Category Archives: Business Competitions

Karaoke Night – Celebrating the 2016 Case Competitions at NBS

After successfully planning and executing two case competitions on NBS campus in March and April of 2016, the MBA Student Exco VP Case Competition Prashant Sharma invited the case competition committee members, the NBS teams who competed in the Venture Capital Investment Challenge and Amalgamation Challenge and two hands full of volunteer helpers for a relaxed afterparty to jointly recap the hectic yet extremely rewarding job of organising two full day events, an to simply celebrate the success of the events.

Having organised two full day events with MBA participants from all over Asia, the NBS team not only widened their network across the region but also intensified their knowledge on the challenges of event management and cross-cultural engagement.

To acknowledge great teamwork, the impressive feedback on the smooth and professional execution of the events, and the many hours that went into event preparation, the volunteers and organisers of the case competitions at Nanyang came together at the house of one of the Singaporean students and enjoyed the hospitality in a Singaporean home. After discovering the great cooking skills of the MBA batch of 2016, and enjoying a delicious barbecue as well as a wide variety of snacks and side dishes, the party moved inside the karaoke room, that was opened for the class as a courtesy of the host, and an impressive concert featuring the MBA all starts began.

After hours of furious singing and dancing, the party ended with a round of card games, and a photo shoot to not only remember the outstanding party, but also the case competition events and the friendships formed while working together.

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Nanyang MBA participants celebrate the successful closure of the Case Competition Season
Nanyang MBA participants celebrate the successful closure of the Case Competition Season

 

Nanyang MBA enters ‘The Negotiation Challenge’ for the first time

Nanyang Business School, Singapore, was recently represented at The Negotiation Challenge (TNC) 2016, held in Vienna, Austria on 1st and 2nd April, 2016.

It was the first time that a team from Nanyang MBA, comprising of Laveesh Hassija, Shajitha Sinasamy and Akshaya Kumar, who decided to name themselves as ‘The Nanyang Negotiators’, participated in this prestigious competition.

The Negotiation Challenge is one of the only few international negotiation competitions in the world. The competition is aimed at gathering world’s best student negotiators, allowing them to compare their negotiation skills and preparing them for the complex negotiations they will face after graduation.  This year, 16 universities from across the world participated in TNC.

TNC has been an extraordinary experience for the Nanyang team that worked hard under the guidance and support received from the NBS Negotiation Professors – Valerie and Kit Wye. The team participated in a total of five rounds, wherein they were evaluated on application of appropriate methods from the whole spectrum of their negotiation skills in different negotiation situations. In some of the rounds, the evaluation was based on the team’s ability to understand interests and identify issues, as well as their ability to create and claim value,while in other rounds the assessment was based on the instrumental and/or relational outcome of the negotiations.

Though the Nanyang Negotiators could not reach the final round, they were able to demonstrate their negotiation intelligence and recall TNC as the most eventful time of their MBA journey. The team enthusiastically remembers one of the rounds where they were asked to negotiate with another team in a moving Vienna tram. This round tested their ability of managing a negotiation without being influenced by external factors.

Negotiation Challenge

The Nanyang Negotiators in action

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The competition venue in Vienna

The Nanyang MBA TNC team for 2016 – The Nanyang Negotiators is extremely proud to have exemplified Nanyang Business School at this highly admired competition that invites world’s top business and law schools. Their experience in the competition has instilled in them stronger confidence for business negotiations that they will be facing in their careers after their MBA. The Nanyang Negotiators not only got a chance to experience diverse ways of negotiation, but also to meet and network with students from various countries with different backgrounds and cultures. The learnings from the competition and the cherished memories they have from the beautiful city of Vienna are definitely going to last a life-time.

Negotiators Negotiation Challenge Negotiation Challenge outdoors

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nanyang MBA at the John Molson Case Competition

A diverse Nanyang MBA team consisting of Sheng Jie Tan, Deep Dabholkar, Priyanka Khosla and Pierre Vinarnic took part in the 35th edition of the John Molson MBA International Case Competition, from 03 Jan – 08 Jan 2016 in Montreal, Canada.

The John Molson Case Competition is a not-for-profit event organized by MBA students from the John Molson School of Business in Montreal, Canada. The competition is among 36 teams from top business schools worldwide, and is recognized as the largest and most prestigious competition of its kind.

The event was a very enriching experience for the team, right from the first session of the preparation phase, with the guidance of coach Akshay Regulagedda, the Nanyang MBA John Molson alumni and part of the previous year’s winning team as well as Professor Vijay Sethi. While the team experienced a tremendously steep learning curve, all team members really bonded through a strenuous preparation phase. It was particularly memorable that Coach Akshay guided the team through a full case preparation despite a loosing his luggage and suffering from severe jetlag.

