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Queen's wins national business competition
February 12, 2002
2002-02-12 - KINGSTON, ON — February 12, 2002 —Four Queen’s School of Business undergraduate students are glowing with pride this week, after winning a national business competition held in Montreal this past weekend. The inaugural 2002 National Case Competition, hosted by the John Molson School of Business at Concordia University and featuring 12 undergraduate teams from across Canada, wrapped up on Saturday, February 9th.
“We’re very proud of our Queen’s team,” said Marjorie Peart, Director of the Commerce Program at Queen’s School of Business. “We aim to prepare our Commerce graduates for positions of organizational leadership in the business world, and winning this case competition certainly suggests we’re on the right track.”
Each day of the competition, the 12 teams were given a real business challenge faced by a Canadian company, and allowed just three hours each to prepare and present a solution. On Friday, the teams were presented with a business case that involved a footwear accessory company whose owner wanted to expand sales in Canada and the U.S. while at the same time removing herself from sales to concentrate on the creative side of the business. On Saturday, the teams were challenged with a case that involved an online employee placement firm that wanted to attract and retain suppliers and purchasers of freelance labour, while preventing the two parties from dealing directly with each other.
At the conclusion of the two-day event, the Queen’s team of Andrew Brunton (native of North Bay, Ontario), Rob Kallio (Niagara Falls, Ontario), Chris Ling (Kanata, Ontario) and Stephan Smith (Toronto, Ontario) - all fourth year Commerce program students - were proclaimed the winners by a panel of university and private sector judges.
“Whereas many business case competitions are 50 or 60 hour marathons, this was the equivalent of a white-knuckle sprint that truly tested the time-management, teamwork and composure of each group,” said Eric LeBlanc, Manager ofInternational Programs at Queen's School of Business and coach of the Queen’s team. “The students from Queen’s demonstrated not only a well-rounded understanding of business, but also the ability to work under tremendous pressure.”
Among the reasons listed by the judges for choosing Queen’s was the team’s thorough approach to addressing each business case, their polished and professional presentation skills and innovative and unique solutions.
Queen's School of Business (www.business.queensu.ca) is one of the world’s best business schools. The school’s programs include the undergraduate Bachelor of Commerce, with the highest entrance standards in Canada and a 100% success rate in placing students in career-quality jobs; Queen's MBA for Science & Technology, ranked #1 for the past 4 out of 5 years by Canadian Business magazine; the market-leading Executive MBA program, Canada's only MBA program delivered by videoconference to sites from coast to coast as well as an Ottawa-based classroom; Queen's Executive Development Centre, Canada’s largest provider of executive education programs; and MSc and PhD programs that produce leading researchers for industry and academia.
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For more information, please contact:
Josh Cobden or Dan Tisch
Environics Communications
(416) 920-9000 ext. 275 or 260
jcobden@pr.environics.ca / dtisch@pr.environics.ca
Laurie Ross
Queen’s School of Business
(613) 533-2319