Business students battle the clock during competition

Time is ticking down for the 16 teams taking part in the Northern Ontario Business Case Competition on Wednesday afternoon at the Water Tower Inn.

With a little more than an hour to go, Lynette Dubeau and her team from Algoma University’s Brampton campus are hunkered down in a room near the hotel’s restaurant, preparing for their upcoming presentation to a panel of judges.

Her team has been tasked with choosing a company structure (ie. non-profit, co-operative, etc.) that would enable an entrepreneur to expand without having to be a sole proprietor.

“We decided to choose a charity structure, so we’re going to try and use that charity structure and find a way that they can work within that,” Dubeau said.

Teams comprised of fourth-year business students - representing schools from across northern Ontario and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula - have just three hours to analyze a business problem or situation before presenting their cases. The only tools at a team’s disposal are pens, pencils and calculators.

“No laptops, no internet access,” said David Galotta, who’s an associate professor with the department of business and economics at Algoma University. “They have to use their skills, use their knowledge over the four years of their business degree to come up with a solution.”

The competition, now in its 12th year, features about 40 judges from the local business community. This year’s competition boasts four celebrity judges, including marketing executives from Porter Airlines and Ontario Tourism.

Galotta says that the feedback portion from the judges usually has business students clamouring to volunteer at the competition each year, so that the business students can use the experience for research.   

“We’ve got lawyers, we’ve got accountants, we’ve got business managers and everything in between,” Galotta said. “Not only do the judges ask ten minutes of questions about their analysis and their presentation and their reasonings behind the rationale, they then have the students go back in and they give them feedback.”

With time on the clock slowly evaporating, Dubeau and her team continue to hone their case before the team makes its presentation before the panel of judges.

“This is an extreme situation, because we don’t have access to any research materials on anything like that,” Dubeau said. “We need to be able to think on our feet, so we need to be able to present to a board and say, ‘this is what we should do, this is why we should it’.”

Winners of the Northern Ontario Business Case Competition will be announced during an awards ceremony Wednesday night.