were invited to have one group member do a short, 90 second pitch to the judges for their shot at the title spot.

Recommendations from the teams included AI implementation to improve supply chain and moving manufacturing to Asia and/or the heart of Europe in order to protect from the uncertainty in the UK around Brexit and to allow better access to countries already equipped to support the supply chain for electric vehicles.

“The competition was done really well. In conversation with the judges we were really impressed with the presentations, depth of analysis, and communication. “ Assistant Professor, Kevin McDermott told the teams before the announcement of the winners.

Congratulations to Team Alpha for earning first place with their recommendation and presentation! Cassandra Pike, Logan Naudi, Zhenghang(Jason) Xu , Faaiz Rabbani and Daniel Mensour presented a well-thought out plan with confidence and impressed the judges and their peers alike. A special congratulations as well to Team India, the second place team comprised of first year students – Patrick Rocchio, Arjunn Sivakumar, Abhirup Shah, Sebastian Woo and Aly Soliman.

In closing commentary, recent BTM grad Matt Raines told the group, “The work that you did today will completely transform your careers. The future of BTM is extremely bright.”