School of Business

Congratulations to the Ideal Horizons group—Jared Craig, Vincent Lausoontornsiri, Liam Maaskant, and Meg Ostling—which won first-place in the Fall edition of the 2016 Shaw Group Business Case Competition for second-year Core students. Ideal Horizons won the same competition last term for first-year students, with Meg the new member in the second year. Teams are given 24 hours to analyze a current business case and then present possible courses of action to a panel of judges drawn from the business community. The case this year drew on a recent catastrophe at Rana Plaza in Bangladesh where a garment factory collapse resulted in great loss of life and injury. Several major North American retailers were implicated in the disaster, including H&M, a major retailer of "fast fashion."

Speaking for the competition judges, Holly Wheaton said, "the winning [team] really stood out to me in its confidence, which was apparent in their less scripted delivery, perhaps what allowed them to present in a more authentic way." Sue Payne (WF Investments) agreed: "I liked the media response and overall they were very realistic in their approach to the case." The work of the winning team was thought to be so good that all five judges unanimously placed it first. Other judges were Adam Randell (Shaw Group), Vicki Matthews (Just Us! Coffee Roasters), and Angela Myers (Grant Thornton). Jared, Vincent, Liam, and Meg win $1,000 for their effort.

The Shaw Group Business Case Competition is organized by Dr. Jim Grant and Professor Martha Cheney. Case competitions provide students with collaborative learning experiences and knowledge of real world business challenges. The Fred C. Manning School of Business acknowledges the generous support of The Shaw Group in funding this popular competition.