Concordia University’s John Molson School of Business was among the ten schools that participated in the 2012 Happening Marketing Case Competition from March 23^rd to 25^th, which was held this year at Concordia University. The extraordinary weekend-long event attracted almost 500 students and volunteers.

Congratulations to the JMSB delegation, whose cumulative efforts earned them a second-

place finish overall!

The final overall standings were:

1. Université de Québec à Montréal, École des Sciences de Gestion

2. Concordia University’s John Molson School of Business

3. Université Laval

The John Molson Competition Committee (JMCC) would like to extend its thanks to all the students who participated and to the coaches who brought out the absolute best in their teams once again.

Gold

Integrated Marketing Communications - Ariane Beaulieu-Sirois, Naomi Ko and Katherine Mainardi with coaches Harold Simpkins and Marion Roussel.

Silver

Quiz - Juliya Regy, Lorne Segall and Gregory Synanidis

International Marketing – Marie-Philipe Boucher, Yan Shi and  Anna Vinitskaia

Both Quiz and International Marketing teams coached by Kevin Gardner-Gregory.

Bronze

Sports - Terrence Dobson, Magali Boivin-Calot, Andree Robbins, Amine Oadahi, Paul-Michael De Petrillo, Victoria Fowler, Alessandro Pedicelli and Anna Chmielowski with coach Loui Blaquiere.

Many thanks also go out Frédérique Dufort-Plante, Coordinator of the John Molson delegation and president of the John Molson Marketing Association.

The John Molson Competition Committee would also like to extend a special thanks to Head Coach and Advisor to the Competition Program, Mark Haber, for his commitment and his contribution to the program.

The team would like to express their deepest gratitude to exclusive sponsor Pfizer Canada for their support and encouragement of the case competition program.

For more information about the competition, please contact the John Molson Competition Committee at info@jmcconline.ca

To read this article on the John Molson website, click here.

Samer Balaghi, Michel Berger and Mathieu Milliand represented Concordia University’s John Molson School of Business (JMSB) at the TD Financial Case Competition hosted by University of Ottawa’s Telfer School of Management. The team put on an impressive performance, finishing in third place. The team has participated in the competition three times and has reached the podium every time, having finished first in 2010 and third in 2011.

The weekend-long competition had the team analyzing and presenting two cases. “The first day, the case involved a private equity investor exiting a business (KTM Motorcycles),” explained coach, Amr Ezzat. “All the teams recommended an exit through an IPO, except for the JMSB team. The team recommended that KTM issue debt to facilitate the exit of the private equity investor. The judges dismissed our recommendation and we ended up ranking in the bottom half after day one. We researched the case afterwards and, in reality, the company did in fact issue debt, so as you can imagine, the team was very disappointed with the rankings.”

“The team put this behind them and put their emotions to good use,” said Ezzat. “The second case was an IPO case involving valuation and implementation. Our team ended up first on day two by a large margin. The team presented with confidence and lots of charisma. They also stood by their recommendation, even when the judges told them they were wrong. They should be extremely proud.”

The final overall standings were:

1. University of Waterloo
2. Telfer School of Management, University of Ottawa
3. John Molson School of Business, Concordia University

The team would like to thank Amr Ezzat for training the team, and Head Coach and Advisor to the Competition Program, Mark Haber for his support and dedication.

The team would also like to express its deepest gratitude to exclusive sponsor Pfizer Canada for their support and encouragement of the case competition program.

For more information about the competition, please contact the John Molson Competition Committee at info@jmcconline.ca .

For more information about the John Molson Competition Program please click here.

Congratulations to Haby Diallo, Alison Revine, Robin Sancton and Haig Tachejian on their impressive performance at the 2012 Network of International Business Schools (NIBS) Case Competition hosted at the Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences.

The week-long event began with a round-robin preliminary round that had the ten participating universities competing head-to-head to accumulate points. In this round, teams completed four cases in three days; a four-hour case on the first, two three-hour cases on the second and another four-hour case on the third. JMSB did exceptionally well, winning three out of four face-offs in this intense round before moving on to the semi-finals. JMSB was the only team to beat South East Missouri, the eventual winner of the competition.

