It was early…I had a small breakfast…and a super strong coffee. Time to get on the bus. We arrived at the campus for all the case competitions that day. Anil, Diana, Wing-Ka and I formed the Marketing team. We followed the crowd down a corridor into a large presentation room where we were debriefed on the rules of the competition. 11 o’clock –that was the deadline. Oh, and don’t disqualify your team! The competition begins. We faced a deficit with only two laptops to view the case and materials on –the case was only provided electronically. Luckily, we read well in pairs. Brainstorming initiated our discussion while Anil set up the presentation. We used a white board and insisted we needed more markers. We had a lot of ideas and needed to organize them! The case was relatively interesting…wireless expansion. Diana and Wing-Ka ensured we had some chocolate covered snacks to keep us going. We were one of the lucky groups who had an hour and 20 minutes to practice our presentation before we went live. Practice, practice, practice, speak slower, practice, erase that, practice, practice, practice. Go time. We lined up outside the door to the presentation room…we had a plan; toss our stuff on the chair, line up behind Anil, and walk up to the judges to introduce ourselves while smiling. The presentation went fairly smoothly –Anil warmed up the judges with his enthusiastic introduction and charm. There were no technical difficulties. We were smooth and proud of ourselves. The Q&A was challenging –they asked a few tough questions and were persistent. Wing-Ka fired back in our defense. We held our own. We liked our solution—so should they! Alas, it was over! We smiled at the judges, looked at ourselves and got out of the room quickly! Outside the room, before we trotted down the hallway for lunch we were stopped by a photographer and a videographer in true paparazzi fashion. Of course, being the young enthusiastic students we were, we stopped, positioned ourselves and took some professional shots! We were excited that we were finished, we were excited to eat, and we were excited to debrief on what we thought went well and what we could improve upon during the next round. As it turns out, there wasn’t a next round for us. We were ready to celebrate anyway…with a well-deserved nap on the bus ride back to the hotel!
Betty Rooprai is a part-time SFU student enrolled in the Management of Technology MBA program with an undergraduate degree in Astronomy. She is very involved in the MBA program through her role as class representative in the Graduate Business Student Association, her participation in the MBA games and various case competitions. She is especially passionate about giving to the Canadian Cancer Society. Connect with Betty on LinkedIn @ Betty Rooprai