Thursday and Friday 40 business-minded students came together with a mission: to deal with a travel publication company's billing mistake.
The students were involved in the McIntire Consulting Group's first ever case competition, in which a professional consulting firm presented a sticky hypothetical financial situation to to aspiring young business men and women.
Navigant Consulting, which sponsored the event and awarded the winners prize money, gave the students a situation in which a travel publication company had overstated circulation figures to many of its clients.
The students had to work through the financial data and present their case to a panel of Navigant consultants who then judged which group had the best solution.
The competition began Thursday at 5 p.m., when eight groups consisting of five students each received a case for which they had to come up with a plan of action. Navigant briefly explained the case to the competitors and then allowed them to disperse to work on their presentations.
The first groups presented at 9 a.m. the next morning. Some students did not sleep at all in preparing for the case and its presentation.
The winning team, comprised of finance students Andy Schoonover, Mina Faltas, Casey Franko, Nate Gabig and Steve Pesoriere, took home the $2,500 prize.
"I knew we were going to do well but I never thought we were going to win," said Schoonover, a third-year Commerce student.
Unlike some of their peers, the members of Schoonover's group actually got a decent amount of sleep before the presentation.
"We wrapped up at 12:30 Friday morning because the flow and quality of ideas had slowed to a stop. We felt it would be better to get some sleep and then start up again at 7:30 Friday morning," he said.
He added that asking questions was key to solving the problem.
"We asked the Navigant team about 15 to 20 questions that were instrumental in solving the problem," Schoonover said.
Some teams were stumped by the lack of certain financial information in the case.
"There was lots of missing information that we had to fill in the gaps for," fourth-year Commerce student Fitzhugh Peters said.
So how did the winning team do it?
First, they decided to reimburse their clients for half of the overcharge in the first year. The clients would receive the next half of the reimbursement in the form of a credit that they could use for advertising over the next three years. Other actions included immediately informing clients of the mistake and plans to correct it, letters to shareholders and a press conference.
"We broke the case up into two parts: Finance and plan development," Schoonover said. "I think this strategy allowed us to address the case from several different viewpoints."
Navigant was very impressed with all participants. "I would hire every group I heard today," said Bill Alesio, director of the event.
The judges felt that all teams worked well together and that they managed to pool their strengths and produce possible solutions.
"Everything we do as consultants is from a team aspect and they did this very well," said Gotzner.
David Styblo, Sinead Murphy, Angela Fostieris, Stacy Danehoo and Sebastian Sotomayor made up the team that came in second place. They won $250 to split between the five of them.
Read More
Honor Committee considers formal ban of AI detectors as evidence in trials
By Lexie Stadler | 23 hours agoThe Committee also addressed balancing student perspectives with those of Committee representatives during panel discussions.
Pro-Palestinian protesters form encampment near University Chapel
By CD News Staff | YesterdayThe encampment overlapped with a separate “May Day” protest on the Lawn, which was hosted by student activist group U.Va. Dissenters and the U.Va. Apartheid Divest Coalition.
Another aggravated assault incident reported to UPD
By Thomas Baxter | YesterdayThis is the first community alert of May.
