The Commerce School hosted five teams from Australia, Canada, Denmark and the United States in its 19th annual McIntire International Case Competition in Monroe Hall Saturday with Mexico's Instituto Tecnologico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey coming out on top.
In a day marked by intense competition, Mexico's team won due to its presentation of the best solutions on a real life business problem -- the end product for which the event's coordinators had hoped.
"They came up with a way to create a demand in foreign countries and possible different uses of the product," said fifth-year Commerce student Su Cheng, a member of the steering committee that organized the competition. "Mexico knew that the company would have to adjust to people's culture."
Using established theories and unconventional thinking, each team had less than 20 hours to put together a presentation. They then were given 45 minutes to present their case to judges from multi-million dollar corporations.
Each team was given the same case on which to work. Commerce Professor Andrew Ruppel compiled the case along with Assoc. Commerce Prof. Professor William Wilkerson.
Prof. Ruppel has worked closely with the Reynolds Corporation in putting together the case which was based on a real problem that the Reynolds Corporation now is facing. Competitors had to figure how and where the company should expand. Issues concerning expansion ranged from distribution to how they could increase their sales twofold and methods through which the goals could be reached.
The competition also proved to be a lesson in different business styles.
"William & Mary presented similar to U.Va. Commerce students whereas the style was different of international students," Cheng said.
The McIntire International Case Competition is one of the few undergraduate student-run business case competitions in the country.
Each team consisted of four members and one faculty advisor. The participating schools were: Australia's University of Technology, University of Western Ontario, Copenhagen Business School, Mexico's Instituto Tecnologico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey and the College of William & Mary.
"We asked faculty members and tried to get a broad mix of the best schools internationally," said fourth-year Commerce student Anne Ruby, who selected and invited the schools, she was also responsible for enforcement of the rules of the competition.
The judges were Gordon Gentry Jr., Chairman, President/CEO of Harbor Bank, Frederick Kelly, Jr., President of Aeroglide Corporation, Ed McCrady, Managing Director of Robinson-Humphrey Co., Nick Merrick, President and CEO of UP-2 Technologies and Angus Robertson, Executive Vice-President of Bridge News. All judges were University alumni.
The case competition was designed to test students about how prepared they really are for the real world.
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