Courtesy haskins Amol Luhadia (MSB ’04), Mary Clare Haskins (MSB ’04), Sharon Sweeny (MSB ’04) and Jason Reid (MSB ’04) represented Georgetown at the International Business Challenge in Austin, Texas.
The McDonough School of Business undergraduate case competition team lost to the University of California-Berkeley in the finals of the 10th annual International Business Challenge at the University of Texas-Austin last weekend.
The team, comprised of Mary Clare Haskins (MSB ’04), Amol Luhadia (MSB ’04), Jason Reid (MSB ’04) and Sharon Sweeney (MSB ’04) came in second of the 18 teams, despite the fact that this is only the second year the MSB has entered the competition.
MSB Professor Willis Emmons, team advisor, was very proud of the team’s results.
“I think that [the team] was disappointed when they didn’t win, but they got so far in so short of a time, I’m really proud of them,” Emmons said.
Team members were pleased.
“I’m ecstatic about it. I didn’t really have any expectations going in. It’s unprecedented for Georgetown,” Reid said.
The team’s high placement marks improvement from last year’s team, which lost
to Canada’s McGill University in the preliminary round of Georgetown’s tournament debut.
At the competition, the team was given a case study of BroadQ, a software company specializing in streaming home media software. Each team had 60 hours to analyze the case study before presenting their analysis and recommendations to the panel of judges, which included BroadQ executives.
Each team was given five minutes to present their findings, followed by a 15 minute question and answer session with the three judges and five minutes for closing arguments.
Four finalists advanced out of the 18 schools, including the University of Hong Kong, Thamasset University of Thailand, Berkeley and Georgetown.
The final round was similar to the first, but instead of three judges, each team faced all 12, and the question and answer period was 25 minutes.
Despite the loss, Emmons called the final round “a real cliffhanger. After grueling 45 minute sessions with expert judges, Georgetown and U.C. Berkeley were clear favorites.”
Stephanie Zuniga, BroadQ’s vice president of corporate development, was also impressed by the team’s performance.
“After seeing Georgetown’s presentation, I have begun generating some new ideas for ways we can approach the incredible challenges we’re facing in distributing our innovative software products,” she said.
Georgetown’s placement in such a high-profile competition could also lead to increased prestige for the MSB, participants said.
“This will put Georgetown on the map for future invitations to case competitions, not only in the United States, but also to top international events held annually in Canada, Europe and Hong Kong,” Eric LeBlanc, of Queen’s University-Ontario, said.
Team members were chosen last spring. An e-mail was sent out to SB undergraduates with an attached application that included teacher recommendations and essays. Of the 33 students that applied, eight were chosen, four for each the spring and fall competitions.
Before going to Texas the team underwent eight weeks of training by Georgetown professors and completed two practice cases.
“We’d spent a lot of time going over practice cases, but at the same time, it was a novel experience,” Sweeney said.
Reid attributed the success to the work of Emmons and others.
“Our faculty advisor and his associates were critical to our success,” he said. “Under their supervision, I expect future case teams will meet or exceed the standard we have set,” he said.
Georgetown will compete in a similar competition next semester at the University of Washington.