Last month I had the opportunity to take part in the 2010 Kellogg Healthcare Biotech Case Competition.
Case competitions are a part of business school & it was definitely one of my goals to take part in one while at Cornell. Of the 50 teams that applied, a total of 12 teams were selected to take part in the competition. Myself and 4 other students (3 fellow AMBAs & an international student) were lucky enough to be selected to represent the Johnson School in Evanston, IL this past January.
I've been having a bit of trouble describing exactly what a case competition is (perhaps that is why I've put off writing this blog for a few weeks now) but I'm going to attempt to describe our experience.
We received a case from Northwestern a week before the day of the competition. A case contains a business problem and accompanying data. The team's task is to analyze the data and determine a comprehensive and hopefully creative solution for the problem. Once a set of solutions has been decided upon, the group then has to put together a slick deck of slides and prepare to present before a panel of judges.
The competition was sponsored by Genzyme and Abbott, meaning our panel of judges consisted of executives from both companies-- some of whom had personally been involved in the real life case that we analyzed for the competition. Needless to say, it was a bit intimidating.
In the end the winners were Northwestern, Northwestern, and Stanford. Even though we didn't win it was a intense experience and I'm glad I got a chance to take part in the action. If any of you decide to try out next year my only advice would be to try to be as creative as possible, really differentiate yourself from the crowd and have fun! It's a great chance to meet with students from other schools, so definitely take part if you can.