“The semi-finals proved to be the most challenging part of the competition,” according to Tachejian. “The case was extremely well written and difficult, and the top four teams competing were all extremely talented. Historically, those universities have done extremely well at this competition. It was an honour to be competing with such strong and friendly teams”.  The teams presented a four-hour case and the top two moved on to the final round.

There was only a three-point difference between the first and fourth place team.

The final standings were:

1. Southeast Missouri State University
2. Sprott School of Business, Carleton University
3. John Molson School of Business, Concordia University / Dublin Institute for Technology

The team would like to extend a special thanks to lead coach Tim Field, and to Matthew Parker-Jones and Cleo Roch for accompanying them to Rotterdam and for helping them bond into a cohesive, competitive unit. The team would also like to thank Head coach and Advisor to the Competition Program, Mark Haber, who also accompanied the team, for his support and dedication.

The team would also like to express its deepest gratitude to exclusive sponsor Pfizer Canada for their support and encouragement of the case competition program.

For more information about the competition, please contact the John Molson Competition Committee at info@jmcconline.ca .

For more information about the John Molson Competition Program please click here.

Samer Balaghi, Daniele Brissette-Lalonde, Christopher Carpini and Anna Vinitskaia represented Concordia University’s John Molson School of Business (JMSB) at this year’s John Molson Undergraduate Case Competition (JMUCC).

The first round of JMUCC used a head-to-head, round-robin format consisting of three short prep cases. Teams were divided into six divisions of four teams each and competed against every other team within their division.

The second round consisted of a 24-hour research case, where each team was scored individually.  The finalists were chosen based on the number of points they had accumulated in rounds one and two, with the highest scoring teams in each division presenting their 24-hour case a second time in the final round. The JMSB team was beaten in the earliest round by the Maastricht team – the ultimate winners of the competition.

The final rankings were:

1. School of Business and Economics, Maastricht University
2. HKUST Business School, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
3. Sprott School of Business, Carleton University

According to Brissette-Lalonde, “JMUCC is such an intense and unique competition that it is difficult to really describe. Going into it, we knew that we would have our work cut out for us, but had no idea what an incredible journey it would turn out to be.”

“Our team truly came together during the week,” she said. “We gave it our all and were extremely proud of what we delivered. The quality of the competition was amazing and the strength of the various teams made every day a new challenge up until the very last one.”

Of course, competitions such as JMUCC are not all about winning. “We got the opportunity to meet teams from all around the world,” says Brissette-Lalonde. “We got positive feedback from many different judges, coaches and other teams. Got to see Montreal in a new light and got to know each other on a whole new level. That is what it is all about. That is what made our JMUCC experience unforgettable.”

The John Molson Competition Committee would like to thank Christian Bonneau who coached the team though a very demanding competition, and Mark Haber, head coach and Advisor to the Competition Program for his dedication and commitment.

The team would also like to express its deepest gratitude to exclusive sponsor Pfizer Canada for their support and encouragement of the case competition program.

To read this article on the John Molson Website, click here.

Gabrielle Dionne-Boivin, Meaghan Foley and Shireen Salehi represented Concordia University’s John Molson School of Business (JMSB) at the third annual Secor Case Competition hosted by HEC Montréal. The team put on an impressive performance, finishing in second place.

The competition featured two rounds, each consisting of a two-hour preparation period, a 15-minute presentation and a five-minute Q & A period. The first case focused on an expansion strategy for Levendary Café, a chain of cafés in the U.S. Four of the ten first-round teams moved on to the second round. Judges were thoroughly impressed by the JMSB team’s first presentation and awarded them near-perfect scores. The second-round case was about Cascades Group Tissu.

Final results:

1. Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) (Team 1)
2. Concordia University (John Molson School of Business)
3. Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) (Team 2)
   

Congratulations to the JMSB team on their incredible work! The team would like to thank Lead Coach, Adam Forlini for the fabulous job he did training the team, Hadi Azar for his insightful tips, and Head Coach and Advisor to the Competition Program, Mark Haber for his support and dedication.

The team would also like to express its deepest gratitude to exclusive sponsor Pfizer Canada for their support and encouragement of the case competition program.

To read this article on the John Molson website click here.