Adventures at the 2012 MBA Games

This past weekend I was lucky enough to be a part of the Rotman delegation at the MBA Games. What are these MBA Games I speak of, you may ask? Well it is a weekend of competitions between the various MBA schools across Canada. This year there were 19 schools. You can check out the website for the Games here.


The winner of the Games hosts the event the next year (although I think if there is a repeat winner in back-to-back years, the event goes elsewhere the next year). This year the Games were hosted by the University of Alberta which meant we were off to Edmonton! I had never been there before so it was fun to check out a new city.

You guys can read what our itinerary was on the Games website so I won’t repeat that here. Instead I want to give you a sense of the challenge and fun involved (for me anyways). A common theme across our whole team (and everyone at the games) was energy, enthusiasm, athleticism and brains which made every event extremely fun and intense. (so if you are a quiet person this competition is unfortunately definitely not for you)

The scavenger hunt was essentially a photo-taking contest across the city (i.e. find the famous wayne gretzky statue). I was kind of jealous of my teammates who got to do this event since they basically got to do a tour of the city for free.

The case competitions were crazy:
-8:30am- the teams were given the case
-8:30-11:30am- the teams had to develop a deck with recommendations for a case solution and support for those recommendations (an especially big challenge on 4 hrs sleep).
-11:30-12:30- lunch breach
-12:30-2pm (I believe)- each team was required to do a 15 minute presentation of their deck to a judging panel along with Q&A
-2:30-4pm (I believe)- finalists present again and a winner is announced
My team was unlucky and drew the 1st presentation in round 1. So I experienced something I never experienced before- going into a presentation without having practiced even once. However, me and my teammates are all all-star presenters so we actually did quite well!

The athletic competitions were also pretty intense. While I did not compete in them, me and the rest of those not competing cheered non-stop…I never thought I’d get so emotionally invested in my classmates’ innertube water polo performance… haha The picture I posted is from us cheering on our inner-tube water polo team.

It was really DeGroote at McMaster University’s year this year…Despite our best efforts, DeGroote won almost every award (athletics, spirit, academic, etc). So next year, off to Hamilton we go.

The weekend was completely exhausting- I am still recovering today- but it was absolutely worth it. A great bonding experience, great opportunity to practice your skills from school and a chance to get some laryngitis in (on account of all the cheering).

Case Analysis Super Weekend of Total Craziness!!!

One component of our Strategy Class is a case study and presentation that is worth 40% of our grade in the class. It was probably the most challenging but also the most fun grade I have ever worked for in my life! Here’s what we were faced with:

-Friday evening our strategy prof revealed the company we would be doing our case study on. However, he gave us no other information (i.e. not even the problem we were tasked to solve).

-Saturday at 6pm all 265 of us would be randomly assigned to groups of 5-6 people and we’d be given the problem which we would have to solve and present to CEOs and executives including those of Cineplex, what our recommended solution is.

-Sunday at 11pm our presentation slides were due to the prof

-Monday at 8:30 we found out what time we would be presenting at some point between 9am-12:45pm that day

-Finalists announced at 1:15pm

-Final presentations 2pm-3pm

Crazy eh?? I’ll run you through what the experience was like for me:

-Friday night we found out the case was on Cineplex and it would be dealing with an issue they are faced with right now. i.e. was brought up as a “hot button” that needs resolving in their board of directors meeting just one week prior. I love the business side of the entertainment industry and am quite familiar with it so I was pretty excited not only because it was an industry I liked but because I was so familiar with it, I wouldn’t have to do as much research as some other people who don’t know “the business”.

-Some people went NUTS on doing all sorts of crazy research that evening. But I figured without guidance on what problem I needed to solve, what research could I do??

-The prof suggested only that we read the Cineplex annual report’s management discussion and analysis and understand what portions of their business come from where, etc. He also suggested that we go see a movie at a Cineplex. (great research method!)

Friday Night Post-Announcement

-I went home, read some of the MD&A. I also figured that since the rest of the weekend would be so stressful, I’d unwind with some beers with some friends.

Saturday

Morning- Finished reading MD&A and did some brief reading on the history of Cineplex, AMC, Empire (the main chains here in Canada) and Netflix, just in case.

