In a case competition, participants compete for the best solution to a business case study under time pressure. Most often it is a competition at university level, but on occasions also held at other levels. The case competition is an event in which business teams deliver business presentations, competing against other teams in front of a team of judges. Teams display how quickly, thoroughly, and skillfully they can ingest a case, analyze it, and then present their conclusions and recommendations to a panel of judges. Case competitions vary greatly in the details, but they do have a standard format and purpose. The operative idea behind such competitions is to provide a standard case to competing teams with a given time limit and then to rate how well the teams respond.
There is, of course, no direct competition between teams; rather, each team is judged independently how well it handles the assigned case and presents its analysis and recommendations. There is usually a time limit and specific rules, with all teams operating under the same conditions. Competitions can be internal to a business school, or they can involve teams from several different schools. Sometimes there are several rounds of competition, with the final round typically judged by outside company executives.
The teams prepare a solution to the case, deliver a written report, assemble a presentation of their analysis and recommendations, and then deliver the timed presentation before a panel of judges, sometimes consisting of executives from the actual company in the case. The University of Washington’s Foster School of Business is particularly good about this in its renowned Global Business Case Competition. Twelve to fourteen schools from around the world compete in this weeklong event. Its 2010 competition featured a case written especially for the competition on the Boeing Corporation; executives from Boeing acted as judges.
Some competitions introduce a twist, which makes the competition more interesting and more complicated. For instance, Ohio State University's CIBER in its annual Case Challenge creates teams from the pool of participants (i.e., members will be from different schools) instead of allowing the group of students from each school to compete as a team. In this case, once students are assigned to teams, there is a day of team-building exercises.
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The format of case competitions vary along a number of dimensions. Most notably, the following dimensions are often used to classify and compare competitions:
Additionally, formats may vary on a number of practical dimensions, e.g.:
Case competitions are organized in order to improve analytic skills of students and/or to assess potential candidates for analysis based jobs.
Believed to originated from the United States.
| Competition | Country | Type | Level | Teams |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CBS Case Competition | Denmark | University | Undergraduate | 12 teams |
| Champions Trophy Case Competition[1] | New Zealand | University | Undergraduate | 12 teams |
| McGill Management International Case Competition | Canada | University | Undergraduate | 12 teams |
| Citi International Case Competition | Hong Kong | University | Undergraduate | 20 teams |
| NUS-DBS International Case Competition | Singapore | University | Undergraduate | 12 teams |
| Inter-Collegiate Business Competition (I.C.B.C) | Canada | University | Undergraduate | Unknown teams |
| Hult Global Case Challenge | United Kingdom | University | Graduate | 150 teams |
| Competition | Country | Type | Level | Teams |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Business Masters | Germany | University | Mixed Undergraduate/Graduate | n/a |
| CaseIT MIS Case Competition | Canada | University | Undergraduate | 16 |
| KPMG case competition | Sweden | University | Mixed Undergraduate/Graduate | n/a |
| Rubicon Contest | Germany | University | Mixed Undergraduate/Graduate | 24 |
| Suitable for Business | Denmark | University | Mixed Undergraduate/Graduate | 12 teams |
| Changellenge >> | Russia | Mixed | Undergraduate | 30 |
| KPMG case competition | Slovakia | University | Mixed Undergraduate/Graduate | 24 |
| Purdue Human Capital Case Competition | USA | University | Graduate | n/a |
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