Cut to the Case: How to Win your Next Case Competition

If you think a business degree is about sitting bored in lecture halls and auditoriums, think again. Ryerson offers many experiential and practice-based opportunities and case competitions are one of them. Annually, Ryerson Marketing Association partners up with Maple Leafs and Sports Entertainment (MLSE) and hosts an exciting and challenging case competition all about sports marketing! Students get the chance to win prizes, tickets and a guaranteed interview for an internship within MLSE!

What are case competitions?

For those who don’t know what case competitions are, here is how it works. Generally, you get handed a business scenario or a well-defined or semi-defined problem where you have to come up with a proposal or solution. The analysis and solution are integral and this is what the case will be critiqued on.

Why should I participate in a case competition?

Due to their dynamic and challenging nature, case competitions are well worth considering. It is an amazing way to put your technical skills to the test and your classroom knowledge into practice. Here are the myriad of opportunities you will get out of this experience.

• Network with potential employers and distinguished professionals-an effective way to secure internships, scholarships and work opportunities
• Showcase your talent and potential
• Test your ideas in a risk-free environment, evaluate how implementable they are and be offered feedback
• Think more critically under pressure-an important skill that will aid you in decision making in the future
• Get exposed to real-world problems
• Collaborate with other like-minded and motivated students with unique skill-sets and diverse experiences

Tips and Best Practises:

Please remember that this is not a step-to step guideline on how you cut a case. The order of your steps depends if your case is an open or closed case and is entirely up to your team.

Research:

• Get to know the industry
• Look for best practices
• Look for a precedent and research ways to build on the idea and pivot effectively

In order to make your presentation more credible, support your analysis and recommendations with hard research.

Analysis:

• Understand the problem and/or business scenario (e.g., the industry, geography, key players, market shares, timeline of the problem)
• Define the objectives in terms of a key variable that are you trying to solve and/or identity (e.g., improve the sales, improve profits, increase market share)
• Identify the drivers of the key variable and dig further to find the root cause(s) of the problem (use key marketing concepts to arrive at your root-causes)
• Evaluate which of these root causes will have the highest impact and conceptualize possible ways to tackle that (possibly by utilizing existing capabilities or building new capabilities) with minimal effort

Pick the most practicable and feasible solution(s). Prioritize those by finding the ones with the greatest impact.

Ideation and Implementation:

• Focus on one thing, the main point that you are arguing
• Segment into sub-problems. When you move from one part/section of the structure to another, synthesize before you proceed so that the full context is easily understandable.
• Try not to assume. If you assume, state them (explicitly). Your assumption should also be practical
• Try to think of an innovative and disruptive solution but remember that it should be implementable
• Team dynamics: divide and conquer. Make sure that everyone is contributing to the discussion, and delivery
• If you have time, plan out an implementation timeline for your proposal
• Use key marketing metrics: KPIs (key performance indicators), ROI, customer engagement, brand awareness (social media), B=budget (allocation of resources)

Presentation:

• Make sure your structure flows in a logical and intuitive manner. Do not use distracting color, fonts, transitions and animations. Keep it professional
• Use lots of charts, graphs, tables and diagrams to visually display your information in a more comprehensive way with proper headers and axes tables
• Use lots of action titles that summarize the entire slide. Make sure that when the slide-deck is put together, the action-titles tell a coherent story

Presentation should be a storytelling exercise. Go to a board, draw out the story you want to present, back it up with your findings from the analysis and then make a deck with action titles.

Case competitions are not about the winning (well maybe a little bit). Many students feel intimidated by case competitions and choose not to participate because of it, but keep in mind that other then challenging and stimulating your creativity, this is your time to learn and grow. Competitions provide an enriching taste of the business world while you make connections over a shared and memorable experience.

Whether you’re already competitive by nature or could use some motivation to challenge yourself, participating in case competitions offers an excellent opportunity to engage in teamwork, get a real taste of the business world, and make memorable connections over a shared experience. If you are determined to meet your potential, any time spent on fine-tuning your ideas is a great investment.

Here is another tip from one of our winner’s from the 2017 competition:

“I’d argue that the absolute most important piece to keep in mind is storytelling. You want to be able to articulate in a way that the audience is able to have a clear picture in their head of what your idea will look like. You want to structure in a way that aligns and flows naturally so that your audience doesn’t get lost in the details.

One way to do this is to practice your pitch by presenting to multiple other people and have them provide feedback. If all of them have a very good idea of your vision and are ubiquitous in how they see it, you know you’ve done a good job.” -Winston Devendrajah

Written by Qudsiya Jabeen

Edited by Rabia Tahir