Afternoon-Took prof up on his advice and went to see A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas at the Cineplex Scotiabank Theatre. WHAT A FUNNY MOVIE!!!!!

-Also did some research at the theatre…what amenities do they have these days, how is the theatre laid out, pricing, etc

Saturday 6pm:

-We get our groups, problem to solve and a giant stack of reports about the movie industry, Cineplex and its competitors.

-My group: I was already friends with one of the people in my group which was cool and the others I knew of but didn’t really know. They all turned out being pretty cool people as well and also smart and strong communicators (communication skills= VERY important!!!). I am happy I got a chance to meet and work with these new people!!

Saturday 7-10:30pm: We divide up all of the reports amongst the group and read them

Saturday 10:30-2:30am (yes, 2:30am): We discuss all of our readings and research to begin formulating insights on how to solve the problem we were faced

Sunday

-Slept for 4.5 hours last night

9am-10:30: Meet back at school and used the insights from the previous night to develop our strategic recommendations

10:30am-11pm: Developed powerpoint presentation with our recommendation and insights/analysis supporting our recommendations

11pm: Presentation was handed in. No changes allowed to it beyond this point!

11pm-12:30am: Figured out who will say what in our presentation. Our presentation was to be 15 minutes long. We also prepared for the questions we’d probably be asked by the judges and prepped our answers to said questions.

Monday

-Slept for 5 hours last night

7am-8:30am- Met back at school and practice presentation.

8:30am- We find out we are presenting at 11:15

8:30am-10:00amWe practice a bit more

10:15ish- A teammate falls asleep in the middle of our meeting. Hilarity ensues.

10:20-11:00am- Chill out to calm the pre-presentation nerves

11:15- GAME TIME!!

1:15- We found out we didn’t make it to the finals. BUT if the team that beat us wins the whole thing, we get one of the highest grades in the class! So there is still hope

1:30- Meet our judges and find out we had the best marketing ideas. The only reason we didn’t win was because the other team had better financials. If only we had an accountant in our group! Oh well…A learning experience for next time.

2pm-until now- Catch up on sleep

I am still dead tired but I learned a ton this weekend. VERY valuable learning experience and I had a blast at the same time!! But no time for any more rest or reflection for now because exams start in a week!

Case Competition Season

Sorry for the delay this week guys! I was out of town this past weekend with little internet access (or time for blogging). Anyways over the last few weeks (and this week) are a bunch of competitions ensuing at school. Some of the options include:
-Consulting Case Competition
-Entrepreneurship business plan competition
-Stock Pitch Competition
-Marketing Case Competition
And a few others too that I forget. Because I want to work in marketing (and to avoid spreading myself too thin) I signed up for the Marketing one above. I’ll give you guys a sense of what the competition was like as this was my 1st one and I really had no idea what I was getting into!

The case competition was sponsored by General Mills (the guys who make cheerios among other things). On Oct 2nd the General Mills released the case to us. We had to come up with a marketing strategy and tactics to revitalize the Apple Cinnamon Cheerios brand.

We were only allowed teams of 4-5 and the # of teams were capped at 10. I found some of my friends who also want to work in marketing who are also hard-working, fun and creative (important for marketing jobs!!) and we made a team.

So on Oct 2 we got the case and on Oct 9 we needed to create and present to General Mills, our plan. So a week to organize. However, given all of the other things going on at school too (and that we all had different commitments at different times), free time meant case competition prep time.

After a few marathon group sessions we got our presentation finalized, the night before.

On Oct 9, round 1 was a presentation to a General Mills marketing team member (various groups presented to various General Mills judges) as well as Q&A with the judge. After that round was the finals. If you made it to the finals, you presented in front of all of the judges and the marketing director at General Mills.

Unfortunately our team didn’t win but I still felt really good about the work we did. Doing the competitions taught me a lot of valuable lessons about time management, teamwork, presentation skills and coming up with creative solutions to tough business problems (in a very short time!!).

Also, after the competition I got to meet the General Mills people and learn a lot about the company. Important info to have since it is one of the companies I would be potentially interested in working for or with in the future!