During the actual competition phase, the Nanyang MBA team sought to tackle various real life case problems, within a 3 hour time frame. The issues presented and industries covered were very diverse, including a fascinating case on turn-around strategy for MacDonald’s. After preparing a compelling case solution, the team proceeded to present a ppt outlining the case solutions to a panel of judges,  predominantly senior leaders from major enterprises in North America.

One of the most memorable cases was a live case presentation by a Spanish Joint Venture, who presented their “Beauty & Go” product. The teams had the opportunity to interact with the actual stakeholders of the business, who presented on the case and business issues that they were facing in person.

The dynamic nature of the competition format really broadened the horizons of all participants, and served as an enriching platform for interaction and learning.

Overall, while the Nanyang MBA team did not win the competition in this edition of the event, it was definitely one of the most memorable experiences in the MBA program. For the competing team, it represented an opportunity to make the Nanyang MBA program proud, and to showcase the “Nanyang” perspective towards resolving business issues. The friendships and bonds forged will be fondly remembered as a highlight of our MBA experience.

John Molson

 

The journey to victory at Dell Case Competition 2015

Contributed by MBA students: Kevin, Moohwan and SungWon

As MBA candidates and future leaders of a dynamically changing business environment, how do we define our success and measure our learning progress? Our answer to the question was to participate in business case competitions, as we believe that the ability to apply practical industrial knowledge and to demonstrate our inner potential is a vital criterion for success.

In view of this, the inter-university Case Competition organised by Dell was a great opportunity for us to apply what we have learnt in class and to leverage on our skillsets such as collaborative team work, efficient time management, application of effective framework and compelling presentation. We knew that the competition would be challenging and require significant commitment and sacrifice but we decided to take up the challenge and embark on this journey to achieve our very first milestone.

The case competition consisted of two rounds. The first round was evaluated based on a five-minute video recording on the topic of Dell’s supply chain management, and the second round was carried out at Dell’s office amongst the selected teams, based on the result of the first round. In total, 17 teams participated from three universities, namely NTU, NUS and SP Jain. Four teams were promoted to the final round; two teams came from NUS and one each from NTU and SP Jain, respectively.

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The team, DellTaForce was voluntarily and carefully formed on our own by taking several criteria into consideration in order to optimise the team potential and synergy. One important, though often neglected criteria, is how the different individuals, with their expertise and professional backgrounds can complement and work with one another in a team. With that in mind, we finally formed a team consisting of three members with over five years’ of career experience in different business areas, namely, management consulting, strategy planning, and engineering. The mix of diverse background helped significantly throughout the Dell case competition as the different perspectives of each member allowed us to bring a wide range of ideas that an individual by him or herself might not be able to generate.

During the analysis of the case studies, we set the most important and fundamental rule upfront, which was to respect and encourage each other for all meetings. The small initiative paid off as the team members were able to share their ideas confidently, leading to fruitful brainstorming. No matter what idea was brought up, we considered all of them worthy of discussion and talked about it until we reached a consensus.

The challenging parts that we have encountered were mainly ideation relating to supply chain management business domain, as none of us had previous professional experience in that field. To address the issue, we proactively approached professors to guide us on process validation and viable examples for ideation. We had to instill a confident mindset in ourselves that we are the expert in the supply chain management as far as the case is concerned.

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Another challenge that we had to work on was the professional presentation for the final round. As the team consisting of non-native English speakers, our pressing issue was to enhance our effective speech in a professional and convincing manner. To quickly equip ourselves with the necessary presentation skills within a short timeframe, we focused on practicing, preparing Q&As, and non-verbal communication cues such as posture, eye contact, attire and more. The intensive practice sessions continued all the way till the final presentation date. Although it was not perfect at the end, we certainly made visible improvement to deliver our idea to the panel judges. Last but not least, most importantly, we gained confidence in public speaking.

Our determination, specific goal setting, collaborative teamwork, consistent discipline, sincere commitment and specific plan to achieve our common goal played significant parts in helping us win this case competition.

The key takeaway from the experience was that when all the attributes of success are applied collectively, the likelihood of winning will definitely increase as it creates synergistic effect as long as everyone plays their part responsibly.

We would like to attribute our glorious success to Professor Vijay Sethi and Professor Peter Giulioni who were willing to spend their personal time to help us, especially when our progress was stagnated and when we were occasionally demotivated. It was a great achievement as a start and we strongly believe that Nanyang MBA’s journey for business case competition will continue thriving.

Dell Case Success Celebration

A team of three NBS MBAs of the class of 2015/16 reached the final round of the Dell Inter-University Case Competition and was invited to deliver their closing presentation on the Dell premises in Singapore on Friday, October 9th.

When the results of the competition were announced, there was a wave of excitement amongst the entire cohort present at the venue. The NBS team named DellTa had emerged as Victorians at the Dell Case challenge! Everyone in the audience, even if not known to the team, could have definitely identified who had won the competition. The batch mates that had joined the final round to support their team burst in joy and those who could not attend the final round in person were instantaneously notified via phone so that the good news spread quickly.

