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Goodbye comfort zone. Hello BCG Case Competition.

Nov 9, 2018

BCG

After a few months in the program, HBA1 students are finding their stride. They’re getting comfortable with cases, class participation, and life at Ivey.

That’s when the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) Case Competition comes in.

The 23rd annual BCG Case Competition is the first Learning Through Action (LTA) event of the year. Six LTA events are spread out over the course of HBA students’ first year at Ivey, and each challenges them to step outside their comfort zones.

As Faculty Director of the HBA Program Mary Weil said in the kick-off presentation, BCG may be the most intense LTA event because it takes away the luxury of time. Students have three cases, three presentations, and just three days.

With just four hours to prepare each case, students present to a panel of judges and have the opportunity to advance to the final round, where for the first time, they could present to all 600 of their classmates.

Welcome back

Part of what makes the BCG Case Competition so special is the unique alumni involvement. BCG representatives help judge the competition every year, and this time around 10 of the 11 representatives were Ivey alumni.

  • Karen Thorne, HBA ’10, MBA ’15
  • Lawrence Kuo
  • James Boudreau, HBA ’15
  • Josh Weinstein, HBA ’17
  • Nicole Miles, HBA ’17
  • Mikaela Ferguson, HBA ’17
  • Kyle Ruttan, HBA ’10
  • Jean-Marc Wilkie, HBA ’16
  • Tom Grainger, HBA ’16
  • Ahsan Irfan, HBA ’18
  • Jennika Gragtmans, HBA ’18

The winning teams

First Place from Section 2 (Team 10) – Linda Bao, Jenny Gu, Simran Hunjan, Bohan Jiang, Michael Kwan, Matthew Lou, Landon Tulk, and Phyllis Yiu

Second Place from Section 8 (Team 3) – Wendy Fan, Jack Henderson, Janani Nandakumar, Lovdeep Singh, Ian Sobotka, Zoe Yang, Emily Zhu

Third Place from Section 6 (Team 2) – Teddy Kassa, Rachel Liu, Dipti Pandya, Evan Sankar, Colin Semple, Arshdeep Toor, and Julia Whytock

Seven lessons learned from past BCG competitions

  1. “Managing your relationships with team members is key! Unlike other projects, you have to work with the same team three consecutive times. If you prioritize the project over your group members, it’ll be detrimental in the following round.” – Kevin Churchill, HBA ’19 candidate
  2. “BCG showed me who could present like a boss. Who I wanted to work with in the future. What teamwork under pressure feels like.” – Justine Janssen, HBA ’09
  3. “I learned you can get a LOT done in four hours, and how to delegate tasks and trust your teammates to deliver great results (because there’s no time to micromanage anything!)” – Lauren Salis, HBA ’19 candidate
  4. “Delegation is key when dealing with a compressed timeline.” – Tyler Rochwerg, HBA ’14
  5. “Being comfortable and confident enough to be able to think on the fly is just as important as preparing.” – Chris Pandza, HBA ’17
  6. “Diversity of thought is very important – our team did well not because we had the smartest finance people or marketing people, but we had a blend from different backgrounds. We beat out teams who arguably had much stronger ‘individual talent.’” – Nick Xiang, HBA ’15
  7. “Best case comp! BCG taught valuable lessons in teamwork, working under pressure, and presenting on the fly.” – Lauren Nunziata, HBA ’17

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