There are several skills I had promised myself not to leave business school without. Working in peer groups, leading without formal authority, mastering time management, and performance under pressure were among them. Participating in a case competition to refine those skills was an opportunity I did not want to miss out on, so when I was selected to represent Haas at the Elite Eight Brand Management Case Competition, I was thrilled.
I knew it would be a demanding weekend, but the intensity of the competition far exceeded my expectations.
Case competitions are events held by companies or business schools, in which an organizing committee issues a problem for all the teams to solve, often based on real issues encountered by a given company. Each team prepares a presentation on a potential solution of the problem.
Organized by the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota, Elite Eight—one of the premier MBA marketing competitions in the country—takes its name from the fact that only eight schools are invited to participate: Andersen (UCLA), Kellogg, Ross (U Michigan), Wharton, Kelley (Indiana), Fuqua (Duke), and Carlson (U Minnesota).
The Haas Marketing Club selected five people to represent our school among all current students who submitted their resumes. Once the team was selected, we started gathering intelligence from the members of last year’s team, hoping to learn about the environment and to gather tips on the final presentation. We were all nervous about going to Minneapolis, as we felt pressure to uphold Haas’ name after last year’s first-place finish.
Our team got together several times before leaving for Minneapolis to become more familiar with each other’s strengths and weaknesses, and to split up and assign the research work. The case was about one of the sponsor companies, so we made it a priority to learn as much as possible about each of the sponsors before going to Minneapolis.
Each team had 30 hours to prepare a recommendation and present it to a judging panel that included executives from General Mills, Target, Best Buy, and other companies. We heard the case presentation at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday night, and had to turn in a final copy of our presentation by 1:00 a.m. on Friday. Saturday would be the day of final presentations.
At 7:00 p.m., the presentation started, and the case company turned out to be General Mills. Each team was asked to recommend a plan to revive and consolidate the Cheerios brand and its “Heart Health” positioning. In particular, we had to analyze the problem with Cheerios’ goals in mind: in the short term, to re-energize its “Heart Healthy” credentials, and in the long term, to own “Heart Health” in the cereal aisle.
By 11:00 p.m. on Friday night, we had our presentation pretty much nailed down, with only the last few touches to be added. We turned in our presentation at 12:59 a.m.—right on time. Catching up on sleep then became our first priority, in order to be fresh and rested for the day’s big presentation.
At 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, we met in the Hotel lobby, ready to head out and rehearse the presentation one last time. Two of my fellow teammates presented our solution, while I was in charge of handling most of the Q&A session. The judges challenged us with very unusual questions, but we felt we had very good data to support our strategic decision, and we walked out confident that we had done a very good job.
At dinner, we were excited to have a chance to talk a little bit more with the rest of the teams in a relaxed environment over wine and food, but the conversation inevitably turned again to the competition and the strategies each team adopted. When the representative of the judging panel finally started explaining the rationale behind the awarding of the prize, I felt the hair rising on the back of my neck. With every additional word, I was more certain that he was talking about our presentation, and I could not resist jumping when he finally announced that the Haas team had taken first place!! Haas had won the Elite Eight Case Competition for the second year in a row!
Through the competition, I learned a lot about myself, how I work in teams, and how I perform under pressure. I enjoyed working with my classmates, as we were a good fit, complementing each other’s strengths and understanding each other’s work styles. I think I am more conscious of my weaknesses and more confident of my strengths as a result of this experience. This case competition was definitely a significant experience in my time at Haas, and I have already used it as an example in interviews.
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