Continue reading Dell Case Success Celebration

End of Marketing Course Celebration

This celebration is hosted by The Wine, Beer & Liqueur Appreciation Club

The Wine, Beer & Liqueur Appreciation Club recently hosted a small gathering to toast farewell to our Trimester 1 Marketing course. The cohort had taken part in a competitive and highly challenging Markstrat marketing simulation, and the final simulation run was a great chance to gather together and celebrate the end of 8 weeks of hard work.

Continue reading End of Marketing Course Celebration

Bangkok Business Challenge and Asia Venture Challenge 2015

Submitted by Jeffery Zou, Co-Chair of the Banking & Finance Club

A team from the Nanyang Business School comprising of Jeffery Zou, Stephanie Zhao, Sona Sethi, and Dr. I Putu Mahendra Wijaya participated in the Bangkok Business Challenge and Asia Venture Challenge in February and March 2015 respectively, both held at Bangkok. The team was guided by NBS’s Prof Vijay Sethi.

Continue reading Bangkok Business Challenge and Asia Venture Challenge 2015

John Molson MBA International Case Competition

Submitted by Cory Reid, Student Exco VP Case Competition

As mentioned in the earlier journal entry on the post-competition celebration, the Nanyang MBA team was victorious at the 2015 John Molson MBA International Case Competition.  (News coverage on Channel News Asia, Straits Times, NTU Website).

Not only that, but we remained undefeated throughout the competition. The team consisted of myself, Cory Reid, and Aswathi Suresh, Sunitha Vijiyasingam and Jonah Wong. We were accompanied by our coach, Akshay Regulagedda whom we couldn’t have done without. We also had coaching by past participants and Nanyang MBA alumni Gaurav Goel and Minti Sen. In addition, Prof Vijay Sethi was instrumental in helping select the team and provide feedback after multiple practice sessions.

Continue reading John Molson MBA International Case Competition

Homecoming Party for the Champion Team

Submitted by Reina Wong, Student Exco VP Communications

The Nanyang MBA participated in the John Molson MBA International Case Competition held on 5 to 9 January at Montreal, Canada. The team comprising of Cory Reid, Aswathi Suresh, Sunitha Vijiyasingam and Jonah Wong emerged as division champion, and eventually beat all other semi-finalists and finalists and emerged as the champion team. In fact, the team won every single round of the 7 intensive cases throughout the competition. It is also the first time an Asian school won in this prestigious international competition. (News coverage on Channel News Asia, Straits Times, NTU Website)

Continue reading Homecoming Party for the Champion Team

Japan MBA Case Competition

Submitted by Reina Wong, Student Exco VP Communications

 

The Nanyang MBA joined the Japan MBA Case Competition for the first time this year. After three rounds of selection process within our class, the team representing the Nanyang MBA in this competition consists of Teo Angie, Wong LinLing Reina, Diyora Karabaeva and Noopur Singhal (left to right).

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The Japan MBA Case Competition is organized by McGill University Japan, Aoyama Gakuin University and Hitotsubashi ICS. The 12 participating teams were given the case at the beginning of November and had about one month to work on the case analysis and recommendations. Although marketing was mainly done in Japan, this year’s competition attracted two schools from outside of Japan, namely Nanyang Business School and Hong Kong University of Science & Technology, in addition to the 10 participating schools from Japan.

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The competition took place on 30 November 2014 at the beautiful campus of Aoyama Gakuin University. We were divided into 3 divisions in the preliminary round by drawing lots, and each division were assigned 3 judges to choose the best performer in each division to enter the final round that would take place later in the afternoon. Our team gave our best during the presentation to showcase our effort put into the competition in the past month.

The preliminary round result was announced shortly after all 12 teams had finished their presentation within their divisions. Unfortunately, our team did not come in first in our division. The 3 teams that entered the finals were McGill Japan, Waseda Business School and Hitotsubashi ICS. All other teams were allowed to stay and watch the finalists’ presentations. We learnt much from the 3 teams’ presentation.

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After the finals, all participants were invited to proceed to an after-event party held at Icon Lounge in Shibuya where the results would be announced. Invitation was also open to the public and students from the participating schools. It was a great opportunity to interact with other participants, the judges, the event organizers and sponsors.

Teams were also given the chance to sit down with judges to understand how we had performed during the preliminary rounds, such as our strengths and areas for improvement. We were glad to hear from our judges that we came in second in our division. We also received valuable feedback on how we could have improved our analysis and presentation.

McGill Japan, the defending champion, came in as the champion again this year. Waseda Business School and Hitotsubashi ICS came in as runners-up.

 

Our team would like to sincerely thank the school for providing us the opportunity to compete in this case competition. We have learnt much and the trip is an unforgettable experience.

 

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