John Molson School of Business brings home the first big win at an international case competition since 2019.
This year, the University of Münster Case Challenge (UMCC) took place for the sixth year in a row. Twelve schools from around the globe participated in the event, including the John Molson School of Business representing Concordia University.
The Concordian had the pleasure of speaking with Michael Lecchino, one of the members on the JMSB team.
“The way JMSB sends delegates to international competitions is you usually have to be a part of JMCC. The JMCC is the John Molson Competition Committee. Once you are a part of this club, you take a case competition course and it teaches you how to do case cracks and get better at these case competitions,” Lecchino explained.
When a student at JMSB gets involved with the JMCC, they often get sent to regional competitions, like the Jeux du Commerce, for example.
“I was able to participate in and go [to the UMCC] with three other academic delegates. My colleagues were Émile Martel, Dylan Ross, and Taylor Graham. We ended up going to the case competition in Münster, Germany, two weeks ago. There are some case competitions that happen in Australia, Alberta and many more, however they fall into the winter semester,” Lecchino said.
Lecchino also broke down the competition for The Concordian.
“From when we arrived in Münster, our first case came in on Thursday. This was the shorter case, it was a four-hour case. We crack it and create a presentation and we pitch it to a panel of judges on that very same day,” Lecchino recalled.
This case was regarding a business called lemon.markets. The business wanted to establish a go-to market strategy and acquire business-to-business customers. The JMSB team successfully pitched it to the panel of judges.
“The next day on Friday, we have a ten-hour case. So we spend ten hours going through the case, creating a presentation and we don’t present. We presented on Saturday morning,” Lecchino said.
The ten-hour-long case was a sustainable urban development strategy for the city of Cologne.
On Saturday morning, the winners of each division were announced. These winners faced off in the finals with their respective presentations for the second case.
“It was the first time we won and we podiumed at an International case competition since 2019,” Lecchino said.
The UMCC was a great experience for Lecchino, and he recognized it as a huge honour to be able to represent JMSB alongside his colleagues.
